WTF?! Mayhem Festival is Dead: Founder John Reese Announces its End

August 3, 2015

Last night’s concert in Dallas, Texas was the final show of the 2015 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour. In a shocking development, news has broke that it was apparently also the final Mayhem Festival show ever.

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Festival co-founder John Reese issued this statement via Facebook last night:

Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival 2015 comes to an end. After spending 8 calendar years of passion and one full year of my life on the road with the festival, tonight is a very emotional night. All I know is we have all tried our damned hardest to make Mayhem a home for artists, a platform for bands to increase their fan base and a place where people feel welcomed.

There are so many people to thank but most of all I want to thank my family who complete me and I owe everything to. I love you with every fiber of my being Elenie Hovartos Reese Kelsey Reese Kylie Reese and Nicolette Reese.

A very very special thank you goes to Jason May Nick Allen Chelsea Coffey and Mike Kelso without you it never would of happened.

The Mayhem lifers Ray Picard Keri Lee Joey Perez Andy Lee Benjamin Layden Mike Terrazas Strati Hovartos and Perry Johnson.

Thank you to every single band who have performed and the amazing mayhem crew people who have ever been out with us thank you thank you thank you.

To Perry LaVoisne You are my brother and I cherish our friendship and the fact that we have fought together so many fucking times.

KL and DE ….blood sweat and tears.

WITH EVERY END THERE IS A NEW BEGINNING.

The terrible news comes on the heels of incendiary comments made by co-founder Kevin Lyman that “metal got gray, bald and fat,” which proved to be signs of a real crack in the dam Mayhem had long supported with a traveling cauldron of bands on the cusp of metal culture.

In an article published on July 8 by Detroit Free Press, Lyman was quoted a saying about the difficulties of booking headline-worthy acts for the festival: “The bands at the top all demand a certain level of fee to be on tour. Unlike punk rock, metal never knows how to take a step back to move the whole scene forward. That’s how punk rock was. That’s how we nurtured punk rock. BAD RELIGION would take a little less than they could on their own to bring the whole scene forward, so we could make sure we had a good [touring] package around them. Metal doesn’t seem to have that concern, never has, never has since I was working in the clubs in the ’80s. It’s always about a ‘me, me, me’ thing.”

RIP Mayhem, you kicked some ass.

Senior Writer

A senior writer at CraveOnline since 2006, Johnny has reported on music culture around the world for over a decade while setting a higher standard of reviews, editorials, photography and interviews with the industry's biggest names. Johnny has conceptualized and produced a wide range of original Crave features such as the long-running Band of The Month series, the CraveOnstage performance feature, the Music History video series and the Passport travel colum, among others. His Crave coverage spectrum has included Lifestyle, Travel, Film & TV, Politics, Sports, Fashion and Food writing.

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