What kind of tech death musician becomes a heroin junkie? You'd think their drug of choice would be adderall with a back of crystal meth.

Tech death musician doesn't practice. Why am I not really surprised.

That was quick.

While that is funny, it also implies In Becoming a Ghost is as bad as St Anger.

I agree with you 100%. They had so much acclaim and momentum after Planetary Duality. Had they just kept that lineup together and put out music sooner they could've became a headlining band in their genre by 2012-2014.

Keene has a rare 2nd chance to keep things rolling when most of the PD lineup quit but gained equally fantastic musicians in the band like Wes Hauch, Evan Brewer and Geoff Ficco yet inevitably he blew it with them too lol. And he didn't let them contribute to songwriting on Autotheism besides Hauch on one song which is insane considering all that talent.

How does he keep getting members? I wouldn't even do it for exposure, anyone still interested in The Faceless at this stage won't care about what the next replacement members have going on elsewhere.

Keene sounds like a major asshole. Weren't The Faceless kicked from a tour last year because of him?

All of the guys in their own personal posts on the matter made it quite obvious that they loved working together (and even that some of them are going to keep working together afterward, like Bryce Butler and Ken Sorceron), and they all left Keene out of their posts. It's crazy! Just how toxic can a person be?



Me too. At least their band isn't a freakin' mess...



The Faceless was actually pretty big for a while. Core kids like them, but also genuine metal fans seemed to enjoy their work. They almost made tech death/deathcore work in a way. They could have become a bigger band if it wasn't for all the stupid shit that Keene did.

What if...Keene's excuses were all actually true and all 21 past members were assholes out to get him? The twilight zone?

They were indeed forced to drop off an Australian tour last year because Keene went on a drug binge and missed his flight, and also used money that EJ Shannon gave him to pay the rent on their storage space to buy drugs instead and got their gear seized and auctioned off as a result. I've known a decent amount of people in that circle over the years, and basically all of them will say the same thing about him: he became far worse after he went off the rails on drugs, but he was always an arrogant, selfish, dishonest asshole to begin with.

I dunno if I'd say that...they might have cooled off a bit in recent years but remember, they have 24 former members vs. The Faceless' 21 . It could very well be a Chuck Schuldiner or John McEntee situation (ie: good/humble guys who just routinely have bad luck), but there was definitely a lot of drama and shit-slinging around 2009-2010 with several people from the lineup that recorded their debut album, and I believe with Aborted too (which Ken Sorceron was in briefly). I think they even had at least two "everyone just quit the band but the main guy" moments.

If they had drama, it sure wasn't as publicized as what happens with The Faceless. Maybe I've not looked very deep into it, but I've always felt that Sorceron was pretty much Abigail Williams, that he was the creative force behind the band and that he always just picked musicians to play his music live, even if they were considered active band members, I might be wrong here, but their line-up changes "feel" less messy, at least from where I'm standing.

AW has had drama over the years, but it's mostly related to Ken being a road warrior with a personality that some people are not going to gel with and a few people are going to have serious and irreconcilable difficulties with. He's had a few falling-outs over the years, but none of them were as bad as the shit that The Faceless has seen and mostly involved fundamental personal differences that Ken, at worst, did himself no favors with. Ken has his shortcomings as a person and there are plenty of people out there who have beef with him, but it's mostly he-said she-said and a few legitimate ones as opposed to a long line of people who hate him and everything about him (and a few who I could honestly see going Deebo on him the next time they see him) because of his fundamental disregard for basic human decency.

As an outsider looking in, because I could not give any less of a shit about this band's music or this genre as a whole, I simply do not understand why it is important to this individual to continue to present this project as a band when clearly it is not.

It has been said that pre-taped backing tracks are an important part of this project's "live" presentation (I believe, but could be mistaken, that is was said that this project does not or at one point did not tour with a bassist and the bass is part of the pre-tapes), so why is it necessary for this joker Keene to even find new players? Just go out there, play your guitar to backing tracks, and reap 100% of the merch and guarantee money. Paul Gilbert and Buckethead do this and no one complains, so why would anyone complain if Keene here does it? I mean, this is the logical conclusion to using backing tracks anyways, might as well embrace it.

