Thundermother

Stormy Times for Thundermother

You may be aware that Swedish four-piece rockers Thundermother have had to scale back the UK leg of their current tour. You may not know why and if you listen to the official statement from the band citing financial issues, you still won’t know why because that statement, once looked into with logic and analysis CANNOT BE TRUE. This has left many UK rock fans with a bitter taste in their mouths and worse still, several promoters, venues and support bands with financial consequences.

This tour has been in the planning for around 2 years (damn you COVID-19) but on 25th March, just 12 days before the UK leg of the tour was due to start, the band reduced the number of venues they would be playing from 12 to just four. The band stated on their Facebook page:

“We were really looking forward to our UK tour but unfortunately we cannot continue with all of it as we are fully self funding this tour and relying on the help of some friends and Beth Blade and the Beautiful Disasters.

We WILL see all our fans at Edinburgh, Carlisle, Bradford & London

We had an extensive meeting recently to look at every single detail and unfortunately some flight options, where a second compromisable option was proposed, are just crazy expensive to fly from Sweden which would put us in negative equity.

For the shows that are very sadly not happening you will receive a full refund. Please contact your local box office.

We are very sorry to you all!

Thundermother”

Now, on the surface, this sounds like a relatable tale of self-funding issues in a music industry still recovering from the pandemic BUT we have discovered a number of issues with the statement and cancellation of the dates that makes it unlikely that funding was the real reason and the short notice cancellations have themselves caused issues for promoters and venues alike.

- If the “flight options” are so expensive assuming a flight in to begin the UK leg of the tour and a flight out at the end, why are the band taking twice as many flights to do three shows, leave and then return for a fourth?

- If they are “self-funding” the tour, why do the four girls REFUSE to share rooms? We know that it is the venues and/or promoters who have had to pay for the accommodation and we also know that the affected dates were cancelled within 5 days of the band’s management giving the go-ahead for NON-REFUNDABLE hotel rooms (with, of course, a room each) to be booked.

- For the majority of the dates on the tour, the band were receiving between £1000 and £3000 per show, so, given that their accommodation was also paid for, it seems hard to believe that funding is an issue.

The whole issue has been spectacularly mismanaged and there has been no follow-up with affected venues who are now out of pocket. Needless to say, the people we have spoken to that have been affected are not best pleased and found the situation extremely unprofessional and upsetting.

There are, naturally, other sides to every story so we approached the band for comment on these issues, with guitarist Filippa Nässil saying only: “We should make a statement but now is not the time. Approach us soon.”

It’s likely that this will all blow over soon and we wish nothing but the best for the band going forward BUT rock fans have good memories and can always see through incongruence. Just be honest and tell it like it is. Time will tell how this all plays out and you can be sure that we’ll bring you any updates as they’re revealed.