Trapt singer Chris Taylor Brown is blaming “cancel culture” for the venues cancelling dates for the band’s ongoing tour.
The nu-metal band were supposed to kick off a string of US shows in Pittsburgh earlier this month at SideQuest on 44th, but the venue allegedly cancelled the gig, marking the fourth to do so. Trapt then moved the gig to an impromptu stage at The Building for Arts and Culture in North Versailles, Pennsylvania.
In a since-deleted video message to fans, Brown addressed the cancelled shows and blamed venues for succumbing to “cancel culture”, per Consequence.
“Trapt is in Pittsburgh tonight, and we had a couple venues cave to cancel culture in the last few weeks, and it was going to be really hard to do the show. But we decided we’re doing it no matter what,” he said. “So we got a stage together. We got this venue, called The Building For Arts And Culture. We got some Bud Lights, White Claw, you know, and just everything that our fans are going to need to have a great time with us tonight.
“And I want to thank all the venues out there — it’s probably about 35 out of like 39 shows that didn’t cave to cancel culture,” Brown continued. “The couple venues that did in Pittsburgh… You know, they, trolls, they say… they lie about things I said five years ago and the joke I made — I did apologize for that, for my insensitivity, for anybody who was who’s hurt by that.
“But, yeah, we moved on. Our fans have moved on. There’s a few people who haven’t, but yeah, we did this show… We were, we were gonna do this show no matter what.”
In 2020, Trapt were banned from Facebook following a series of controversial right-wing posts shared by Brown, and soon after this the band’s Instagram and Twitter accounts were removed after Brown appeared to defend statutory rape.
The following year, drummer Michael Smith announced that he had quit the band due to Brown making public statements that were not representative of his individualistic views.
“After playing drums for Trapt for the past couple years, I have decided to step down from the band,” he said in a statement on Instagram. “This is definitely a bittersweet decision. There have been some ongoing issues (primarily political) throughout 2020 that many of you may know about, others may not. If you’re curious, it’s just a google search away.
“I respect everyone’s right to have an opinion on politics. But at the end of the day, I am a musician and my job is to play and create music. So that is what I plan on doing.”
