Over the past couple of weeks, C-level nu-metal band Flaw have gone to great lengths to protect the identity of the member who committed multiple acts of plagiarism, blatantly stealing from mostly unknown musicians on YouTube to construct songs on Flaw’s latest album. So it’s only fitting that a musician stupid enough to engage in such a practice would accidentally out himself, leaving all the evidence completely in the public eye for the world to see. I can think of no better turn this story could have possibly taken!
So: the culprit is guitarist Tommy Gibbons, who has been in the band since 2016 and recently switched to bass. How do we know? Because Gibbons posted on his own Facebook page back in August, which is completely public for the world to see — and this is the part where it really gets good — bragging about how cool it was to see a random YouTuber post a cover “of a riff that I wrote.” The riff in question is one from Flaw’s song “Persistence,” which, as we’ve established, Gibbons, nor anyone else in the band, wrote themselves. YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS SHIT UP, PEOPLE!
Here’s a screen shot of Gibbons’ post, in case he yanks it down:
At this point it’s astounding that Gibbons is still in the band given the fact that the other members have known about his thievery for weeks (at least), making their tolerance of his acts as despicable as the acts themselves. I suppose they’re betting that the band’s core fanbase, whoever that is, either won’t find out about the revelation that the band is a fraud or won’t care, or they think the press will play to their advantage. And they may be right… very Trumpian tactic!
Via MetalSucks
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