Emmure’s Frankie Palmeri: Still Not Smart

The PRP has published several excerpts from an upcoming interview that Revolver conducted with Emmure’s Frankie Palmeri, and, SHOCKER!, a good amount of what Palmeri has to say makes no sense. Here are some choice quotes… along with my own analysis, natch.

“‘Bring A Gun To School’ is going to rub people the wrong way, but that’s the whole point of the track. I’m definitely trying to piss people off because I feel like my buttons have been pushed a little too much, so I think it’s time to push back.”

So, to review: people like me made fun of Palmeri because of his lyrics about blowjobs and his belief in Raptor Jesus and the religious power of Street Fighter, and Palmeri said, “Oh yeah? Well, I’ll show them: I’ll write a song about a national tragedy! BWAHAHAHA!” How does one thing follow the other? It’s like if a cop gave Frankie a ticket for parking in a handicapped space, and Frankie took revenge by sending the cop a DVD copy of Two Girls, One Cup. It’s kind of vengeful, but mostly, it’s just confusing. To say nothing of the fact that it makes him sound callous: he chose to tackle a very serious topic not because he had anything to say about that topic, but because he knew it would upset people.

Palmeri continues:

“I was a kid who got picked on growing up because I was different. I was fat, I wore glasses, had suspenders…”

Okay, let’s just pause right there for a minute: kids picked on you because you had suspenders? I mean, I actually do believe that, because kids are stupid. But why didn’t you go home and ask your mom to buy you a belt instead of suspenders? Glasses are medically necessary, but if there’s an affliction which requires one to wear suspenders, I’ve never heard of it. And it’s not like suspenders are cheaper than belts; the Palmeri family wasn’t saving money by sending Lil’ Frankie off to school to be tortured for his fashion choices. Not the biggest deal that Frankie decided to cite this completely-avoidable fashion choice as one of the reasons he was bullied as a kid, but it jumped out at me as being pretty friggin’ strange.

ANYWAY, moving on:

“…and I got fucked with just because I was a little strange. So I identify with people who get pushed over the edge. I don’t think senseless violence is cool. I’m not promoting that. But I’m definitely speaking for people who think, ‘Oh Yeah, you’re gonna fuckin’ bully me? Well watch this—bang!’” It’s dark and really terrible, but it’s also a very real thing that people need to understand. The human race needs to wake the fuck up and be a little more conscious to the fact that we are all suffering together on this piece of shit planet, and maybe the assholes of the world can do something to make it a little brighter for everyone.”

I completely agree — the assholes of the world can do something to make this piece of shit planet a little brighter for everyone. This is why I choose to try and make people laugh for a living. The world would be a pretty bleak place if we all had to suffer through a million variations of the same crappy two-note breakdowncore over and over and over again without having any sense of humor about how completely moronic said crappy breakdowncore is.

Palmeri goes on to reveal that there was some tension in the band between himself and guitarist Jesse Ketive during the recording of the group’s last opus, Slave to the Game:

“I hated all the songs, and I had to write lyrics to them. That was like trying to get water out of a frozen faucet. I told Jesse they all sucked and he started screaming, ‘Fuck you! You’re a piece of shit!’ It almost got violent, we were on complete different planets.”

Jesse got mad because you offered a little helpful constructive criticism like “all your songs suck”? Wow, what a thin-skinned weenie. I can’t believe that comment didn’t lead to a calm discussion about how to improve the songs.

Also… why did Frankie hate all the songs on Slave to the Game? They sound exactly like every other Emmure song written before or since. I just listened to the band’s new single, “Nemesis,” and then two songs from two different albums (Game’s “Protoman” and “Solar Flare Homicide” from Speakers of the Dead), and I don’t see any reason all three songs couldn’t appear on the same album. What am I missing here? If someone locked you in a basement and force fed you shit on a daily basis, what would make one day’s shit better than another day’s — that it had corn in it or something? I’m lost.

Elsewhere in the article, Palmeri talks about how he was using lots of cocaine and ecstasy at the time, so maybe what he’s saying is that the drugs only made him think the music was different, not that it was actually different.

Or maybe the experiences caused by the drugs were actually mind-expanding, and suddenly set off that little lightbulb above Palmeri’s head — “OH, SNAP! MY BAND SUCKS, YO!” That’s probably what happened. Palmeri was probably high as fuck and someone put on some Pink Floyd or something and the poor dude suddenly realized he was wasting his youth making songs about the importance of maintaining eye contact during fellatio.

Conclusion: we should all enable Frankie Palmeri so he’ll break-up Emmure and we can all be done with this crap.

Also, we should all chip in and buy Frankie a belt.