ALLEGED SIKH TEMPLE SHOOTER WAS VOCALIST FOR WHITE SUPREMACY HARDCORE BAND

The summer of awful news continued yesterday, when Wade Michael Page (above), age forty, killed six people and injured three others in a shooting inside a Wisconsin Sikh temple before he was himself gunned down by the police. Page’s actions were obviously horrible enough, but now comes news that he was actually the vocalist for a white supremacist hardcore band called End Apathy, whose MySpace page lists Black Sabbath, Slayer, Iron Maiden, GWAR, Corrosion of Conformity, DRI, Misfits, and Cryptic Slaughter as influences, and asserts that their “music is a sad commentary on our sick society and the problems that prevent true progress.”

Politicians and the mainstream media both have a habit of using extreme music as a scapegoat in these kinds of situations (see: Columbine): as of this writing, that hasn’t happened yet. Hopefully, it never will. I mean, Page was also a veteran — he was a sergeant in the army but was eventually demoted and declared “ineligible for reenlistment,” which is certainly telling — but you won’t hear people cry “It’s the military’s fault!” For whatever reason, it’s always easy to point the finger at metal and hardcore.

We’ll keep you posted if things take a turn for the even-worse.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]