Vocalist Jason North of TRUTH CORRODED filled in for Sean Killian at VIO-LENCE's March 11 concert in Melbourne, Australia after Killian fell ill shortly before the performance and could not make the gig. Fan-filmed video can be seen here.
VIO-LENCE's lineup for the Melbourne consisted of North, drummer Adrian Aguilar (EXMORTUS),guitarist Miles Dimitri Baker (VOIDBRINGER, INTERLOPER, ex-RINGS OF SATURN),bassist Christian Olde Wolbers and guitarist Ira Black (VICIOUS RUMORS, HEATHEN, METAL CHURCH).
VIO-LENCE played its first show with Aguilar late last month at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California. Aguilar joined VIO-LENCE following the departure of Perry Strickland.
Founding VIO-LENCE guitarist Phil Demmel is sitting out the group's shows in Asia, Australia and New Zealand this month and is being replaced by Baker.
Notably, VIO-LENCE's concert in Melbourne featured none of the members from the lineup that played its first comeback gig in April 2019 at the Oakland Metro in Oakland, California. The VIO-LENCE lineup that appeared at the Metro consisted of Killian, Demmel, Strickland, bassist Deen Dell and guitarist Ray Vegas.
Strickland announced his departure from VIO-LENCE last month by sharing a video of him performing with the band and captioning it: "I'll Miss playing these songs !" After one fan asked Perry in the comments to clarify whether he has in fact exited the group, Strickland responded: "yes about a month ago".
Among the people reacting to Strickland's announcement was former OVERKILL and VIO-LENCE guitarist Bobby Gustafson, who wrote: "Good luck with what ever you do in the future. We had some good times finally."
On February 26, Demmel addressed VIO-LENCE's future in an Instagram Live video, saying it was "kind of weird playing these shows" with "a bunch of fill-ins and me and Sean." He added that while Adrian is "awesome" and the Whisky gig "was packed", he is "just kind of really torn right now in the sense of what VIO-LENCE is and what it's gonna be and what my role is gonna be in that and how I feel about that." Demmel went on to say that he told Killian he "wanted to shut [VIO-LENCE] down," but then he realized "that to ask that of those dudes to not do it anymore is selfish on my part."
Demmel also confirmed that he will perform with VIO-LENCE at the Hell's Heroes V preparty on March 23 in Houston, Texas and at the Milwaukee Metal Fest in late May in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but revealed that he will likely scale down his live appearances with the band, to the point where he will no longer play any live shows with the group.
(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)