Over the weekend, some drama broke out when Suffocation‘s now ex-drummer Eric Morotti crashed out on the interwebs. In his statement online, he said he quit the band after decided that he “will not work with toxic, abusive drug addicts, let alone allow them to boss me around.”
The crash out happened on April 10 via Instagram. In his stories, Morotti posted the following:
“Thanks for the birthday wishes. My gift to myself is walking away from a toxic group, and knowing my worth. I’m choosing me from now on, I will be not teaming with addicts anymore.
“Peace and love, there’s a lot in store for me, keep your eyes peeled!”
Then in a comment, he elaborated a bit for a fan, stating:
“There comes a point in your life where you pick YOU! You must choose to change, evolve, or be stuck in the same routines forever. Today. On my birthday. I have chosen to step away from Suffocation to prolong my health, myself. My integrity. I will not work with toxic, abusive drug addicts, let alone allow them to boss me around. I’ve been belittled and stepped all over for too long.
“That being said, I’ve been having an absolute BLAST with Sanguisugabogg and have been shown what it’s like to be part of real FAMILY. no egos, no power trips. Just bros that love music and being together. Catch me on tour with them still on the Lamb Of God tour around the USA!! I love you all, thank you very much to all my fans for supporting me over the years, keep your eyes open for what’s next!!”
Folks familiar with the band waited to hear Suffocation’s side of the story, but that didn’t happen until April 13 — three days later. You’d think something of that nature would prompt a swift response, but who am I to judge? I don’t know their PR situation and in all fairness, it takes time to craft a solid response. In that time, metal news organizations wrote about Morotti’s inflammatory words (ourselves included), since that was the only news we had to go off of at the time. That was the only narrative available for three days.
Well this afternoon, that statement was finally crafted and here’s what Suffocation had to say about Morotti’s statements:
“To address Eric Morotti’s false claims made in his social media posts on April 10th and to the news outlets who picked it up, Suffocation would like to take a moment to set the record straight.
“Last week, the decision was made by Suffocation to part ways with Eric Morotti due to his conflicting schedule with Sanguisugabogg, which affected Suffocation’s schedule for the year. Eric was notified of his termination on April 8 by email, which is released with this statement. It is unfortunate that Eric decided to falsify claims and take this to a negative place forcing us to make this statement.
“Regardless, we wish him nothing but the best of luck on his future endeavors.”
According to their statement, Suffocation actually fired Morotti because of some tour schedule conflicts that arose from his involvement with Sanguisugabogg. We’ve seen stories like this countless times from other bands having to make a similar decision but it rarely blows up like this. Still, it could have been a single issue in a sea of problems.
Something to note here is how they fired Morotti — someone that was a member of Suffocation for a literal decade — via email. And we’ll include it exactly how they publicly shared it on social media (pictured below), punctuation mistakes, misspellings, and grammar errors unedited:
“After a lot of communication with the band and all involved .,,,Eric, suffocation
has made the decision to let you go from the band due to scheduling differences and touring Obligations…it’s unfortunate as we had a good run last decade!!! So with that being said,best of luck to you and your music career as well as your up and coming gigs !!!!! If you want you can have wes perhaps come and grab your gear here as i’d like to make space here in the garage before we start our next tours and gigs..”
As it stands now, Morotti is gonna keep playing with Sanguisugabogg, while Suffocation will move on with Origin’s John Longstreth behind the kit.
