David DiSanto of Vektor is a wifebeater

[illegalsoul]

This news is a few days old but this is the only metal forum I use, so I might as well make a thread on it. If there's already another thread on another subforum, apologies.

Vektor are my favorite "new" metal band, so to speak, so I was disappointed when--after what I think is the best album of their career, Terminal Redux--everyone but frontman and main songwriter David DiSanto quit. I had hope, however, that he'd be able to gather up a new lineup and put out a new album, as he said he would.

Such hopes have been dashed, as David DiSanto's wife Katy revealed on Instagram that he's been abusing the shit out of her. According to her second post he is a hardcore alcoholic and has lied to her constantly, locked her dog in subzero temps, punched walls to threaten her, smacked her around, strangled her, and even tried to rape her. More damning, however, is her first post wherein she enclosed a video of him definitely screaming at her, maybe picking her up off the bed, definitely swinging a pillow at her, and then definitely punching a door or wall offscreen. Safe to say this is far more than a he said/she said situation.

It's fucked up man. I know a ton of musicians (especially in metal) are assholes who happen to make some amazing art, and Vektor's music is still really good on its own, but this is still a total shame and will be in the back of my mind if I ever crank Black Future again. Even if David gets his shit together, Vektor is probably dead for good now, as I don't think anyone's gonna want to be in a band with this guy, for good reason.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Get up and leave. Or does she need a megaton of moral outrage to draw strength from?


Better yet, fight back. These twerps weigh a hundred pounds.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Saw vid, dude hits her with a pillow bro. Yea the wall punching isnt kosher, but with such allegations as the ones above, provide more damning evidence than a pillow being swung.

Im not excusing this dude's behavior one iota, but yea. A pillow, a Peter Brady wail, and some dry wall being love tapped.

 

[einride]

so this guy absolutely doesn't sound like he would be a great guy to be in a relationship with.

but i have to say i wonder about the wisdom about airing all this out on the internet. there is a lot of shit that goes on in any long-term relationship and it invariably is going to sound very bad when one side of the story gets typed out in continous bullet-point form and the other side has no means of defense.

yeah you need to help yourself and get out of abusive relationships but assuming you still care at all for the other person the other guy needs to get some help too. happy people do not act like this. but instead of any kind of help he's now going to get completely destroyed by the faceless internet mob. i think there are really very few valid grounds ever for intentionally completely burning another person's life to the ground.

i don't think people the scale and force of the shitstorm that inevitably ensues when you start shit on the internet. so you're someone on instagram with 1800 followers and you think it's not a big deal, you just want to lighten the load, get it out there, get some support from your pals. but here we are, a guy from northern sweden who's never heard vektor and a few other randos on a dead forum discussing the intimate details of someone's relationship. and then metalsucks picks it up tomorrow and suddenly festivals and labels drop his band, band mates leave, guy gets death threats. is this REALLY the intended outcome? because if so, you're a bit of a dick yourself, too.

there is a reason in the distant past you used to talk about shit like this only to your closest friends, your family, your therapist etc.

at least he didn't joke about jews on facebook

 

[illegalsoul]

I dunno man. I'm often skeptical of trial by social media personally, especially when you have teenagers gaining an online spotlight for "cultural appropriation" or drawing fanart of a character with too light a skintone or making a dumb edgy joke whatever meaningless fucking bullshit. And I really don't think every intimate detail of everyone's personal life should always be scrutinized for the whole world to see.

But I have my limits when it comes to minding my own business, and this kind of shit sure does push it. Arguments and decaying marriages happen, sure, but if we assume only what she has proof of happened, swinging stuff (however soft) at your girl and punching walls? That's bratty teenager shit, not how adults in their 30s should conduct themselves around their spouses to put it lightly. And that's just going by what she has solid proof of, not the harsher accusations which do seem credible to me. I couldn't blame anyone if they decided they don't want to feel like they're supporting this guy by buying his music, booking him for shows, etc. Furthermore, assuming everything she said was true, I can't really blame her for wanting to lash out. Getting a literally global backlash and losing (what's left of) your career from people knowing you've been mean to your wife, and having an online hate mob ready to pounce on you for pretty much the rest of time, must hurt. But I bet living with him hurt her a whole lot too. And It's not always simple to "just leave"; the practicality of financial commitments tends to get in the way of that, as do the mental effects victims suffer as a result of this kind of abuse. I'm speaking from a bit of experience here in saying that when you're in an abusive household, the "logical" things to do like, you know, leaving or telling someone what's going on, don't seem like the right things to do.

