Bands Ditch Metal Fest After Kyle Rittenhouse Announced as Special Guest

Several bands have dropped off the bill of a metal festival taking place later this month in Orlando after it was announced that Kenosha protest shooter Kyle Rittenhouse would appear as a special guest.

The exodus from Shell Shock II — a charity fest raising money and awareness for veterans and first responders with PTSD — began earlier this week, starting with festival headliners Evergreen Terrace. Several other bands followed, per Loudwire, including Southpaw, Let Me Bleed, and American Hollow. 

Rittenhouse was revealed as a Shell Shock II guest on social media, per a now-deleted post that was shared on Reddit. The post featured a photo of Rittenhouse at the 2020 Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest against racial injustice where he shot three people and killed two (Rittenhouse was acquitted of homicide charges in 2021). In the photo, Rittenhouse is holding a gun in one hand and raising his other; the caption reads: “Raise your hands if youll [sic] be at Shell Shock.” 

In a statement shared on Facebook, Evergreen Terrace explained their decision to ditch the festival: “Evergreen Terrace has always supported and continues to support philanthropic events for veterans, PTSD awareness, child poverty, and many more, but we will not align with an event promoting a perceived murderer such as Kyle Rittenhouse capitalizing off of their pseudo celebrity… Even after they offered to pull Kyle from the event, we discovered several associated entities that we simply do not agree with. As advocates for free speech we are respectfully canceling the Shell Shock festival. We will be personally contributing to a veterans charity and urge you to do the same.”

Southpaw, in their statement, said they agreed to play the fest knowing it was raising money for a good cause, “but knew nothing of a particular individual being a main focus of support for the show until after accepting… This simply is not what we signed up for. Period.” 

And Let Me Bleed said, “Though we are advocates of free speech we are collectively not a political band. It wasn’t until after we agreed to play the festival that these problematic and potentially alienating entities were being used to market the show and that is something we simply cannot condone.”

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Shell Shock II is still slated to take place on Oct. 19, and following the notable acts dropping out, festival organizers have booked a Slipknot tribute band called SiC. 

On Instagram, Shell Shock founder and CEO Tyler Hoover rebuffed the bands ditching the festival, and those criticizing it, saying, “I’m here to tell you, you’re not punk, you’re not hardcore. You people, the people that are trolling and the people that are talking shit, you guys are the mentally ill portion of society. You guys are the ones that are manipulated.” 

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He added: “The lynch mob here to take down Shell Shock will not win. It doesn’t matter, because guess what? You can’t kill spirit. You can’t kill punk. And you can’t fucking kill Shell Shock.”

It’s unclear what exactly Rittenhouse will be doing at Shell Shock, or if he’ll just be attending. In a statement shared with USA Today, Hoover said the fest is “not going to turn anyone down who wishes to attend; everyone is welcome.” He continued, “We do not discriminate. Shell Shock is a PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) Charity and Awareness event to support our military Veterans and first responders. Many influencers reached out to us to give their support, one of which was Kyle Rittenhouse.”