Sean Reinert Opens Up About The Status of Cynic

As most of you are aware by now, quite the debacle started out in the Cynic camp early yesterday afternoon, when drummer Sean Reinert made a Facebook post through Cynic’s official page informing fans of the (second) dissolution of the band. Unlike the circumstances surrounding the first breakup, however, this time there initially appeared to be some bad blood between Reinert and long-standing musical collaborator Paul Masvidal, and the drummer directly mentioned how friction between the two of them had reached a breaking point and that going on further was just not possible.

Some claimed to have seen it coming after their latest album garnered a less-than-stellar response, but most fans, myself included, were completely stunned. It didn’t help that this post also meant the cancellation of two whole upcoming tours, which if anything only further illustrated the magnitude of the differences at hand between the two musicians.

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It is with a heavy heart that I post today’s CYNIC news. CYNIC is no longer an active band. Due to artistic and personal…

Posted by Cynic on Thursday, September 10, 2015

Paul Masvidal responded in kind soon after with a post on his own Facebook page, mentioning being somewhat relieved (and basically confirming the tension that Reinert had talked about) that this was over, but also talking about finding a new drummer and having Cynic “continue in one way or another.” He went on to say that Reinert had locked him out of the official Cynic page, and so he was forced to post on his own page instead. As of the time of writing, this is the only public update that Masvidal has put out.

Dear fans and friends, this is all news to me. I just landed from Japan and my inbox was exploding. Sean didn’t confer…

Posted by Paul Masvidal on Thursday, September 10, 2015

Reinert proceeded to screenshot the admin settings behind the Cynic page, calling out Masvidal for lying about being locked out of the page and claiming that the screenshot was evidence of this. (Again, Masvidal has yet to respond since his initial post).

Posted by Sean Reinert on Thursday, September 10, 2015

The final public update thus far, which was posted today morning, has been Reinert adding “one last thing” and zeroing in on Masvidal’s mention that this was a surprise to the latter.

I would just like to add one small thing and then just let the dust settle. When you are in a bad marriage you just get…

Posted by Sean Reinert on Friday, September 11, 2015

This morning, we at Heavy Blog is Heavy received an email from Sean Reinert himself, offering to answer any questions we may have, after which our editor Noyan exchanged a few emails with him.

As it turns out, Reinert’s grievances do run a little deeper than simple “friction” — he claims that while some tension had been brewing for a while, the last straw was when Masvidal supposedly showed up for the recent Japan tour with Cyclamen and Plini completely unprepared.

In a nutshell things have been quite rocky for a couple of years and things just came to a final head so to speak. The final straw being even though our whole show was streaming (most guitar parts and vocal parts) Paul showed up to Japan completely unprepared. Unrehearsed. I have been used to dealing with business conflicts and even personal conflicts but the most important thing has ALWAYS been the MUSIC.

That being said, Reinert makes clear that he is speaking for himself and not Sean Malone, who has yet to comment at all on the situation (and likely won’t, considering that he hasn’t historically been the type to do interviews and the like) but who flew back with Reinert from Japan.

I cannot speak for Sean Malone, however I can say that we rommed [sic] together the whole time in Japan and flew back together. Weather [sic] or not he goes on the tour that Paul is trying to salvage will really inform everyone what’s really going on.

Reinert also expresses some disappointment with the fact that Masvidal’s other band (Onward with Love, a project with Amy Correia) was opening for Cynic on the European tour next year, citing it as growing evidence for Cynic becoming what he calls ‘The Paul Show’.

It’s unfortunate but it just became THE PAUL SHOW, and I was %50 financially and professionally responsible for any and all decisions made. Not to get messy, but things were being with held, he even tried to mix the last record without me so..

Reinert goes on to say that Cynic was ultimately a 50-50 partnership between him and Masvidal, and so it remains within his right to cut off said partnership as he sees fit, even if he expresses regret that things have come to this. Cynic’s legal status remains unexplained, and it’s unsure whether the brand will be dissolved, or Masvidal will be able to legally keep it going on his own — or whether we have another Queensryche situation on our hands.

Reinert ended our conversation by expressing his regret over how the entire situation has played out.

I think just that I do feel it’s incredibly unfortunate. I do feel bad for the fans and apologize. It should be all about the music and it’s really a shame that other matters are able to cloud that intention.

At the end of the day, a lot of things still seem like they’re in the air, and the fact still is that we still have very little from Masvidal’s side of things. It kind of hurts me to see one of my favourite bands splitting up so unceremoniously, but everyone is human, and sometimes things unfortunately do turn out this way after all. All that we can do now is silently watch and see how the rest of the story will pan out.

We have reached out to Masvidal but have yet to receive a response. We will provide an update if there are any further developments of note.

Update: A reader pointed out to us that ex-Cynic member Tymon Kruidenier publicly spoke out in favor of Reinert on his Facebook page.

I won’t waste too many words on this, as I don’t particularly like badmouthing people. But I’ll speak up here in Sean’s defense.

Robin and I left Cynic for the exact same reason. That pretty much says it all.

-AH

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