At any rate, his bandmates already quit years ago, and while they said there was no real drama and it was just "changing personalities" or something similar, I can't help but think there's probably a correlation between this type of behavior and 3/4ths of a band deciding they don't want to be in a successful band that just released a landmark album because it means being in a band with one certain guy. To be completely fair, she mentions "pre-existing, untreated (or under-treated) mental illness" and alcoholism eroding his mind over time. The former is something he can only partially help, and the latter, well, addictions like alcoholism can be fucking brutal to try to overcome. It would be nice if the dude redeemed himself. It's not impossible, and I don't like how these internet mobs seem to act like you can never do so. But at the moment, I sure feel a lot more sympathy for her here.

That being said, assuming you were referring to yourself with "a guy from northern sweden who's never heard vektor" you should consider giving their shit a go. They only have three albums, and each is excellent with a bit of personality of their own. With Terminal Redux in particular, they really just knocked it out of the park. Their logo, sci-fi themes, and the fact that they play very technical thrash metal invites many Voivod comparisons. However, they don't sound much like Voivod...well, I guess you could compare them to a more brutal modern take on the Killing Technology sound, with a bit of black metal influence with a few tremolo blastbeat passages and rather screechy vocals. Their songs tend to be dense with a lot of good riffs and I love riff-o-ramas. The vocals to me are like a more extreme version of what Chuck Schuldiner was doing on The Sound of Perseverance, with a couple squeals thrown in on their first two albums. The most recent album has a different kind of vocal diversity. Overall they really were the only modern thrash band truly moving the genre forward in my book.

 

[einride]

i have no more or less sympathy for this guy than i have for any other random person on earth. certainly i am sympathetic to the shit SHE's going through. but it's hard being human, relationships are hard. punching walls is immature and shows a lack of self-control, but drywall doesn't actually have feelings. punching your spouse is, of course, much worse and probably inexcusable.

the thing is, everyone does stupid shit and when it's concentrated like this into a terse little list of accusations it's liable to sound worse than it maybe was in context at the time. my (soon to be) wife and i have been together for ten years and if she compiled a list of all the stupid shit* i've done throughout the years she could easily convince a crowd on the internet that does not know me personally that i am a mentally unstable alcoholic psychopath. thing is, i am not, 99.99% of the time. so if you add up the time that i was being a fucking idiot it amounts to a few hours out of ten years. and we would both agree that i am generally a sane and respectable person with some semblance of self-control -- but a list without context would still look bad.

now i'm not saying this guy ISN'T a mentally unstable alcoholic psychopath. he may well be. i'm just saying judging strangers on the internet is tricky business that i try to stay out of because social media has a tendency to dumb down complex issues into little black and white pieces.

and i'm also saying that everyone loses when you decide to go public with stuff like this. sometimes you do need to do so, like with that creep r. kelly who had powerful people protecting him. this is not that situation, this is a marriage breaking down and one of the parties deciding to broadcast the wreckage. i don't understand it, really. no matter how bad my relationship got and how much i was abused, i would not megaphone it to the entire world ever. but that's me.

* before anyone gets any ideas, no, i've never hit or physically abused her


thanks for the description of vektor btw. maybe i'll check it out at some point. i think i've heard one song or so but i'm not generally craving more tech thrash at this moment. that's liable to change however

 

[einride]

let me add though for the sake of clarity -- since apparently now i am voluntarily in the business of judging strangers online -- that if even half of what this guy supposedly did is true then he is a grade A dickbag and i'm glad she got out of that situation.

but i try to have some level of sympathy even for terrible people. i believe in redemption and rehabilitation and that people can be better. people who treat others like shit invariably feel like shit themselves. i believe that if the will is there, you can fix yourself and therefore fix your behaviour towards others.

 

[Ellestin]

i think there are really very few valid grounds ever for intentionally completely burning another person's life to the ground.

This

+ venting personal shit on the intarweb rarely achieves anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of unloading yourself. Social/viral networks will at best help things get out of hand in the span of ten minutes. Go to the competent channels aka police or ask someone responsible to "talk" sense into the man if need be