Coldwar’s Trevor McLave Called Me a “Fascist”

Recently, I wrote about Coldwar vocalist Trevor McLave, whose face and body are covered in swastika tattoos. And as is the case from time-to-time, the subject of the article is cranky about what I wrote. McLave tells Zero Tolerance:

“The article on Metalsucks.net  was brought to my attention during the week and my first thought was that it was uninformed and clumsily written,” he says. “At the very least, they could have done a google search and got something to back up what they were talking about. They could have contacted me and I would have been happy to talk to them – they didn’t even get my name right! If they took a look at our website, it would have been immediately apparent what we’re about and that our lyrics deal mostly with liberation from oppressive regimes. If I could sum up the tone of those articles, I’d call them uninformed attempts to suppress expression – that seems like a pretty fascist pursuit to me.”

I fully admit that McLave is right about one thing — I did totally spell his name wrong, because I trusted that the piece on The Music I was sourcing had spelled it correctly. I’m not saying that’s a stellar excuse, I’m just telling you what happened.

Unfortunately for Trevor, that doesn’t make me a fascist, and his accusation that I was trying “to suppress expression” is BS. Let’s look at what I wrote:

“The thing is, LcLave and his bandmates aren’t technically wrong — the swastika was (mis)appropriated by the Nazis (plural. I dunno why their statement says ‘the Nazi.’ It’s not like one guy in that whole army was using the swastika and everyone else was wearing Betty Boop t-shirts or something.). Shit, there’s a pre-war building in Red Hook, Brooklyn that has a swastika displayed prominently on its facade. And there’s something to be said for attempting to reclaim the symbol, sure.

“That being said, you’d have to be a total fucking moron not to anticipate people associating the swastika with the Nazis. Given the impact the Nazis had on world history, to re-educate people about the swastika’s non-Nazi origins is a task which will take many, many, MANY years, if it’s achievable at all. And getting it tattooed all over yourself is a super-extreme measure — I mean, you could start by just putting together a website to try and teach people about the actual history of the swastika or something. There was no need to go from zero to a hundred in ten seconds, y’know? Being covered in swastikas head-to-toe was bound to give the vast majority of the world’s population the wrong idea (and having a shaved head probably ain’t helping his case any).”

So basically, what I said was, “This is dude is right about the origin of the swastika, but he must be a fool if he didn’t anticipate people being confused by his tattoos, and if he didn’t want that negative attention, he shouldn’t have gotten the ink.” Not “he shouldn’t be allowed to get the ink.” He can do whatever he wants! He just can’t be shocked when people interpret it a certain way.

My guess is that McLave was really pissed because I called him “a total fucking moron,” and wrote this to boot:

“So my guess is that LcLave either has a brain the size of a guitar pick, or otherwise got the ink as part of a deliberate attempt to be provocative and/or get attention for his band. In which case, mission accomplished.”

So, really, Trevor’s response could have looked like this, and it would have been 100% more accurate:

“The article on Metalsucks.net  was brought to my attention during the week and my first thought was that it was uninformed and clumsily written,” he says. “At the very least, they could have done a google search and got something to back up what they were talking about. They could have contacted me and I would have been happy to talk to them – they didn’t even get my name right! If they took a look at our website, it would have been immediately apparent what we’re about and that our lyrics deal mostly with liberation from oppressive regimes. Instead, he made a dumb joke about my belly button and resorted to name-calling. He says I’m either a moron or an attention whore. The truth is, I am an attention whore — but I’m trying to get attention for a good cause. He claims that ‘There was no need to go from zero to a hundred in ten seconds,’ but when it comes to my ideals, I don’t agree. The same way the homosexual community has re-claimed the pink triangle, we must re-claim the swastika.”

And I really wouldn’t have been able to argue. Instead, he pulled the same cheap move the right always pull — he didn’t like the manner in which I used my freedom to speak, so he alleged that I wanted to take away his freedom to speak. And so this article concludes with me reaching the same conclusion I reached last time — this dude is either a moron or an attention whore.

Ah, well. Thanks at least for sending some traffic our way, Trevor!

Thanks: C.E.