Slaughter to Prevail have issued a detailed response following public accusations made by former drum technician Thomas Finch, who claimed poor working conditions led to his early departure from the band’s US tour.
Finch, who previously worked with Marilyn Manson, cited “disorganisation, mismanagement, financial instability, and blatant disrespect toward crew members” as key reasons for leaving the tour.
In their official statement, Slaughter to Prevail strongly denied the claims, asserting that crew were always paid and that issues were addressed as they arose.
Slaughter to Prevail recently performed in Australia at Knotfest 2025, following their appearance at Good Things Festival in 2023.
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Here’s the full statement:
“We always pay our crew. We do everything we can to run this band properly and fix any problems as they come up.
The person who made the public post never raised any concerns during the tour. In fact, they asked to continue working with us right up until the day they chose to leave. Which left us very shocked after he personally texted our drummer that he was leaving and never spoke to us about any issues beforehand.
Instead he put his grievances online immediately, which is strange to us as it looks like he’s using this opportunity to promote his business.
We’re shocked to see him use this opportunity to grow his business when it should be about genuine crew issues that we could fix easily. Which he knew that we could as we had fixed issues for him before. Despite his statement saying his wish the band to be successful, he left our drummer and pushed his statement as far as he could to hurt our reputation over problems we could have solved for him. Whilst we understand there is a protocol with leadership and crew grievances, he broke this on the first day with no consequences because his problem was solved easily but then he prefer to make this public instead of actually trying to fix the issues again. Which looks very opportunistic to us.
We believe the reason he chose to leave was after a conversation with our manager who told him he would not be continuing as our drum tech on upcoming tours. We already have a full-time drum tech based in Australia. When we first booked these shows, they were intended as one-off festivals and it didn’t make sense to fly him over.
After that conversation, the public accusations and slander began. We believe the conversations were tense but it was mutual and direct between adults. People spoke their minds. This happened in a public part of the green room with crew, venue staff, band and friends present.
Many of the claims in the post are not true from our perspective. For example, on the day the crew bus broke down during a travel day, we had only booked day rooms at a hotel in El Paso. Because of the situation, the band gave up their personal rooms and had them converted into twin rooms so the crew could sleep while waiting for the repaired bus to arrive and take them to the next show in Tucson.
The claim about delayed payment is also not accurate. The delay was started by the individual giving our business team incorrect bank information, which caused the payment to bounce. After that and a short holiday taken by our business manager, payment was made within two weeks of the show. Which is one thing we can improve is to make sure all short-term contractors are issued with proper agreements that clearly state all conditions to avoid situations like this in the future with correct payment schedules.
“As foreign nationals, we have tried our best to set up a business structure in the United States including credit cards and banking. It has taken time to sort, especially for credit cards as we had security issues with our debit cards that were out of control. We worked hard to find solutions to keep the tour running smoothly. In rare situations crew covered small expenses on our behalf which is normal and reimbursed quickly through standard recharge invoices.
After the accusations were made we conducted a full internal review into crew conditions. We spoke to everyone involved to make sure the environment is professional, respectful and fair. We found no evidence of any mistreatment or wrongdoing and have welcomed all advice to make future tours better. We take these things seriously and want everyone we work with to feel safe and confident in their role.
We also want people to know we had warnings about this person before the tour. We gave them a chance and stayed quiet. We never shared any of their past or present behaviour public even when we had reason to. But now that line has been crossed.
Another crew member close to this individual was also not asked to return because of poor work. To protect our team and our business, we issued a standard non disclosure agreement. This is common in touring and protects everyone when private business or personal information is being shared publicly.
We are not perfect but we are focused. We try to do the right thing and we care deeply about our music, our fans and the people we work with. Thank you for supporting us. We move forward. There will be no further statements but will happily see this through court if he wants to continue.”
Earlier, Thomas Finch had posted:
“I recently stepped away from a tour with Slaughter to Prevail due to an overwhelming amount of disorganization, mismanagement, financial instability, and blatant disrespect toward crew members. I’m sharing this not out of bitterness, but out of responsibility to protect others in our community who might be approached by this camp for future work.”
