Death Is Not Glamorous Pull Out of Hevy Festival

Death Is Not Glamorous have pulled out of Hevy Festival, as they don't agree with the festival taking place at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park.

The band released the following statement:

"We recently decided to pull out of the line-up of the Hevy Music Festival in Kent, due to it's close proximity to and collaboration with a nearby zoo. We were surprised when some people were not able to grasp why we chose not to play - our decision was met with arguments that the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park was not a zoo, but a conservation project, that a percentage of the festival's proceeds would go toward the Aspinall Foundation, a charity organization involved with conservation, and with the statement that despite the festival's location, "the (animals) will not be disturbed in the slightest. In fact, their noise carries further and ours, so you'll be waking up to the sound of Lions roaring and monkeys screaming - it's pretty surreal".

As far as we know, a lion's growl and a rock concert both reach about 110dB, so we can assume that this statement is incorrect one way or the other. More to the point, however, is that we are of the belief that wild animals should not be kept in cages and behind bars, thousands of miles away from their natural habitats. That a percentage of the proceeds from the "Safari Park & Zoo" (as the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park refers to itself on their website) go towards a conservation charity is admirable, but our convictions as individuals and as a band leave no room for the entertainment aspect of a zoo, where animals are kept in captivity for the entertainment of park-goers and for financial gain, regardless whether a portion of the profits made by this captivity go towards conservation efforts. In addition to this, we are unwilling to compromise our strong advocacy for animal liberation and habitat conservation when it comes to the captivity of wild animals, something which we find fundamentally unethical, morally reprehensible, and unjustifiable. We realize that this debate is a large and complicated one, and that there are differing opinions among zoologists, biologists, and other experts in fields related to animal and habitat conservation. We encourage people to seek out arguments from both sides and decide for themselves. Still, no one should be shocked by the fact that we refuse to play songs like "Compassion" and "Clear Lines" with a free zoo ticket around our wrists. For more information, please check out captiveanimals.org. No cage is big enough.

Death is Not Glamorous.!