Inquisition at Royale
Inquisition at Royale

Inquisition dropped by Season of Mist, frontman pleaded guilty to child porn charges in 2009

Inquisition at Royale
Inquisition at Royale in 2017 (more by Ben Stas)

Season of Mist have parted ways with black metal band Inquisition. Their statement simply reads, “Season of Mist are no longer working with Inquisition. There will be no further statement.”

UPDATE: Season of Mist’s announcement that they are dropping Inquisition came out just a few hours before MetalSucks ran an article reporting that Inquisition frontman Jason “Dagon” Weirbach pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in 2009. MetalSucks mention that they reached out to Season of Mist for comment on the child pornography charges yesterday morning, and were told in the afternoon that the label is no longer working with Inquisition. The article reads:

Inquisition frontman Jason Weirbach, a.k.a. “Dagon,” plead guilty to child pornography charges in 2009, according to official documents from the Superior Court of Washington for Snohomish County.

The documents, which are a matter of public record, state that NCMEC (the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) became aware of an account uploading sexually explicit photographs of “young females in their early teens or pre-teens” to the photo-sharing website Photobucket in November of 2006. After tracing the uploader’s I.P. address and determining its jurisdiction, NCMEC contacted the Everett Police Department, who subsequently launched an investigation.

Although the user name for the Photobucket account suggested its owner was a woman, that investigation eventually led police to Weirbach. In late 2007, Detective Karen Kowalchyk visited Weirbach and his wife at their home. While Weirbach was out of the room, his wife admitted that they were having marital problems, that Weirbach liked for her to dress up as a young girl when they had sex, and that she was concerned he might be looking at child pornography online; while his wife was out of the room, Weirbach admitted that the Photobucket images were his, and that he had pretended to be a lesbian while obtaining them online. Weirbach claimed that he had only ever looked at the images “out of curiosity.”

The MetalSucks article also points out that Weirbach was charged with Fourth Degree Assault and Third Degree Malicious Mischief in February of 2006. Read more here.

Inquisition have also been subject to accusations of racism and Nazism for years. In 2015, Woe claimed they were kicked off a festival for booking a show with Inquisition.

Though it seems that Season of Mist’s decision to drop Inquisition is related to the child porn charges, black metal bands have increasingly been under fire for alleged racism this year. Taake cancelled a tour after select venues cancelled their Taake shows when past accusations of Nazism were brought up. Soon after that, a San Francisco venue removed Destroyer 666 (who are also on Season of Mist), who have faced racism accusations throughout their career, off their upcoming Watain show. (Watain moved the show do a different SF venue so D666 could stay on the bill.)

Inquisition are currently booked for this year’s Maryland Deathfest, and they are set to tour North America with Satyricon in May.