The internet has been riveted since last Friday by the story of “Jered Threatin,” a Los Angeles-based musician who employed a complex scheme involving several completely made-up companies — including a record label, booking agency, press outlet and web design firm — doctored live videos, and purchased social media likes and views to book a European tour for which no one showed up.

This wasn’t quite how Jered intended to enrapture hundreds of thousands of people; I’m sure he would much rather have gotten attention for the music he makes with his self-named band, Threatin. As the story has unfolded over the last several days, a number of storylines have developed, including a self-made, since deleted Wikipedia page and two band members quitting mid-tour, one of whom spoke to MetalSucks at length. But there has been one big piece of the puzzle missing: who is Jered Threatin? Where did he come from? Is that even his real name?

Well, now we have an answer: Jered Threatin’s real name is Jered Eames.

Eames is from Moberly, Missouri, a small town in the middle of the state about 40 miles from Columbia with a population of just under 14,000. He is 29 years old and currently lives in Hesperia, CA, about 80 miles inland from downtown Los Angeles.

Threatin is not Jered’s first band. Jered was the sole recording member, multi-instrumentalist and live bass player for the black/death metal band Saetith, which put out two EPs in 2007 and 2010 (you can stream the latter of those, Revive the Blasphemy, below). Metal Archives has listings for both Saetith and Jered.

Blabbermouth ran an article in 2010 announcing that Saetith had signed to UK label Rising Records (as far as we can tell, no Saetith album was ever released on the label). An EPK for Saetith on OurStage.com references an association with SPV Records, who, as you may recall, was also name-checked by Threatin’s fake label, Superlative Music Records. Around this time, Jered landed what appears to be a legit endorsement deal with Rotosound bass strings. Justia.com lists a trademark on the name Saetith filed by Jered Eames in 2012.

Eames has a personal Twitter account with 11 followers that is currently private. Here are some photos of Eames from the Saetith era (approximately 2008-2011) culled from his Facebook page and his MySpace page:

But Jered didn’t simply transition from one obscure act to another when he packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles in 2012. Eames had a number of associations with well-known musicians around the metal scene before he traded in his spiky armbands for his vaunted picture frame. What’s more, Eames has had so many run-ins with other prominent musicians that it’s remarkable they’ve all kept completely quiet about Threatin’s true identity over the past several days as this saga has unfolded publicly.

According to MetalUnderground.com, Eames joined Abigail Williams in April of 2010 and played bass on the album they released later that year, In the Absence of Light. Abigail Williams’ Wikipedia entry does not list Eames as having played in the band during that period; interestingly, no bass player is listed. Eames is not listed on the Wiki page for the album, nor is he listed in the credits on AllMusic.com. Eames’ penchant for self-promotion makes it feasible that he sent MetalUnderground.com the news himself despite there being little or no truth in it. It’s also possible that Eames’ stint in Abigail Williams was extremely short-lived.

UPDATE, 12:50pm EST: Abigail Williams bandleader Ken Sorceron has confirmed in a Facebook post that Eames was in the band for a short period in 2010:

The “live musicians” section of Saetith’s Metal Archives page lists guitarist Gian Pyres as having performed with the band. Pyres spent time as a live musician for Cradle of Filth in two different stints totaling six years.

Duane Timlin, also known as Cryptic Winter, played drums live with Saetith. He also spent time in Broken Hope and Dying Fetus, performing on the latter’s 2007 album War of Attrition.

Jered’s brother, Scott, is listed as a past member of Saetith. Scott Eames is currently playing live with Thy Antichrist under the moniker Wicked One and with his own band Nevalra (Metal Archives, Bandcamp).

Furthermore, Saetith enjoyed minor success as a local support act for a variety of much more successful bands. Here’s video footage of a performance at The Blue Note in Kansas City dated April 7th, 2008 on a bill that included Arsis, A Life Once Lost, and The Black Dahlia Murder:

A photo album on MySpace contains a show flyer from a July 11, 2009 show at The Riot Room headlined by Monstrosity as well as some photos of Jered Eames posing with the band members:

In April of 2009, Eames landed Saetith the first slot on a show 446 miles home, providing support for Cannibal Corpse, The Faceless and Neuraxis at The Rave in Milwaukee, WI. In 2008, he scored opening gigs on Summer Slaughter, again in Milwaukee, and with Vital Remains, this time in St. Louis.

It’s not entirely shocking that none of these brushes with the big time bore fruit for Eames. Researching Threatin and Seatith, parallels between Eames’ two projects begin to emerge — parallels that paint an unflattering portrait of a tireless self-promoter with an inflated ego.

For starters, Eames is the sole focus of all of Seatith’s promo material; he clearly prefers to operate as a solo artist and assemble a live lineup for shows. All photos on his social media and press pages focus solely on him.

Furthermore, in Saetith, Eames already displayed another characteristic that would come to define his later scheme in Threatin: making himself appear much more popular and important than he was. There’s the aforementioned Rotosound bass string endorsement (Good for him, but… what player at that level needs an endorsement?), as well as his effort to sell merchandise no one could have possibly ever wanted, such as Saetith guitar picks.

Like Threatin, Saetith also demonstrates Eames’ predilection for bringing his show to international stages, lack of notoriety at even the local level be damned. Saetith went on a “tour” of Puerto Rico in 2011, which was actually just one show in San Juan on March 5th. The show was put on by local promoter Coregrinder Entertainment; Coregrinder’s Facebook page has nothing on it aside from a generic “CE” logo and a photo of an unnamed woman, while the company’s Reverb Nation page lists Saetith’s Revive the Blasphemy album as one of its two releases. While that might suggest that Coregrinder is just another fictional entity created by Eames for his own benefit, it appears as if the promoter actually has, or at least had, some legitimacy: in 2010 and 2011, they also hosted shows in Puerto Rico featuring Destruction, Rotting Christ, Exmortus and Warbringer. How Eames snuck Saetith onto that list is a mystery… except that it’s not. We know his game.

Scott Eames posted video of Saetith’s Puerto Rico performance on YouTube, which you can watch below. The shows do not look empty; they aren’t Threatin-doctored levels of full, but there are definitely people in attendance, up front, watching, enjoying themselves. Perhaps this is how Jered thought it would play out in Europe, too.

Here are some shots from the Puerto Rican “tour” in 2011:

Digging deeper through Eames’ social media presence, though, things take a turn for the sad.

A post from December 6, 2010 announcing the launch of Jered Eames’ personal Facebook page has a comment left by Jerry Eames only 47 weeks ago, which would place it in early December, 2017. You know it when you see it, the writing style of someone from a much older generation, brief, to the point, not quite fluid. This is Jered’s dad.

A quick click through to Jerry’s profile reveals that he has metal in his blood (he has quite a fine collection of guitars, some with very pointy edges), he supports his son Scott’s (Jered’s brother) current band Nevalra, and has worked as an outpatient addiction counselor for 32 years. He is mulling over retirement, attempting to sell his practice.

But what really pulled at my heartstrings is Jerry’s comment itself. He’s looking for his estranged son! He misses him, his heart aches, he’s out of options… it’s a desperation post. It also definitively links Jered and his wife, Kelsey, who was the tour manager for Threatin’s European run.

When I started down this rabbit hole last Friday this is the last place I was expecting to end up, but it seems fitting. After all the twists and turns in this story so far, it’s difficult to imagine that this will be the end: there is still so much more to learn, particularly from Jered himself, who has yet to speak publicly and is still in Europe. MetalSucks has reached out to Jered directly but has not received a response. Yesterday Jered teased that he’d be making an announcement today; we will keep you posted if and when that comes.