Evile members Matt Drake, Ol Drake and Ben Carter have released the following statement: "This has been one of the most bizarre and surreal tasks we've ever had to undertake. It isn't like Mike has decided to leave the band and we're simply finding a new bass player, he was taken from us, and we were forced to replace him. In effect we had to look for a new Mike, but that would never happen. He was one of a kind, and we'll never forget him.

"We had hundreds upon hundreds of emails from bass players from around the world (though we can only realistically have a bassist from the UK), and we want to thank everyone for taking the time out to contact us, and the people who came to jam with us. We only had a certain amount of time to actually audition/jam with bass players before the upcoming tours, to get time in for rehearsing the songs, getting visas sorted etc.