Whitechapel have cancelled their upcoming South American tour dates due to their frontman’s mental health.
In an in-depth video statement, Phil Bozeman explains that the US deathcore band will not be joining Thy Art Is Murder on a planned trek through Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Argentina in November and December. However, the dates will still go ahead with Thy Art Is Murder performing.
Bozeman writes in an Instagram post: “I will be OK but I need time to get right for myself, my fiancé, family, friends and all of you. Your support is immeasurable. Thank you all so much for everything. Here’s to strengthening and healing.”
He explains further in the attached video, embedded below. The singer reveals that he has been on the antidepressant sertraline (sometimes sold in North America under the brand name Zoloft) since his teenage years, and that he is attempting to wean himself off of it.
“I started to come off of them because I wanted to,” he says (via The PRP). “I wanted to try to not rely on medication months back. And it has had a very bad effect on me. I [have] been having mental health issues.”
Bozeman continues, saying he started using antidepressants following the death of his father when he was 10 and his mother when he was 15. The singer has written lyrics about these events on the Whitechapel albums The Valley (2019) and Kin (2022).
“I was put on Zoloft, and that basically numbed me for 30 years,” he adds. “And I had tried to come off this medication before, and that didn’t go well. I tried to stop cold turkey, and that just did not work at all. But I tried to do it again recently, and I did it the right way. I tapered off.”
He calls this tapering-off the “healthy way” to stop using his medication, but acknowledges it’s still “come with consequences”.
Bozeman finishes by stating his drive to “get better”, thanking fans for their support and telling them, “Just talk to someone if you need to, and don’t ever hide it or hold it back. It’s not worth it.”
Whitechapel’s next scheduled shows are two performances in Chattanooga and Nashville in their home state of Tennessee on December 19 and 20. At time of publication, these gigs seem set to go ahead.
