Singapore’s most iconic band Wormrot recently made the forlorn decision of cancelling its upcoming tour across the United States, where the grindcore trio was scheduled to perform in New York, Oakland, Baltimore and Los Angeles. Alas, Donald Trump happened.
Oh, what? Never heard of Wormrot and violently disagree that it’s the country’s most acclaimed band? Well, allow us to retort. The band’s way more popular worldwide than hmm, let’s say, The Sam Willows (just compare the former’s Facebook fans with the latter). The trio has scored rave reviews from YouTube’s most prominent (and busiest) music nerd. It’s signed on to Earache Records — the legendary label responsible for pioneering extreme metal.
But we digress. The band (who just returned from a successful tour around Europe) made the announcement on its Facebook page today, apologizing to fans that its US tour would have to be postponed till next year due to the increased immigration procedures recently put in place by the Trump administration.
“Due to the current political climate and numerous bands being turned away at US customs, we felt it was not worth the risk coming to America without the right paperwork, which is expensive.”
Wormrot’s fears are definitely in the right place. According to various reports, at least seven artists scheduled to play at South By Southwest music festival in Texas were turned away at the US border. Groups such as Massive Scar Era, Yussef Kamaal and Soviet Soviet were denied entry, with Soviet Soviet, in particular, getting arrested and detained overnight before being deported back to Italy.
Trump’s hardline stance against immigration have been widely reported to be a messy affair ever since his administration enacted his executive orders early this year. Aside from the whole ‘halting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries’ issue (and the subsequent blockage of his order by federal judges), US customs authorities seem to have implemented harsher actions at the borders.
Nonetheless, American fans of Wormrot will just have to wait till next year when the band gets all its papers properly settled.
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