And just hire session players exclusively for recording. Keene writes all the material anyways, right? Write the records, hire session players for one time fees to execute the performances that he can't, and reap 100% of the publishing royalties/record "sales"/etc., as it were.

That way this guy has enough income for his alleged drug habit, he's the only one who has to deal with it, and this drama doesn't need to happen every few years.

Seems pretty simple to me.

^ Yeah but the thing is, he doesn't do all the vocals. And to be honest, I wouldn't want to see that live, it would be upsetting to me knowing what the Faceless has delivered live in the past. The first time I saw them was after PD came out, and they played the whole thing, plus two songs from Akeldama. I was blown away by how tight they were as a live unit, and they were even headlining over Dying Fetus on that tour. They have certainly fallen a long way since then, and while it's possible they might reach that point again, I'm not holding my breath. It would require a lot of discipline, and for Keene to take a good look at himself and how to maintain healthier, more productive relationships with his bandmates and manager, which he doesn't appear to know how to do.

I suspect that Keene is still trying to have full bands for two reasons: distracting people from his shitty, sloppy playing, and having a ready supply of enablers on hand, because as much of a selfish, narcissistic, ungrateful little shit as he is, he knows full well that without actual bandmates to drag him out of his mom's house and force him to get off his ass, no one would care about his band. I said "enablers" because he just wants them to keep the show on the road, not actually hold him accountable for running his band into the ground and force him to kick drugs.

I'm not looking to get into a whole back and forth with you as, like I said, I don't care about this project's music and tech-death is a pretty useless genre to me overall.

So I'll say this in a general and broad sense, not directed at you personally or any one individual: if the rock and metal "communities" gave a single iota of a shit about integrity and authenticity of live performances, then there would be zero tolerance for backing tracks-leave that shit for Ariana Grande or something.

The Faceless is known to use backing tracks, that's out in the open. So it calls into question just how tight they really are. Who knows what's actually being played and what's actually playback?

My over-arching point in all this, because it's not my aim to derail the topic of the thread and open up the broad discussion on the use of backing tracks (and I am going to stop posting in this thread after this to that effect), is that if The Faceless is the Keene show, part of their "live" presentation is pre-recorded, and no one gives a shit about the use of pre-recorded material, then cut the middle man out and stop having this drama every few years.

This guy Keene, alleged drug use or not, has shown to be completely incapable of maintaining professional relationships with other people. That's demonstrable. And from my outside looking in perspective it sounds like people only give a shit about Keene, and it's openly acknowledged that no Keene=No Faceless.

The guy wants complete control, I think he should take it. I think that there is an audience for this guy standing on stage playing guitar by himself, while all the other accoutrements-including vocals-are on playback. And that's because there seems to be some kind of cult of personality surrounding this guy.

Ah, I've said too much about this project. I've spent more time typing these posts that I have listening to his music.

So all this insane mess sparked my curiosity and I finally gave a listen to some The Faceless tracks during a break today (not that I was actively avoiding them, I just had too little time and not enough interest). Color me surprised: while some details sound a bit too modern for my taste, for some reason I was expecting something far noisier and wankier; instead, a few songs include very pleasant melodic constructions, with very soulful lead guitars and soothing chord progressions. A crying shame that the driving force behind such interesting music sucks this much as a person, really.

I mean I hate most things core and even I like Planetary Duality.

Same thing happened to me. I gave Autotheism a try, expecting unbearable wanketry, and instead was surprised at how melodic and clean-focused it was. Very reliant on the clean vocals by Keene. Much prefer Fallujah to this, though.

Looks like the Faceless' recent show with the new lineup didn't go so well. Not only that, but apparently they were an hour late to the stage! They really pissed some fans off:



https://www.theprp.com/2018/06/11/news/ ... eath-fest/

Love the fanboys trying to play off Keene's blatant mistakes in that video as "jazz improvisation" .

That was kinda hard to watch. He probably won't get clean but I REALLY hope he does because that...was...PAINFUL.

The party goes on:

http://lambgoat.com/news/30139/The-Face ... iated-show

That was somehow even worse than his performance at last year's Summer Slaughter. Dude is visibly fried to a crisp in that A Prophecies' Fruition clip where he ruined his lead.

Somebody get this clown to rehab before he kills himself.

Feel free to ask EJ about how well that's gone. Or Ken. Or Justin. Or Bryce. Or Chason. Or literally anyone who has worked with him in the past few years. I don't believe for a second that he's checked into rehab like he said he did. He's a pathological liar who will never change as long as EJ and his mom are there to clean up his messes for him and there are still people who are willing to join his band. He straight-up does not want to change, and until he is finally forced to go, any claims of being in rehab should be treated as Keene grandstanding for attention or trying to butter up someone into giving him a second chance.

I saw another article saying that they tried to do a live stream at a recent show to show they can actually play. It's funny because they said in the post, "Don’t let one 15 second video mold your entire opinion on us," as if that's the only thing people are pissed about.

https://www.theprp.com/2018/06/14/news/ ... ion-on-us/

The last time I saw them was at last year's summer slaughter, and honestly it wasn't a bad performance. But they (Keene in particular) have just been showing such inconsistency lately that it's really hard to know if they'll deliver or not if you go to see them.

Speaking of EJ, why did he drop The Faceless from his management after they cancelled or were a no show to an international tour then pick them back up again quietly?

They can't be that much of a live draw to be worth dealing with Keene's shit.

Another question, how are they still on Sumerian Records? They're a much bigger label now and you'd think they'd have zero tolerance for Keene's unprofessional attitude. I could've sworn when when Chason left he said Keene was late in turning in the last album to the label which is why we got teaser tracks then years of silence then more teaser tracks.

If the label already invested money in the record, they most likely want some marketable product delivered before showing that clown the door. Let's just hope it won't turn into another Wintersun-like drama.

I mean, with how intense of a revolving door lineup this band has had, at least their band name makes sense.

I've heard stuff over the years about how Keene has some sort of stake in Sumerian because he helped finance it initially. That would definitely explain why Ash hasn't thrown him off of the label, and EJ returning due to pressure from Ash would also make a ton of sense.

People help/helped finance that label? Ash's dad is a multi-millionaire so I always assumed Sumerian was a trust fund project.

There's another partner in the label, who is also their lawyer, IIRC. Wouldn't be surprised if Keene had some sort of interest in the label, considering how integral his band was to its early success. It isn't a trust fund project, though - Ash has said that he had no relationship with his dad.

Keene also comes from a lot of money.

If this Keene character happens to have Sumerian Records by the balls financially or otherwise, the future for said label is not looking too bright right now.

Sumerian does just fine in spite of him.

The manager for the Faceless released a statement about their sloppy/late performance:



https://www.theprp.com/2018/06/19/news/ ... -fest-set/

I found it funny that he included pictures of the receipt for the van maintenance, because people probably wouldn't have believed it otherwise. I know I didn't halfway through it haha just sounded like another excuse like when their gear got "stolen," but really Keene just didn't pay the rent for the storage unit.

I want to believe that the above statement is true, and that Keene and the band are on the road to recovery. In my opinion, it doesn't excuse playing like shit, but clearly, things have been bad for Keene and the band, and if there will really be improvement, then that's great. It's easy to brush that statement aside as the band's manager trying to save face, but I hope he's speaking the truth, because otherwise this whole trainwreck is actually quite heartbreaking to watch.

It strikes me as odd that they wouldn't make a statement or give an apology immediately. They could've said a few words before playing - what's 5 or 10 seconds if they're going to be cut short anyway? Why wasn't it possible to make a phone call to the venue, asking a staff member to make an announcement on their behalf, explaining the situation.

That's what makes the whole thing fishy to me. It has been well over a week after the performance, and this is just now coming out. The day after BADF, the band posted on their facebook saying that they "had a blast," and "it went great!" Literally no mention of the mishaps that EJ noted. I want to believe it too but I can't help but feel it's the same as the excuses we've been hearing in the last few years. I hope it's not true either, but we'll see. The Faceless has been one of my favorite bands for a while now, so it is indeed hard to watch this unfold. My hope is that they can get their shit together, but I have my doubts as to whether or not that can happen without Keene taking ownership of his mistakes, and potentially even going to rehab.