Witchrot Explains Band's Viral Breakup Statement, Reveals What Really Happened to Their Drummer

Canadian heavy rock band Witchrot found viral attention after the band's lead, Peter Turik, released a wild statement on why they'd chosen to break up on November 25. Now, Turik revealed the band will continue on, and parts of the statement were a gag, though the betrayal of his close friend was very real.

"Two people I cared about stabbed me a trillion times in the heart with betrayal and that resentment scars like hellfire," Turik wrote in a statement obtained by Newsweek Tuesday. "It obviously left me feeling wretched. I always hate it when bands stop dead without any updates and I felt, well, might as well let the people know."

The original statement noted Turik's girlfriend had cheated on him with Witchrot's guitar player. "

"Due to the unfortunate reality of our guitarist f****** my girlfriend of almost 7 years, WITCHROT will be taking an extended hiatus," the statement, posted on Facebook, began. "I, however, will continue the band in another space and time, being ripe with hate the music is slowly flowing and without a doubt will become the most devastating, torturous music I have ever created."

The breakup also ended quickly by stating the band's drummer had died. Some Twitter users, who celebrated the twists and poeticness of the statement, claimed the drummer's death may have been a Spinal Tap reference. Spinal Tap, a fictional band, had a running joke of unfortunate and off deaths of their drummers.

Turik did not reference Spinal Tap in his statement but did clarify the death of the drummer was a joke. "After writing, I asked Simon, our drummer who quit a couple weeks prior (due to the fact that he has become increasingly busy drumming for Crazy Bones, Gloin, and Brenda) if that was a good idea," he wrote about the Facebook statement. "He said 'yeah, but say I died, no one will give a shit'. Clearly, they did."

In his explanation, Turik revealed genuine shock for the statement's draw and thanked those who have supported him. "I am floored by the fact that this post received so much attention, considering we had only around 300 likes on Facebook when I wrote it," the statement read. "The amount of positive feedback people expressed, with regards to my situation along with the praise for our music, was touching, to say the least. I thought maybe a couple of people in Europe might care or 'like' the post but instead, it reached nearly every news source on the planet."

Witchrot plans to continue as a two-person band.