CRADLE OF FILTH played its first concert following the departure of guitarist Marek “Ashok” Šmerda on Tuesday, August 26, just hours after the Czech-born musician revealed he was planning to leave the band at the end of the band’s ongoing Latin American tour. Fan-filmed video of the show at Montevideo Music Box in Montevideo, Uruguay can be seen below.

Šmerda, who had played with the veteran extreme metal veterans for more than a decade, was fired by CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani Filth after the guitarist shared a post on social media in which he described his time in the group as “a lot of work for relatively low pay, the stress is quite high, and we haven’t felt for a while like this band actually prioritizing/caring about members”. He also said that he asked to have his contributions “removed” from all of CRADLE OF FILTH‘s “upcoming releases”, including the band’s long-delayed collaborative track with pop superstar Ed Sheeran, explaining that it “this song feels like foolish clown antics for me at this point anyways — first it was charity single for kids, then for profit single, then on next album, and now who knows and I just do not want to be involved anymore, no disrespect to Ed Sheeran.”

Ashok‘s announcement that he would depart CRADLE OF FILTH came just two days after his wife, Zoë M. Federoff, left the group mid-tour after serving as CRADLE OF FILTH‘s female vocalist and keyboardist for the past three years.

Federoff, who joined CRADLE in 2022, said on Sunday that she was leaving the band effective immediately, citing “personal reasons”. She also shot down rumors that she was exiting the group due to problems in her marriage.

Šmerda and Federoff later issued a joint statement, calling CRADLE‘s management “dishonest” and “manipulative” and warning future members of the band to “read the contract”.

The couple got engaged in 2024 and married in January.

A short time after Ashok shared his statement on social media, Dani announced Šmerda‘s immediate dismissal from CRADLE OF FITH, insisting that “despite all attempts to illegally defame and derail the band, CRADLE OF FILTH WILL NOT cancel any of our South American shows, though fans will have to bear with us being a band with only one guitarist live, that is of course until Ashok‘s temporary replacement is flown out to join the tour in a few days’ time.”

He continued: “Thank you for your understanding in this horrible matter, we are all in a state of shock over proceedings and will share our side to these unfortunate events in due course. Please, respect our decision to part with Ashok now rather than at the end of the tour and avoid speculation as more clarity on the situation will be provided.

“The rest of the band are cool, even if taken aback, and accusations toward management, who work very closely with me and the band are completely unjust and unfounded.”

CRADLE OF FILTH‘s concert in Uruguay saw Dani joined by Martin “Marthus” Škaroupka on drums, Daniel Firth on bass, Donny Burbage on guitar and Kelsey Peters on keyboards and backing vocals.

It is not presently unclear who will temporarily replace Šmerda on some of the remaining shows on CRADLE OF FILTH‘s Latin American tour.

Born in Brno, Czech Republic, Šmerda had been the guitarist for CRADLE OF FILTH since early 2014 when he received the invitation to embark on a European tour with the band. Since then, he had become a full-time member, having toured all around the world with the group while simultaneously having contributed to the CRADLE OF FILTH releases “Hammer Of The Witches”, “Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness Of Decay”, “Existence Is Futile” and “The Screaming Of The Valkyries”.