News : Visa rejection for the Ne Obliviscaris guitarist

Direct from the band:

Hi everyone,

So often we have had something terrible happen in this band, only for a silver lining to appear sometime after. Whether it be the never ending line-up changes that saw us take 3 years to reach our live debut, parting ways with our lead guitarist shortly after releasing ‘The Aurora Veil’ demo, or one of many other unfortunate occurrences along the way, somehow, out of the bad, always came the good.

One of our most difficult periods was definitely the nine-month search for a new lead guitarist in 2007/08. After many months of unsuccessful auditions, finding Benjamin Baret and convincing him to move all the way to Australia to join Ne Obliviscaris was the saving grace of this band. Until we came across him the future of this band looked very bleak and we are eternally grateful to the man we affectionately know as Benji. He has become our brother, one of our best friends, and our musical soul mate. The band is so much better off for having him, and our lives are so much better for knowing him.

The year 2010 has seen more than a few challenges for this band. Our album has been delayed endlessly due to many things out of our control that we haven’t disclosed publicly (deaths in band members families, illness, injury, visa trouble & much more), and with the album finally at the mixing stage and nearing completion in the coming weeks we have received another set back, another piece of terrible news.

Some of you may remember that in July 2009 we held a fundraising show in Melbourne called ‘Festival De La Grenouille’ (Festival of the Frog) which raised the several thousand dollars required to apply for a ‘Distinguished Talent’ visa for Benji to stay in Australia long term. We were informed a decision on the application would take 6-9 months.

Now, after more than 14 months of waiting we have finally received word that his application has been rejected.

At present Benji is in France, without a valid visa to come back to Australia, and realistically we don’t know when he’ll be able to return.

Without Benji as our lead guitarist it would be very difficult for Ne Obliviscaris to continue.

The concept of trying to replace our brother just seems so daunting and is something we really don’t even want to consider. But we have put 7 long hard years into this band, and we haven’t spent all our life savings on this forthcoming album to just let the band die without a fight. We strongly disagree with the Department of Immigration’s decision, and feel that the reasons given showed, amongst other things, a great lack of understanding about the worldwide music and metal scene, and Benjamin Baret and Ne Obliviscaris’ place within it. Hence, we have decided to appeal the Department of Immigration’s decision to reject Benji’s visa.

We know that there are a number of people out there who love what we do and have been really looking forward to this album, and to the many albums to come after that! We have had fans asking us to tour, not just to North America, Europe/UK & Asia, but Bangladesh, Iran, Argentina & many other countries across the world as well. The support we have garnered from just a demo release has really blown us away over the past couple of years, and now we need your support more than ever.

Over the next few weeks we will be putting together the appeal to present to the Migration Review Tribunal here in Melbourne, Australia. There are a couple things people can do to help:

Petition:
We have put together an online petition (see link at the bottom), and are asking anyone who is a fan of Ne Obliviscaris to sign the petition, and post this letter up on your myspace/facebook page, send it in to webzines, post it on forums, tell your friends/families and anyone who will listen to you. The more people that sign this, from as many different countries around the world, the more weight it will carry with the tribunal.

Letters:
If you are passionate about Ne Obliviscaris and would like to help as much as possible, please write a letter in support of the appeal as well! Write about what this band means to you and what you think about this situation and why you think the Migration Review Tribunal should approve Benji’s visa application. Post it directly to us at the below address, and then we’ll give all of them to the tribunal in support of our case.

We have a huge performance coming up at ‘Sonic Forge Festival’ here in Melbourne on December 4 and we just want to assure everyone that we will still be performing at this event.Thankfully, a friend of ours, Ned Claridge (who is actually a guitar student of Benji’s) is helping us out and filling in. We will have a physical petition available for people to sign on the day for those planning to attend and it would be great to see as many of you there as possible.

At present we don’t plan on booking any further shows until we know for certain that Benji will be able to return to Australia, so all future shows and the release of the album are currently up in the air.

We are all incredibly passionate about this band, and want to take this as far as possible. We have significant interest from several overseas record labels, overseas tour offers on the table & a desire to tour anywhere we can. But we can’t do any of this without Benjamin Baret. He is an integral part of this band, and losing him would be a blow from which we may never recover.

Please help us secure the future of this band by supporting this appeal. Sign the petition, write a letter and tell your friends. If you know anybody prominent in the music industry, here in Australia or Internationally, please tell them about our cause and see if you can get their support.

We want to overwhelm the tribunal with the support Benji & NeO has from across the world. We can’t do it without all of you though.

Thanking you all in advance!

Regards,

Brendan, Xen, Dan, Matt & Tim

PETITION LINK:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/40983.html

SEND LETTERS TO:
NE OBLIVISCARIS
PO Box 6285
Caulfield South
VIC, 3162
Australia

Notes on letters:

• Address the letter to the above address.
• Please write the letter itself to the ‘Migration Review Tribunal’ and reference Benjamin Baret by his full name rather than Ben or Benji.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN HELP BENJAMIN BARET & NE OBLIVISCARIS PLEASE EMAIL:

save.neobliviscaris(at)gmail.com