The Bad Penny (beta)

“If you love metal … there’s a reason to care about politics,” Absolute Darkness guitarist/ lead vocalist Ron Dorn says, voicing dismay at the authoritarian takeover of the U.S., in a recent interview.

Not only does Dorn lead the aforementioned Bay Area death/thrash metal band, he also develops 70K Bands, an unofficial app used by passengers of the 70000 Tons of Metal cruise/festival. In the latest installment of On Tyranny, he discusses the effects of the Trump regime’s obliteration of international relations, pointing to a decline in the proportion of Canadian users in the app’s data.

“By the time we sail, we get about over 2,000 to 3,000 people on the ship,” Dorn says. “With all the stuff going on with Trump attacking Canada, calling it ‘the 51st state,’ the tariffs …. Canada went from 12 percent of the cruisers to 8 or 9. And I don’t blame them. Why should [they] spend my money in the U.S. when all this is going on? [There are] real world consequences [happening], and now the event is having a harder time selling out.”

(The Canadian percentages Dorn cites are based on users of his unofficial app, rather than official passenger figures from the cruise.)

We’re also rolling out the conversation now because yesterday Absolute Darkness dropped the third single, “Above the Law,” in anticipation of the October 23 release of their second album, Witness to a Dying World.

“It’s the last video of the pre-release cycle [and makes it] obvious where we stand politically,” Dorn adds.

For more on Absolute Darkness, check out their Bandcamp page.

Also, don’t miss this rad list of the best Bay Area bands that Dorn generously assembled for us last month.

This entry was posted on 10/09/2026 at 11:23 am and is filed under Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny, Videos with tags 70000 Tons of Metal, 70K Bands, Absolute Darkness, authoritarianism, Canada, fascism, On Tyranny, tariffs, trump, tyranny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.