For the past few years, it's been a well-known fact that Nachtmystium frontman Blake Judd has been 1.) a notorious scam artist, taking fans' money and then refusing to ship merchandise, and 2.) using that money to fuel several drug addictions. Last month, however, Judd was arrested on charges of theft and imprisoned with a heavy bail set at about $30,000.
Now, as Lambgoat reports, Judd has been released from prison and claims to be going to rehab to sort himself out. Judd also described Nachtmystium as a 'catalyst for chaos' in his life, and claimed he was not going to play any shows or write any new material until he had completely kicked his addiction, which casts some doubt on Nachtmystium's direction.
Judd also confirmed the scams he set up for fans of the band, saying,
As for the merch issues and money stuff, yeah, I've fucked up with a lot of you and for this I'm terribly sorry. When you're in the throes of addiction, you'll find yourself doing things that are completely out of character because you're enslaved by something more powerful than you at that point in time.
While this, of course, does not vindicate him from ripping hundreds of people off for years, it's quite a noble and commendable gesture on Judd's part. For his part, he does seem contrite in the Lambgoat press release, although for all we know he could be lying through his teeth - you know what they say, don't trust a junkie.
So, good on Judd for coming to terms with his issues, but what's really bothering me through all of this is what's going to happen to Nachtmystium. The band's impact on black metal is undeniable - the bizarre mold of psychadelia and Darkthrone that they debuted and perfected on Assassins (2008) and Addicts (2010) completely launched a new style of music - so-called 'psychadelic black metal', whose proponents now include excellent acts like Finland's Oranssi Pazuzu and the UK's A Forest of Stars. Nachtmystium, for the most part, are a band that knows what they're doing.
That being said, the act has had a turbulent lineup (to say the very least) over the years, almost completely changing lineups from record to record, and has featured mainstays such as Jef Whitehead (Leviathan) and Andrew Markuszewski (Avichi) While many credit Judd's difficulty to work with (and later, his addiction) as the reason why, now that Judd is out of the picture this represents an interesting opportunity for the rest of the band (which Metal Archives helpfully tells me have only been on board since 2012).
While the temptation to call quits what has undoubtedly been a massive headache of a band must be sorely tempting, I believe that the ideas pioneered by the band still have some merit to them - anyone who's listened to Silencing Machine knows that the band was onto something. On the other hand, losing a vocalist puts artists in a particularly difficult position - to go to another end of the spectrum, Suicide Silence had a rough time deciding whether or not to carry on after Mitch Lucker's death about a year ago. Woods of Ypres up and called it quits when David Gold passed away. Considering a vocalist is often the image of a band, this could very well be the end of Nachtmystium.
That being said, this is just an editorial piece. Best of luck to Blake Judd, here's to hoping everything works out for the best!
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