Photo: Press
The once-rising house star Ten Walls has been forced to apologise after a bitter and baffling homophobic rant raw him get dropped from upcoming festivals.
The Lithuanian Marijus Adomaitis finally cracked the mainstream when his 2014 single 'Walking With Elephants' charted at No.6.
He caused outrage on Facebook when, in a comment since deleted, Adomaitis compared homosexuals to paedophiles, adding that in “the good 90s… these people of different breed where fixed”.
“I remember producing music for one Lithuanian musician, who tried to wash my brain that I don’t need to be so conservative and intolerant about them," he wrote. "When I asked him ‘what would you do if you realized that your 16-year-old son’s browny [anus] is ripped by his boyfriend?’ Well he was silent."
He continued: "One of my first gigs in Ireland, on my way to [my] hotel I saw a church with a fence decorated with hundreds of baby shoes. Naturally I wondered why? Unfortunately a priest’s lie for many years was uncovered when children were massively raped. Unfortunately the people of other breed continue to do it and everyone knows it but does nothing."
Creamfields, Sonar and Amsterdam's Pitch have since pulled him from their line-ups, with Creamfields writing: "Creamfields is celebrated for being a festival that welcomes all and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hate of any kind. Everyone who attends our shows should feel welcome and safe. Comments like this, coming from one of the artists contradicts our festival ethos."
Fort Romeau also removed Ten Walls from his support slot at Koko later this year, saying: "While cancelling one gig is hardly going to change the world, it does stand as a personal rejection of bigotry, fear and intolerance,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s easy to romanticise electronic music culture and imagine it as a bastion of social liberalism and progressive ideology but the reality is that it simply reflects the larger social context where homophobia and (particularly) sexism are normalised and worse, codified into law."
Ten Walls has since taken online to apologise for his comments, adding that he's 'taking a break' from music and cancelling all upcoming shows.
“Last week”, he writes, “I wrote a Facebook post that was wrong and completely out of character and the result was a badly written post that was unacceptable. It was never my intention to offend anyone. I’m really saddened by everything that has happened and I would like to apologise to everyone I’ve let down, especially to my friends in the gay community, and my fans. I now need to take a break and have cancelled my upcoming shows.”
