If you’re a fan of Krieg or Twilight then you might be familiar with Neill Jameson, who at one point was also a member of Nachtmystium. The multi-instrumentalist wrote a piece for Noisey that was posted yesterday which goes into great detail about the type of person that Nachtmystium frontman Blake Judd really is and his relationship with him. I encourage you to check out the post because it’s pretty ridiculous, below are some excerpts from the story.
Just a short bit of what Jameson had to put up with while staying at Judd’s while working on a Krieg record:
“In 2010 I was in Chicago recording Krieg’s “comeback” record. I had tried my best to avoid him during this trip, but on the night I was meant to leave there was a terrible snowstorm. Blake offered to put me up at his place until the weather cleared and I could fly back home, so I decided to stay in and get some sleep. He woke me up around three in the morning by sitting on my chest and holding me down. I was aware he was fucking around with heroin under the misguided idea that it would help him with his music.
His idolatry of Kurt Cobain was very well known among his friends. He told me when I woke up that we were going to take a cab (in a fucking blizzard) to the ghetto to buy heroin. He told me that I was a “poser” for covering the Velvet Underground without ever shooting up. We got into a somewhat physical altercation, and he told me “You need this. It’s time you had another tragedy in your life” before calling me a “faggot” and leaving. By the time he got home with the drugs I was asleep on the floor of O’Hare. That was the last time I saw him in any kind of good physical shape.”
He also spoke of Judd’s condition during the recording of Twilight’s record III: Beneath Trident’s Tomb:
“When I got to Chicago, Blake’s place was a shithole, sort of like the den from the opening of “Trainspotting.” I didn’t enjoy it for a second, but I was there to work. Every morning I would wake up, move his needles out of the way in the bathroom so I could brush my teeth, and clean blood out of the shower so I could bathe. I have never been more psyched on the decision to bring my own towel anywhere ever. Sometimes I’d come out of the bathroom and there would be a dealer in the kitchen, always courteous enough to ask me if I too wanted some heroin. Blake barely did anything except check his paypal and smoke my cigarettes.”
Near the end of the article Jameson spoke of the most recent of Judd’s transgressions, the recent ripoff of fans who pre-ordered Nachtmystium’s latest record The World We Left Behind, Jameson said:
“Then Blake made the move that would prove to be his largest public fuckup: the “bundle” packages. He claimed to sell a preorder for the vinyl and/or CD of his new record with an exclusive shirt. He began this preorder campaign two months before his record was set to hit shelves. Enough people realized they were out money, and they took to his pages—where other Nachtmystium fans would defend their idol until Blake would ban whomever was complaining they never received their merch.
During this fiasco someone on behalf of Xasthur contacted me regarding the split. Apparently Blake had contacted the label and told them to send Xasthur’s copies to him and he would send them right over. This was discovered quickly enough that it was blocked. And then all went silent. Blake removed his internet presence. The “Blakecrush” page grew to almost a thousand people, who all began to file Paypal complaints. He moved to Western Union, but then talk of wire fraud came up. The money ceased flowing in. Blake vanished.
At the peak of their popularity, the Nachtmystium Facebook page had around 33,000 fans. He had only ripped off about 1 percent of them, and in process he made more than most blue collar workers do in a year. Blake has been attempting to sell the rights to his back catalog to various labels, and the rumor is he found one willing to give him $17,000 for it. Only he doesn’t own the rights to any of it. Candlelight Records does—from the last time he licensed his back catalog—but they don’t want anything to do with him.
Century Media is doing their best to make up for his mistake with fans and fulfilling orders. My problem with this is both petty and also somewhat larger. The petty part comes from wondering why Twilight never got shit for what we had to put up with because of him. But the other part of me worries that this basically shows him that he doesn’t have to worry about consequences. Someone will always clean up his mess for him. And in a few months after this new deal pays him he’s going to pop back up and try to convince the world that he’s sober and to start sending him money again.
He’s following the Hollywood path of remaking the same fucking movie over and over again, with weaker results each time. And people will welcome him back with open arms. Because, like I said, he’s only fucked over about 1 percent of his total fanbase. There’s still 99 percent of you out there who post shit like “well he never fucked me over, you guys are all haters” etc when the subject gets brought up. And you’ll keep enabling him to continue to hurt people, to fuck people over, and to treat people like refuse because beyond being a junkie he’s also a solipsist. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself because to him that’s all there is.
Earlier in the year he actually began telling people his drug addiction was all caused by Jef Whitehead, throwing one of his only real friends so far under the bus that I can’t think of anything clever to finish this sentence. And it’s complete bullshit. He’s also blamed it on when he broke his leg and doctors gave him opiates as a reason. Also bullshit. You, the public, or even Blake himself can argue all you want, but I was there for all of this. And it was all caused because he romanticized the rock and roll lifestyle and thought that heroin was the only way to achieve it entirely.
I watched him shoot up into his hand and then tell his wife five minutes later that a box fell on it and then show her his injection site like somehow cardboard could do that. This is an eternally self-perpetuating cycle if you allow it. Blake spends his time between a notable drug motel and the streets these days, just waiting for that check to come and clear.”