So, what's going on with Our Great War?

It seems that there has been an implosion of sorts within the Our Great War camp as of late, if recent comments from vocalist Joshua Westwick are to be believed.

The last announcement that we had heard from this Melbourne-based metal outfit was in September last year when they a) released the music video for their song, 'Mirror Me' (found below) and b) when they signed with Sony/Faction Music for their album 'Unknown Soldier', which is supposedly meant to be released later this year. However, that may not happen now due to the current issues between the members.

So what has actually happened? Well, a post (read below) from Westwick earlier tonight alleges guitarist Roman Koester of not only taking the band for himself but also threatening to "pull the pin" on the group.

Furthermore, around that same time, the group's drummer Aaron Fiocca made the following post, also via social media, in relation to Westwick's comments.

"Me and you both brother... We worked sooooo fucking hard on this album.. Spent long days and long nights working on getting every aspect and angle of this album to the best we could possibly get it from ALL of our point of view and vision.. Especially the last 3 months of finishing it all up and re-recording drums, extra vocals, etc etc... You spent another year on top of that before I even joined!!! You were so passionate about this band brother, and it was an absolute pleasure spending those months with you working on what we could do to polish everything off. You have such a great vision and are an amazing frontman/musician. We were so happy with how it all came out at the end...... I know Roman worked his ass off on it as well at the start of it all and I respected him for that.......but now what do we do??????? Seriously it's a joke. My endorsements were backing me and supplying me with endless amounts of sticks, cymbals, drum heads, snares, and everything else to make this the best it could possibly be.. Also including taking months of work, unable to save money, and losing quality time with my girlfriend. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'VE publicly addressed this situation out of respect for Roman....... BUT FUCK IT. It's been said now. GREAT WORK Joshua Westwick. Love you brother. ‪#‎freeourgreatwar‬"

Now, in a recent post through the band's social media, Our Great War have made an official statement on the matter at hand. Read it below:

"We have not wanted to put this out in a public forum as we believed that it was the personal business of our band but due to the utter garbage that has been posted by our Ex Vocalist tonight on FB we feel the need to set the record straight.

As with every story there is always two sides and it is your right as listeners and friends of OGW to believe what you want, however this is the truth.

Due to personal issues and unreliability to the band we had to part ways with Joshua and Aaron earlier this year. We felt that the negative impacts this was having on the band were too great to resolve- not due to lack of trying or numerous chances given.

UPDATE #1: So we've heard both sides of the stories now, but we reached out for a comment from Koester (formerly of The Red Shore/Boris The Blade fame) himself, and he gave us this personal statement to use for this post, which, like the band's full statement just above, tells a very different story to the vocalist and drummer.

"I feel I need to clear a few things up. Firstly, the entire album was written before Josh even auditioned. I came up with the band name, the concept & put the whole thing together. I wrote & programmed the drums for the album & all material ever released by OGW. Aaron had nothing to do with any of it other than coming in, influencing Josh to do massive amounts of drugs with him (we all dabble from time to time, but this got completely ridiculous), which then caused Josh to back track on everything, doubt previous released film clips (which he then made private at Aaron's request because Aaron said they were shit). Aaron managed to convince me to let him re-do the drums, to which I spent hours and hours recording him playing beats that were different & didn't match the songs because he didn't bother to learn them, then for him at the end of tracking to say "I'll just play cymbals and paste kicks in". What the hell is the point of all that!?

Things went from bad to worse, after having parties every night at my studio, with randoms, after asking them countless times to not, because it was a business, which was made clear from the start. They would leave the keys in the front door all night on the main street, this happened 3 times in one week. These are just some of things. We decided to tell Josh that we couldn't work with Aaron anymore, to which he said, "You can't do that. You're out of the band". Meaning me. I said, "Mate I wrote it all, you can take your lyrics & I'll take my music."

I then got a notification that someone tried to change the account passwords for the bands online accounts, so that's when I took Josh off admin. I kept his name as singer still, as this was only a safety thing in case he wanted to delete me!

Anyway long story short, Josh flipped sides & said that it was all Aaron & he got into his head, so we decided to give Josh another shot. We arranged a rehearsal to catch up & go over the album. Josh didn't even show up. He didn't even message for 2 days. & his excuse was pathetic & non apologetic to say the least. This was the final straw, we wished him luck, said he could take his lyrics & song titles and see ya later. This was about 5 weeks ago, we haven't heard a word until tonight."

Finally, the guitarist also clarified his position, rather remorsefully, on the band in regards to the song-writing and the band itself.

"I have in no way used or gained anything from Josh or Aaron, as the album musically was done without them & we won't be using any of their input or Lyrics etc on the release. In fact, it's the opposite, I've potentially lost a record deal & wasted a year."

Update #2 (24/2/2016): Our Great War's bassist Tim Watts has also thrown his hat into the ring regarding the accusations of the group's drummer and vocalist. Read his full statement (posted through Facebook) below.

"When we started this band it was a bunch of good friends having fun playing music, which personally is the only reason I do it. Unfortunately we lost our friend and drummer Dylan to another band, which wasn't what we had planned but most of us were happy for him and wished him well. With this came Aaron, at this point the whole dynamic changed for me and the band wasn't the same so we parted ways with him after a short time. Unfortunately Josh had chosen the path he wanted and started to drift away also... so this spells the end of a great thing we had going. It's a shame and it saddens me but shit happens and people change. If I could right the perfect script I would.... but bands just ain't that easy".... Tim Watts - Bass"

We'll keep this post updated as the story develops.