DALLAS APOLOGIES FOR CALLING MCCAIN A RACIST, EXAMINES THE FUTURE OF GOD FORBID

Mistakes

Last week’s blog was a fiery debate about politics, racism and the age old subject of musicians keeping their mouth shut and just sticking to music. As most of you know, I don’t adhere to the policy of musicians or artists keeping their mouths shut about politics whether they’re informed or not. I think people should be able to say what they want especially if they are given a platform to do so.

I will admit, my words about McCain’s comment were said out of anger and I stepped over the line. For that I apologize and I will say I made a mistake in charging McCain and his supporters with charges that aren’t necessarily true. If they are true I have no way of knowing so I concede the point that I was too harsh and I take my statements back in inferring that he may have deep rooted prejudices that will affect his style of governing.

I do think the debate on the blog last week was healthy and it was great to see people rage against me because of my regrettable comment. Someone said in a comment responding to the blog, ‘It’s better to be hated for who you are, than loved for who you are not.’ I’ll live by that standard and I can deal with it. I can fly off the handle and last weeks blog proved it.

The blog got me thinking about the nature of a political blog compared to a blog that doesn’t have any moral implications behind it. I wanted to ruffle some feathers with my last blog and I did. It was a cheap way of doing it but you guys responded in droves and it was awesome to have a conversation about bigotry, race and the nature of both candidates. It shows me even though people get pissed when I talk about politics they have their own point of view and they seem to express their opinions vehemently when a blog has a moral issue attached to it. Be prepared for more political talk from time to time on The Hard R.

I’m not a politician or act as if I’m an authority on politics. I have opinions and that’s it. I’m not as informed as some of you but I have a good idea of getting an over-all picture of a situation whether it be a political race or a band’s future with their label. I don’t know. I just seem to have a good idea of where things seem to be going. For example, before there were any votes cast in the primaries I knew Obama was going to beat Clinton. I don’t know why, it was just a feeling. And it happened. Same thing with the presidential race. I knew as soon as Americans saw Obama and McCain side to side in the first debate that Obama was going to start running away with it. The stark difference between the two of them is too apparent for it to not be obvious to millions of Americans. I think boiling things down to the most simple elements is an easy way to see the way things are going to go. That’s my way of looking at a situation.

Let’s take a look at God Forbid. Our band is a good metal band that has a career. Back in the beginning I thought we were going to be the biggest band in the world. Once my world view began to dawn itself upon me, my realistic nature has hit me in ways I never thought. Now, I believe our band will probably stay as big as we have been. I doubt we’ll get much bigger or much smaller. Why? We have the same elements in play every single record cycle. We don’t change much. Our label doesn’t change much. Our music may get slightly better with each album but that has proven to not matter in today’s musical climate. God Forbid is the same five guys from ten years ago, the music business is in a worse place than it was than when we started and we’re the old guys in the game now.

The way I look at it, not much will change for our band with a new record. The people who like our band will LOVE the new record because it’s slightly better than the last one. But as far as breaking out and having a cinderella story, it’s not in the cards. Hey, maybe it will happen, but the way I look at it we’re a band that does a little more or a little less each time as far as sales are concerned. That’s my prophetic take on things God Forbid.

Everything that I’ve learned I’ve learned from being on the road. I never went to college but going on the road is like majoring in communication. We’ve done really well by being good people and making sure we’re in good standing with musicians, agents, managers, etc. Also, we play kick ass shows. And we see massive amounts of people per tour. Every day we’re out there campaigning. When you’re that deep in something for so long you’re able to attach yourself to a pulse that exists within our society. The pulse is the same for politics, music and film in my point of view. Seeing regular people every day doing regular things you get an idea of what they want or are attracted to. We get to do extra-ordinary things just because we’re in a band and we learn about the world in different ways, which I think creates a healthy world view.

This is why my opinion carries so much weight here. I have a gray world view. Not black or white.

It applies to everything I do. So whether I’m talking about Hillary Clinton eating chicken or Killswitch Engage’s success, it all comes from the same place. I hope this blog gives you an idea of how my thought process came about and why I am the way I am. I say stupid shit. But so does everybody. This blog isn’t any better than anyone else’s, it’s just different. That’s how I want people to perceive it. Don’t take it too seriously, but mull it over because I do think I have interesting things to say and I believe people can learn something from it.