The producer behind Dark Angel‘s comeback album has posted a long statement online. Gene Hoglan has not responded publicly.
The man who produced Dark Angel‘s first album in 34 years and managed the band for close to two decades has gone public with a set of financial allegations against its drummer.
Robert Shallcross, who founded the Vancouver label Reversed Records and produced and engineered last year’s Extinction Level Event, published a lengthy statement on Facebook accusing Gene Hoglan of leaving invoices unpaid and withholding money owed to staff. Hoglan has made no public response, and the claims have not been tested anywhere beyond the post itself.
Shallcross‘ wrote:
“So it’s time to address the elephant in the room. Gene Hoglan, has many unpaid invoices to Reversed Records. Myself and Reversed Records walked away from doing anything further untill that was settled. I was very happy to leave.
“After Genes decision to use AI art on the current Dark Angel release, against our council, he knew the fans backlash was a possibility and indeed happened.
“We advised to cancel the tour it felt blacklisted by fans. He declined, we ALL lost allot of money. Gene used this to cause issues and held back the pay of the people that helped his campaign and prior endeavors. We simply walked away after he refused to pay. Publicly he made it look, like he left. I assure you that was not the case.”
“Are we bitter, or disgruntled, not at all.”
“It was extremely challenging to do my job after my dear friend Jim Durkin passed during the making of the new Dark Angel release, my job became absolute torture, for the first time in almost 20 years of an incredibly enjoyable run that I am eternally grateful for. However, other people getting involved in our business and the power struggle that ensued was not enjoyable.”
“During the recording process that took 3 years (6 months in the actual studio) which I did not get paid for and investment was never reimbursed. I was not aloud to produce the vocals or Laura‘s guitar solos. That was a first for any project I’ve ever been apart of in 30 years. No matter how hard we tried, the situation became so toxic and In my opinion unsaveable.”
“Let’s rewind, when I met Gene he was living on a mattress in his friends living room in East Vancouver, 400 pounds and extremely unhealthy. We created an amazing friendship and evolved his business to bring in, millions of dollars annually, and at this point we believe he wanted all the revenue without sharing. I offered him an amicable severance of him covering what the staff and expenses were owed and we would be good, he declined.”
“Loosing my good friend of 20 years was the absolute hardest part of this situation, not the funds. Not being able to pay my staff, Heartbreaking.”
“After we started posting humor and memes, many of my industry colleagues reached out. Many of them have been unpaid by artists and never stood up for themselves due to the fear of black list or not getting work. Myself, I never gave a f*k or ever will.”
“I understand most of you do not understand my humor, honestly most people do not. My favorite comics are Andy Kaufman, GG Allin, Tom Green, Richard Pryor, and new comic Eric Andre.”
“One thing that I was asked that stood out, a colleague asked me, was it worth losing $$$? I replied I made Hoglan eat s**t in front of his whole community, yes of course it was worth it.”
“I wish them well. But I will never stop, until his debt is paid. I have zero fear of being blacklisted, or not getting work in a community that would support this type of action.
“Yours truly Robert Shallcross“
The working relationship behind the statement was a long one. Shallcross, a Juno and Western Canadian Music Award-winning engineer, managed Hoglan, Dark Angel and Death To All through Reversed Records, and was involved in reassembling Dark Angel for festival appearances in 2014. He also produced and co-directed Hoglan‘s film The Atomic Clock: The Clock Strikes Two.
Extinction Level Event was released digitally on September 5 last year through Reversed Records, the band’s first album since 1991’s Time Does Not Heal. It was recorded between July 2024 and February 2025 at The Armoury Studios in Vancouver, produced and engineered by Shallcross, mixed by Mike Fraser and executive produced by Hoglan. The band chose to keep it off Spotify, selling it through the label’s own site instead, a decision Hoglan explained at the time as an ethical one.
The Laura Christine named in the statement is Dark Angel‘s rhythm guitarist and Hoglan‘s wife, who joined the band in 2022. Jim Durkin, the founding guitarist Shallcross refers to, died on March 8, 2023 at 58 after severe liver disease. The album’s title track was a Durkin composition written roughly a decade earlier.
The artwork dispute is the one point on which Hoglan has spoken publicly, though those remarks came in November last year and were not addressed to Shallcross. Responding to criticism of AI imagery on the release, Hoglan said at the time: “I will say one thing: if anybody thinks our artist, Cain [Gillis], just typed in a sentence into an A.I. generator and out popped this perfect piece of artwork, that is absolutely not anywhere near the case. It took tons of work — actual human work. Cain told me he spent over — I think it was 2,000 hours on the artwork for this record. Have an artist charge you by the hour, [and] then keep that in mind.”
While Hoglan admitted: “We utilize some A.I. on our stuff,” he was blunt about his personal stance on the controversy.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I understand the new A.I. generation is very anti-A.I. I don’t care. I like kicka** art… Kicka** art is kicka** art.”
He added: “When people started putting art on computers, doing computer-generated art 40 years ago, I’m sure the artists who were paint brushing… were, like, ‘Why are doing this on a computer? This isn’t an artist. This is a travesty.’”
Hoglan insisted that the final art for Extinction Level Event, which he said was based on his own concepts, was a hybrid of multiple human-led techniques.
“I think the general public, they aren’t quite aware of all the actual computer art that we did put on to our A.I. stuff,” he explained. “There’s photography in our new artwork. Cain [Gillis] is out there taking pictures of things and blending them into that. And Cain is doing tons of computer stuff.”
He concluded that while he respects others’ opinions, he stands by the album’s art and will not apologize for using new tools.
“If you wanna deny yourself the pleasure of the Dark Angel music because you have your viewpoints… fair enough. I’m gonna have a different opinion, but I know exactly all the work that went into this,” he said. “We are not the first, we are definitely not gonna be the last. So you can fight it… I love our artwork… I know a lot of my friends have reached out to me and said, ‘I love the new album. It sounds great. I love the artwork. This is killer.’ So I hear differently.”
“The Extinction Level Event” North American tour, which Shallcross says he advised cancelling, went ahead as planned from September 5, with Sacred Reich, Hirax, Vio-Lence, Midnight, Void and Interceptor supporting on various dates. It was the band’s first full North American run since the early 1990s.
None of the financial claims in the statement has been independently confirmed, and no legal proceedings have been reported. Hoglan had not commented at the time of writing.
