Mary Magdalan comments on Metal Sanaz

You can read a statement from Metal Sanaz here.

Rarely do I use The Gauntlet as my own personal pulpit but there have been some recent events lately that I think need to be addressed. The world of rock is very cutthroat and take no prisoners.

The Gauntlet recently passed on covering the saga of Sanaz dropping off the Mary Magdalan tour as a host. Soon after the story broke, I began hearing from people in Sanaz's camp, booking agents, venues, and people in Mary Magdalan's camp. According to three separate booking agents, Sanaz and her reps called up their clubs the weekend after she dropped off the bill. "We were told Sanaz would not longer be appearing and that the tour was canceled, not just her appearance, but the entire tour. She also went on to badmouth the band and warned us against re-booking the band in the future." Another club booking agent said she "went on to completely badmouth the band and warn me about re-booking them. She kept telling me they have no talent and can't play their instruments. She was highly unprofessional." It is one thing to drop off a tour as a host due to a disagreement, but to go around and badmouth the headliner, call the venues and try to cancel the shows and inform the booking agents the members of the band use heroin is low, even for Sanaz...or so I thought. I am guilty at times of calling out a metal band or two and voicing my concerns over their actions, but to try to un-book an unsigned bands first tour is fucked up.

At this point, my interest was piqued, I contacted Mary Magdalan's management and was told the band was taking the high road and had no further comment other than Sanaz was no longer on the bill.

A couple weeks went by and life went on, or so I thought. Over Memorial Day, I got a call from Gzus of Mary Magdalan. The phone conversation started with "I am fucking done taking the high road." It was music to my ears. We proceeded to speak about the events which transpired. It was confirmed that Sanaz had tried to un-book the tour and badmouth the band to promoters. "As soon as we confirmed Sanaz was on the tour with us, people began showing their disdain for this woman like she had run over their dog or something" stated Gzus. "I was just trying to book some shows. Now that I have hung out with her, I understand. If I have to hear her say 'Oh my god, can I see how fucking metal you are?' one more time, I'll vomit in my shit. I am not claiming to be metal, but I have been in the pit at a Pantera show and had my shit kicked in at a Metallca concert. I'm not metal, I am a hip-hop guy and I can also say that Sanaz is not metal. I can smell that a mile away. I knew she was a fraud when we were hanging out and Metallica's 'Fade to Black' came on and she asked 'whose this?'"

Originally Sanaz and Mary Magdalan got hooked up with each other as Sanaz "contacted us and said she had a tour booked which was great as we wanted a tour. It turned out it was the Scum of the Earth tour that she had also bailed on. With no SOTE, the venues dropped off so we had Tom re-book the tour. Sanaz was supposed to then bring sponsors and promo as we now brought the tour. This is where we saw how fake her whole facade was. If you looked at our last tour poster with Sanaz on it, you'll notice there were no sponsors. We consider ourselves a small band. We have done well for ourselves. We began noticing they weren't doing any promotions for this. We contacted Sanaz's people who gave us access to her MySpace account with several million 'fans' of hers. We sent out an invite on her Myspace and got 7 people to respond. This is just people saying they were interested. We sent out another from her myspace, two responded."

Gzus went on to explain "none of that mattered to us. We were just glad to be moving forward with a tour. We had it all lined up with Rikets and Blue Felix. Sanaz was upset that even though her picture was on the tour poster, she wasn't mentioned prominently on any of the press releases that got sent out. She had her 400lb gorilla [manager] call up the bands and parties involved with the tour. She didn't hire the PR, the bands did. We were happy someone was promoting the tour, we didn't even care if Mary Magdalan was mentioned, we just wanted someone to get the word out on the tour. Two days later, she [Sanaz] dropped off the tour and began calling all the venues to tell them the entire tour was canceled. We sent out a MySpace message just stating unfortunately she is no longer on the tour and we would be making an announcement with her replacement in a few days."

This is where The Gauntlet stepped in. We were alerted via twitter from one of the bands fans that Sanaz was no longer on the bill so The Gauntlet felt it would be a good time to step in and support the System of Freaks tour as one of our friends, Pandie Suicide would be taking Sanaz's place as host. Sanaz also posted to her fan, how she would have a better tour and make it about the local bands. Over the weekend she posted a blog on her site not realizing what Mary Magdalan already knew. "Our fans are crazy, they are some crazy kids" stated Gzus. "If you are going to call yourself a Junkie like our fans, you aren't the sanest kid in the world. Our fans are very passionate and sensitive though. I ended up waking up to all this madness. We were advised to just let it go. Over the course of the next week, she started mooching gigs from us. She took gigs in Cleveland and Dallas from us, but that's fine, whatever. She saw this didn't get to us, then we start getting calls from venues that a promoter friend of hers is calling every venue trashing us. Saying we are drug addicts, can't play, etc. When we are on stage, we pummel that shit. We put on a show. This made it really hard for us to rebound and get the tour off the ground. We ended up losing five gigs from her. I am still having venues and promoters calling us and telling us she is still two weeks later trying to take this tour down. Enough is enough."

Sanaz has been promoting shows in the Los Angeles area for several years now, especially in the unsigned community. "We did two shows at the Whisky that were hosted by Sanaz in Hollywood" stated an unsigned band that doesn't want me using their name for fear of retribution. "We gave her money to be in her top friends list on MySpace for a month and at the same time paid-to-play for a show she was hosting at the Whisky. We had to sell 50 tickets and so did all the other bands on the bill. The turnout was between low and moderate. We did one more show with her and realized this wasn't working out well for us or the other bands involved. I don't think Sanaz brought many of her fans either."

This is pretty much the same we heard from several other bands along with Gzus "We played a show in Modesto, CA that had no local bands on the bill. One band brought 17 fans, another band brought 8 and we brought 143 people to the show. Metal Sanaz, through all her promotion brought 1...1 fucking person. We paid her $300 for the show. We still didn't understand why people were talking shit about her, but now I do."

"I don't think there has ever been a band to come out and say their career was better because of Sanaz. I have read of a lot of bands that had the opposite happen and felt ripped off. Let me be the first band to say 'FUCK HER!' She is a horrible person. There is nothing worse than a fake."


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