Upon A Burning Body Pull Publicity Stunt

By now you may have heard that Danny Leal, the vocalist of Upon A Burning Body, has gone missing. When something of this caliber is announced within the metal community, it has a tendency of spreading like wildfire. Unfortunately, when that tragic event turns out to be a hoax, it spreads even quicker.

Yesterday, the band posted this status via their Facebook page:

“Breaking News: Danny Leal (singer of Upon A Burning Body) has been reported missing. He was last seen in his home town of San Antonio TX on Monday, June 30th.”

What made fans even more worried was the fact that the vocalist had posted these two tweets just before his disappearance:

Well, apparently, it was all a big hoax in order to garner attention for their upcoming album release. Any publicity is good publicity, right? However, Sumerian Records CEO, Ash Avildsen was not happy about the situation.

Here’s what Ash had to say:

“I woke up to a ton of missed calls and just saw all this stuff about Danny Leal of UABB posing as that he’s been abducted or kidnapped. My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since. As a child, we all learn the story ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ and it sticks within our consciousness for a reason. I do not condone this type of publicity stunt. This was done behind my back and I am not OK with it. In my eyes, there’s never a time to use the possibility of real-life abduction, injury or murder of someone you care about to promote anything, especially an album. If you need to resort to that, then you have lost the plot. We as a society should have evolved past that way of thinking by now and especially within the rock/metal community, given all the tragedy that has happened in our world over the past few years. There are some people who owe us an apology.”

We’ll be sure to keep you updated if anyone else in the band goes missing.