CEREBRAL BORE Guitarist On Singer Departure: 'She Was Acting Weird, Then She Disappeared'

David E. Gehlke of Blistering.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Paul McGuire of Scottish death metallers CEREBRAL BORE. Singer Simone "Som" Pluijmers left the band 24 hours prior to departure for their North American tour with DYING FETUS. She has been temporarily replaced by Shawn Whitaker. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Blistering.com: You were a dealt an unusual set of circumstances prior to coming to North America. Care to shed light on Som [Simone Pluijmers] and her departure?

Paul McGuire: I don't know… I haven't spoken to her. She didn't phone the band or anything, didn't turn up at the airport, hasn't been in touch anybody since, so that's where we are. We'll wait until we get home.

Blistering.com: How bad of a situation did that put you in before coming over?

McGuire: It's a terrible situation. I had to borrow a few thousand pounds to pay for our flights, including Som's, and she let me book the flight, and didn't take it. I'm a thousand bucks out of pocket, and that's the start of things. That's the main issue — we were really struggling to get money for our flights and I managed to get the money and that happened, not to mention all the merchandise we had printed and all the shows that we had lined up. If we had pulled out, they would have had to re-contract the whole tour. So you can understand why we were upset for someone to pull out at the last minute. That would have put us in a hole, but I said no matter what, we're going to do the tour; we need to honor our commitments. I just wish she had done the same. It's cool if she wants to leave the band, but not talking to anyone… I thought it was a really unprofessional way to go about doing [things]. I can live with it; people not wanting to be in the band, but to not talk about it… I gave her plenty of opportunities to talk things over. I did that, but all she did was ignore me, then all this unfolded. It was literally 24 hours before we left.

Blistering.com: Did you see any of this coming?

McGuire: Pretty much, yeah. We could tell because she was acting weird, then she disappeared. At the end of the day, we need to keep pushing forward. We've been a band a lot longer before we gave Som the opportunity that we gave her. And we will continue to be a band after. A lot of people can't get over a member leaving the band, but that will pass. The thing is, we were friends and I still think we are. Nothing has happened between us as far as I can see to make all that crap happen, so maybe we can get back in touch and not read whatever has been written so horribly. Online, I've totally ignored the situation for an entire week, but it would have been so costly just to go home. It's tough trying to keep my head down and keep going. People think they know the whole stories, but there's two sides. All we said was Som didn't want to do the tour. That's all we said. We haven't said anything about the story and what's going on, but [people] keep judging us offhand because they think they know the situation. We are the ones that here and are the ones in the States, doing it.

Blistering.com: I know you said you'll tackle the Som situation when get back home, so have you thought about how you'll handle the vocals for the next album?

McGuire: Nah, haven't thought about it. I don't want to think about anything regarding the vocalist position until I've spoken to Som. Personally, I think she made a stupid decision and it's more about her position in the band — she has responsibilities. She just walked away and I'd rather just speak to Som to hear what she has before anything else. I'll give her the chance to smooth things over, because the way this has been handled has been really bad.

Read the entire interview at Blistering.com.