Summer Slaughter Band Opens Up on Why Fest Comeback Underwhelmed

The Summer Slaughter tour returned this year, but not without its fair share of challenges and now one of the bands on the bill has addressed why they feel the tour underwhelmed in expectations. The Danish deathcore outfit Cabal opened up about their experience with the package tour and two factors they noticed that curtailed its potential.

Singer Andreas Bjulver and bassist Dennis Jovcevski Hursid were guests on the Garza Podcast with Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza when the topic of their summer touring came up.

“We played a lot of fun shows, but we played some boring shows as well. I’m not gonna lie,” revealed Hursid, when asked about their recent touring. When asked by Garza what was to blame for the boring shows, the bassist responded, “Ticket sales, sometimes. We just played big rooms, like 1200 caps for 150 people.”

“Some of the shows were really good and some of the shows, not so good,” admitted singer Andreas Bjulver. “I think the issue is that people wanted death metal and stuff.”

The singer continued, “I remember back in the days, looking at the lineups when I was a teen and there would always be a mix of death metal and then metalcore and deathcore. This year they kind of switched and just did death metal. We had Brand [of Sacrifice] who are death grind, kind of, but besides that it is really centered on more modern core. I like all the bands on it, but I think that some of the OG bands were really pissed about it.”

The 2024 Summer Slaughter lineup featured headliners Veil of Maya and Brand of Sacrifice, with sets from Gideon, Left to Suffer, Ten56, Tallah, Cabal and Brat. The run wrapped on Aug. 10 in Reading, Pa.

What Else Cabal Think Contributed to Summer Slaughter’s Underwhelming Return

The two Cabal members also shared with Garza that the festival likely suffered additional backlash due to one of the festival website operators.

“Then there was also the rant. I don’t know if you caught that. So the page on Summer Slaughter, the person who controlled the page went on a rant,” recalled Bjulver.

“I think it was on a Lambgoat article,” added Hursid. “On an Instagram photo, they wrote about all the backlash. And then he dropped the comments basically calling all the people pussies, like Fauci pussies and basically went on an anti-vax rant.”

READ MORE: Summer Slaughter Tour Lashes Out Over Negative Reaction to the Lineup

“We had already accepted the tour and we saw that and were like, ‘Oh no,'” says Bjulver. “You can do that as a private person. No problem. But when you’re doing that and you’re speaking on behalf of the entire tour … And also, when you’re trying to sell a product, you shouldn’t antagonize your potential buyers. And that’s kind of like what happened. We were like, ‘Oh no.'”

What Others Are Saying

The lack of diversity mentioned by Cabal appears to be a common complaint about this year’s run. In the Metalcore Reddit, one fan noted, “The biggest issue it had was that all but one of the bands was modern deathcore. This meant it was roughly 8 hours of non stop chugging. Not only did not a lot of people show up to the venue in the first place, but everyone who did was so sick of it that by the time veil of maya played, the crowd that WAS there was almost completely gone. They honestly looked annoyed playing for like 40 people when they’re supposed to be headliners.”

“Varied line-ups > Same genre line-ups, every time. My favourite shows always end up being the ones that go: good small band (can fit the bill or not), band within the genre of the headliner, curveball, and then headliner,” added another person.

“When I saw the lineup announced, I thought it looked awful. Maybe they thought they were capturing the current core zeitgeist, but Summer Slaughter had historically been about variety and combining legends with up and comers. They seemed to miss the point that they needed a big act to headline. Veil of Maya and Brand of Sacrifice as much as people love them are not really festival headliners,” added another.

Cabal Guest on the Garza Podcast