Ten Walls took to his personal Facebook page in recent days to voice opinions about his disgust for the LGBT community referring how people of this community “are of a different breed”.
Since then the post has been removed due the massive backlash but to late our favourite Latvian prouder as the damage has been done and spreading wide and far with the industry.
At least five festivals & counting have removed Ten Walls, AKA Marijus Adomaitis, from their lineups in response to his recent anti-gay comments.
These festivals include Creamfields, PITCH, Pukkelpop, Urban Art Forms Festival and Sónar. Creamfields issued the following statement : “Whilst we respect freedom of speech, we find his defamatory and prejudiced comments about the gay community extremely offensive and feel that this is not in line with the spirit of Creamfields.” PITCH explained: “We are against any form of discrimination whatsoever, on and off our festival site. Comments like these are so far from our beliefs that it wouldn’t make any sense to have this act playing our festival.” Meanwhole Sónar’s statement read: “Ten Walls will no longer be appearing at Sónar 2015 as his statements are at odds with the nature and ethos of the festival.”
After super festivals like Creamfields and Sonar issued such statements and removing his services you would think its a lesson learnt but then his agency Coda further reinforced the public’s opinion releasing the below statement and releasing his services from their agency effectively immediately.
“Coda Music Agency condemns all forms of discrimination based on race, religion or sexual orientation. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and to represent a hugely diverse roster of artists. We no longer represent Ten Walls”
In a very feeble and predictable attempt to make amends, Ten Walls has voiced a public apology which is hard to acknowledge as sincere. When an artist is “forced” to apologize, is it really even an apology? His comments and actions are now resulting in a downward spiral in which Ten Walls may never recover from. For an artist with such a promising career in the industry he has managed to single-handedly ruin himself, burning bridges with fans, artists, and agencies in the process. In an industry and community that was built on acceptance of all people, degrading actions of artists like Ten Walls goes against every ethos that dance music holds true to it’s heart! Something that was his biggest weapon of publicity ‘ the internet’ may now become his worst enemy.