According to multiple reports within the scene, Drag Me Out have been accused of “ripping off” the artwork for their latest single ‘The Watch Of The Buried’.
ThePRP have reported that the artwork appears to be very similar to that of a 2014 illustration Maxime Taccardi produced dubbed ‘Ebola’. The artist posted the following on his Facebook account:
“Total rip off my art, not only they didn’t ask my permission to copy my painting, they did not even mention as me as the source of inspiration. People are disrespectful – Drag Me Out. That shit pisses me off!”
A statement reportedly released by the band’s drummer Chris Nokia in response to the artist’s post about the alleged copyright theft states the following:
“Our singer [Stoff] presented it to us as it was something he created. And we believed him, I’m glad you messaged me about this, it’s really bad. To be 100% honest, me, the bassist and guitarist had no idea about it, we are mostly just going with the flow of what our singer is saying, so I’m not arguing with you at all. I’m totally your friend and support you since this is a copyright infringement.”
In the meantime, Drag Me Out frontman Denis Stoff commented on the issue by offering the following explanation:
“I need to clear this up for those who’ve been commenting about our single artwork – we bought it from the freelance artist and we had no idea about the similarities with a different artist. I reached out to the guy directly and I promise, we will figure it out. That’s what he should’ve been doing in the first place instead of sending all of you to spam my comment section. That’s called maturity.”
It can be suggested that the artist didn’t believe the former Asking Alexandria frontman’s explanation, as illustrated in the following responses on Instagram: