After nineteen years, Olivier Gabriel will be saying goodbye and fans will be meeting Fack.
Having been one of the founding members of Benighted, Olivier Gabriel has decided to that enough is enough and will be leaving Benighted. Set to release their brand new album Necrobreed, the band will be heading out on more tours and has no doubt had a reasoning behind Gabriel’s idea for leaving.
Gabriel commented :
Dear friends, I have made the hard decision to close my chapter of more than 18 years with BENIGHTED. Those were pure bliss. I have made friends for life, experienced unforgettable moments with past and present members of the BENIGHTED family, and last but never least with you, the fans, label teams, producers, promoters, bookers, reporters, photographers, and many more. Sadly, I can no longer muster the energy that it takes to keep up with the frantic rhythm of BENIGHTED. We have come a long way since our first rehearsals at the Chazelles sur Lyon youth cultural centre and the living room at the place of Julien’s father. We have also come a long way since our corpse paint black metal days, Bontempi keyboards, and Cradle of Filth style female vocals. It has been such a long road since Julien and I rehearsed at my parents’ home with copy/pasted Cannibal Corpse lyrics and recorded demos on cassette tapes. All those years on the road gave me so much hysterical laughter, friendship, and love. As of today, all of this is over for me, but I will never forget and always be grateful. I love you all. I want to thank my family and friends for their patience, while I was away so often. These last 30 years, I have shared everything with my brother Julien, whose positive energy I admire. I wish you all the best with the band and our kickass new album! Long live BENIGHTED! See you all somewhere soon!”
Sounds like it should be a fairly easy transition with the man’s successor Fack stating :
I am extremely glad and proud to have been asked to join the BENIGHTED family and thank all of them for their warm welcome. It was an honour to fill in for Gab on the ‘Abysmal European Tour’ last year and I feel lucky to keep walking in his footsteps. I have nothing but respect and true friendship for him as a person and musician. Gab, I wish you all the best in the world, bro! See you all on the ‘Worship the Necrobreed Tour’!”
Thank Fack for that!
Well we’ll miss you Gabriel and welcome Fack!