Stupid Boys

Courtesy of Firedoglake, I ran across this interview from Arthur magazine with Sully Erna from Godsmack. I really hope this guy's on serious drugs, because he couldn't be this clueless without them, could he?


Could he?

SO I NOTICE YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN REALLY INVOLVED WITH PROMOTING THE MILITARY. [1]

Well, they actually came to us, believe it or not. Somebody in the Navy loves this band, because they used ‘Awake’ for three years and then they came to us and re-upped the contract for another three years for ‘Sick of Life.’ So, I don’t know. They just feel like that music, [laughs] someone in that place thinks that the music is very motivating for recruit commercials I guess. And hey, I’m an American boy so it’s not… I’m proud of it.

YOU’RE PROUD OF RECRUITING YOUR FANS INTO THE MILITARY?

Well, no. [laughs, then jokingly] Don’t be turning my fucking words around, you!

WELL, TELL ME WHAT YOU MEAN. YOU SAID YOUR MUSIC IS POWERFUL, IT’S GOT AN EFFECT, LIKE YOU SAID, AND YOU’RE LETTING THE MILITARY USE IT. THE MILITARY, WHO ARE THEY RECRUITING? 18 TO 30-YEAR OLDS, RIGHT?

I guess… I don’t know what their recruit age is. I know it’s at least 18.

YEAH, THEY GO DOWN IN TO THE HIGH SCHOOLS NOW.

My thing is… Listen, here’s my thing with the military. I’m not saying our government is perfect. Because I know that we make some mistakes and we do shitty things BUT, BUT. You wouldn’t have your job, and we wouldn’t have our lives, if we weren’t out there protecting this country so we could lead a free life. So there’s kind of a ying and a yang to that. Sometimes it’s not always the best choices that we make, or we stick our noses in other people’s shit, but at the same time, we protect this place enough that we’re able to like pursue careers and do what a lot of people in other countries aren’t able to do. They’re kind of picked and they’re chosen to be whatever they become… I’m, I’m, I’m proud to be an American, I’ll tell you that.

SO YOUR COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG?

Uh, no. Not right or wrong. But I’m proud to be an American. I love my country. I’ve seen the depressions and how people live in other countries and how they’re told what to be, and they don’t have the choices that we have. I do love that about our country. So, you know… And I actually sympathize with a lot of the soliders, and the military in general, that are trained to go out and protect FOR us, and what they have to go through, it’s really kind of shitty in a sense that these young kids have to go over there and die, sometimes, for something that isn’t our fucking problem. And that kind of sucks. So what I have to do is at least support them, because they don’t have the choice that we do.

THEY DON’T HAVE THE CHOICE BECAUSE…?

Because they’ve decided to fight for our country.

AND THEY DECIDED TO DO THAT BECAUSE…?

[laughs]…

…OF YOUR SONG…?

Aw, come on. It’s not like that.

WELL I HAVE A QUOTE FROM YOU HERE: “WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN SUPPORTIVE OF OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PRESIDENT, WHEREAS A LOT OF PEOPLE I THOUGHT”—AND YOU SAID THIS IN 2003 TO MTV NEWS, YOU SAID – “A LOT OF PEOPLE I THOUGHT LASHED OUT PRETTY QUICKLY AT WHAT WE DID AND I THOUGHT THE GOVERNMENT DID EVERYTHING PRETTY CLEANLY AND PUBLICLY AS POSSIBLE.” [2]

Yeah…?


WELL, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

That was my opinion at the time. The whole war thing, and trying to keep us up to date like… If you remember, back in other wars, we didn’t have the opportunity to follow it through the media, and CNN, and the news—live updates and that kind of thing. And I thought that for the most part you know we were allowed to follow it as best we could through the media sources that were feeding us information.

[incredulous] YOU DIDN’T THINK THE MEDIA WAS BEING CONTROLLED BY THE MILITARY?!?

Well, it could be. I don’t know.

YOU DIDN’T LOOK INTO IT?

Listen. Are you a fucking government expert?

I’M NOT TELLING PEOPLE TO GO JOIN THE MILITARY AND THEN NOT KNOWING WHAT THE MILITARY IS DOING.

I don’t tell people to go join the military!!

YOU DON’T THINK USING YOUR SONGS –THE POWER OF YOUR MUSIC, WHICH YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT—HAS AN EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE THAT HEAR IT WHEN IT GOES WITH THE VISUALS THAT THE BEST P.R. PEOPLE IN THE WORLD USE?!

Oh man, are you like one of those guys that agrees with some kid that fuckin’ tied a noose around his neck because Judas Priest lyrics told him to?

YOU WERE TELLING ME HOW POWERFUL YOUR MUSIC WAS, AND WHAT AGE THE PEOPLE ARE THAT LISTEN TO IT. AND YOU MUST HAVE THOUGHT, ‘WELL THE NAVY SURE THOUGHT IT WAS USEFUL.’ SO YOU TELL ME.

Hey, listen. The Navy thought…. It’s the same reason why wrestlers work out to the music, and extreme motorcross riders listen to the music and do what they do. It’s ENERGETIC music. It’s very ATHLETIC. People feel that they get an adrenaline rush out of it or whatever, so, it goes with whatever’s an extreme situation. But I doubt very seriously that a kid is going to join the Marines or the US Navy because he heard Godsmack as the underlying bed music in the commercial. They’re gonna go and join the Navy because they want to jump out of helicopters and fuckin’ shoot people! Or protect the country or whatever it is, and look at the cool infra-red goggles.

YOU SAID TO MTV, “WE’RE NOT A VERY POLITICAL BAND BUT WE’RE SUPPORTIVE OF THE U.S. MILITARY AND HOW THEY APPROACH THINGS.” [2]

Listen. Someone turned that around. I never said “and how they approach things.”

OKAY. SO THAT’S A MISQUOTE. OR SOMETHING,

Wow, what—

WHAT ABOUT THIS? IN 2003 YOU DID A SHOW THAT STARTED WITH VIDEO FOOTAGE OF APACHE HELICOPTERS HONING IN ON A DESERT TARGET INTERSPERSED WITH THE WORDS “WE WILL PREVAIL/STRONGER THAN THEM ALL.”

Say that again?

I’M READING FROM A BOSTON GLOBE REVIEW OF A SHOW YOU DID AT THE TWEETER CENTER.

Yeah.

IN FRONT OF 13,000 PEOPLE ON MAY 22, 2003.

Yeah, but tell me what it said again.

YES SIR. IT SAID “GODSMACK’S FEROCIOUSLY HIGH ENERGY 90-MINUTE SET STARTED WITH VIDEO FOOTAGE OF APACHE HELICOPTERS HONING IN ON A DESERT TARGET, INTERSPERSED WITH THE WORDS ‘WE WILL PREVAIL/STRONGER THAN THEM ALL.’” [3]

Yeah…?

SO YOU’RE USING MILITARY IMAGERY WITH YOUR MUSIC AT YOUR CONCERTS?

First of all, it was a COMPUTER image, a computer-animated helicopter that didn’t… There was no scene of a desert in there. It was a helicopter that rose up from the screen and scanned the audience. It was an EFFECT. And then it shot out missiles that hit the stage.

UH HUH…

Because the intro to ‘Straight Out of Line” has the sounds of like, a war thing going on.

OH I SEE. SO IT’S JUST SORT OF A CONCEPT THING.

Read the whole thing, because he totally melts down, including the favorite defenses of wingnuts, "Dude, [yelling] WHY DON’T YOU GO LIVE IN IRAQ THEN IF YOU HAVE SUCH A PROBLEM WITH AMERICA?" and "Who are you working with?"

Sad, really.