Sebastian Król condemns passages in Marco Wanda’s book as degrading. The publisher and management defend the violent fantasies as the words of “five young, overwhelmed men”.
Marco Wanda wrote a book about Wanda’s path to success – and garnished it with anecdotes about fantasies of violence against her booker and promoter at the time. Sebastian Król from Backseat PR, who did the booking for the band ten years ago, sees himself attacked by the book passages. In an Instagram post he condemns the fantasies described.
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“From hot embers to stakes driven through the body”
In “That we even existed” by Marco Wanda, he describes torture fantasies that his band had towards their tour manager in their early years. According to Król’s Instagram post, the book states that “already on the journey, a long series of murderous fantasies were presented to (company) in song form, as we all blamed their overloaded tour schedule for our endless exhaustion.”
It goes on to say: “There are drawings from this period depicting torture in relation to an employee of (company). My father has collected them in a folder. The imagined torture extends from hot embers to stakes driven through the body and a device that cannot be seen but is reminiscent of a medieval rack.”
This is how Sebastian Król reacts to the torture fantasies
On Instagram, Sebastian Król comments on the passages on the Backseat PR channel. Król writes there that it is clear that the employee mentioned is referring to himself. He asked himself whether he was too “biased” to rate the lines as “unbearable”. “My lawyer put it this way: Violation of human dignity is not covered by freedom of expression, and being made the object of murder and torture fantasies is the greatest possible devaluation that a human being can experience.”
According to Król, the author, management and publisher responded appeasingly. They therefore explained that “they were five young men who were overwhelmed and had acted out their destructiveness”. We regret his anger, but deleting the passages is out of the question. The relevant passages are subjective evaluations and therefore neither illegal nor prohibited.
“Don’t let quirks that glorify violence go uncommented”
Since he allegedly lacked the legal means, Król wanted to share his perspective publicly, he writes on Instagram. “It is all the more important to me not to let such uncollegial, violence-glorifying quirks sit uncommented on the bestseller shelves.” He is disappointed by a band “whose success I was exhausted for and who claim in interviews that they stand for connection and love”.
Click here for Sebastian Król’s Instagram post:
More awareness of “critical masculinity”
Król also writes that he is pleased about the increasing awareness in the indie music world of “critical masculinity” and abuse of power. “There are still too many negative examples, and I also had to learn a lot of things.” Today he works with artists who are three quarters queer or FLINTA*. That makes him positive: “It’s great fun to support completely different voices with Backseat, including female and marginalized voices, and to sincerely try to contribute to more solidarity and empathetic interaction in this industry.”