Wargasm's Sam Matlock allegedly assaulted by bouncers at London's Scala venue

Wargasm vocalist/guitarist Sam Matlock was reportedly assaulted last Friday (November 5) at the Scala venue in London. The attack was allegedly committed by the venue's security guards, who "slammed" Matlock's head down on a toilet seat backstage before pushing his head into the bowl.

The band, made up of Sam Matlock and Milkie Way, had performed at the Kings Cross music venue as part of FaceDown, "London's biggest rock night".

Matlock noted that the bouncers showed “unnecessary use of force" in a statement posted on their social media yesterday on November 7, which was presented with an accompanying image that showed red marks down his back.

Allegedly, the Scala's security guards were overheard being "verbally aggressive" towards the band’s female tour manager, causing Matlock to have to “step in”.

Describing what unfolded next, the post reads: "After this, in a completely overzealous and unnecessary use of force, three bouncers then dragged Sam into the backstage toilets, where two of them slammed his head against the toilet seat and held his head in the toilet bowl while the third bouncer held the door closed with his foot.

“At this point, luckily, another member of our touring party was able to intervene and remove Sam from the situation".

The band’s statement continued: “Wargasm’s management have been attempting to contact Scala directly over the weekend to no avail. Scala have still not responded to our team’s emails.

“We feel that anyone visiting or playing at this venue should be aware of our deeply shocking experience and the treatment of our team by the current security staff.

“It’s now been made very clear to us that as long as this current security team are under employment there, from our experience we do not consider Scala a safe venue, especially for women.

“Wargasm will not accept aggression, verbal or physical, towards any member of our team, and we are aware that this kind of attitude can be a behaviour that repeats and rarely happens in total isolation. It therefore must be looked at with immediate effect by Scala to ensure the safety of everyone who uses their facilities in the future.”

FaceDown, the promoter of the club night, responded to the statement by stating that they are aware of the incident and that they “would like to extend our sincere apologies” to the band.

In a post on Instagram, they write: “While we do not employ the security at our events, as this is the venue’s responsibility we do not appreciate people being manhandled this way be it someone in the crowd or backstage. This has been communicated to the venue and we await their response.”

Following the allegations, the Scala have issued a post on social media, stating: "Scala is aware of the allegations that have been made and are conducting a full scale investigation with our security provider, Saber Security. We will not tolerate this sort of behaviour alleged or otherwise."

A spokesman for the Security Industry Authority, which regulates the security industry, confirmed a complaint had been received. He said, "We have received a report relating to an incident at the Wargasm gig and will be looking into this further."

Saber Security have offered a company statement which reveals that the two security guards related to the alleged assault have now been fired. It reads: "We can confirm that Saber Security is currently investigating an incident that occurred on the 5 November at SCALA Nightclub, Kings Cross.

"We have suspended the services of the security operatives concerned, pending a full and thorough investigation. We will be working closely with all agencies and our customer, that includes local authorities and the Security Industry Authority (SIA) to ensure appropriate action is taken quickly to prevent incidents like this from happening again. We welcome any investigation about this incident by the Security Industry Authority (SIA) and police taking place.

 As a company, we take these matters very seriously. We would like the time to investigate the incident in full and ensure moving forward measures are in place to again prevent incidents like this from happening. At present we reserve the right to comment until our investigation is concluded. All we can say at present is that we do not condone any unlawful behaviour."