Donagh Ramseyer, vocalist and guitarist of Swiss thrash metal group Xonor, has revealed that he’s removed a “significant portion” of the band’s songs from streaming platforms because their respective themes and titles no longer serve their original purpose.
“A significant portion of our music has been removed from streaming platforms. Some of them were among our most popular songs. That was not an accident.
“For a long time, Xonor was an outlet for my anger. Anger at corruption, abuse of power, hypocrisy, tyranny, and the general direction the world seems to be heading in. I want to be clear: I am genuinely grateful that, for a lot of you, those songs gave them an outlet to process that same frustration. If our music helped you deal with anger in a way that did not destroy you or anyone else, I am thankful for that. That was always part of why I made aggressive music in the first place. But over time, it became hard to ignore that for some people, it was not just an outlet anymore.
“It became more like an answer. Like rage itself was the point. Like destruction would fix everything. Like ‘Murder the Government’ was not just a song, but some kind of solution. And I cannot stand behind that anymore.
“When songs like ‘Murder the Government’ and ‘Copkiller’ were written, they came from a real place. They were not fake. They were not just shock value. They came from frustration with systems that lie, manipulate, abuse power, and crush normal people while pretending it is all for their own good. The reality of that has not changed. But just because something comes from a real place does not mean you have to stay there forever.
“For too long, I hid behind the idea that people would understand what I really meant. I told myself, ‘People will get it.’ And for the most part, they did. I told myself, ‘It is up to the listener to interpret it.’ I told myself, ‘What people do with the music is not my responsibility.’ But deep down, I know that was not true.
“I cannot keep acting like I have nothing to do with the message I put into the world. I cannot keep songs online just because they got numbers, reactions, or attention, while knowing deep down that I no longer believe they point in the right direction. I treated parts of the old discography like trophies. And that is exactly why they had to go.
“The world has not suddenly become less corrupt. There are still lies worth calling out. There is still hypocrisy worth confronting. There is still evil worth naming and that is not going away anytime soon. My music is not going to become silent, vague, or afraid to speak clearly about what is wrong. But my perspective has changed. My goal is no longer to just rage against the world. The goal is to tell the truth about it, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.
“I am not interested in making Xonor safer or easier to digest. But from now on, the aggression will serve something higher than ego, resentment, or blind rage. I do not want Xonor to be a soundtrack for nihilism, hatred, or directionless rebellion. I do not want to feed people empty rage and act like that is truth. After everything I have seen, everything I have believed, and everything I have been wrong about, there is one thing I know to be true, and this will be the direction Xonor will be taking.”