Staind’s Aaron Lewis and Body Count Weigh In on Female Moshers and Crowd Surfers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV78SA6PTF0

Because having to defend Emmure wasn’t bad enough, I now have to defend a member of Staind. FML.

See, that band’s vocalist, Aaron Lewis, was doing a solo set at Kansas City’s Rockfest last week when he spotted some dudes groping a female crowd surfer (and one who was apparently quite young). So he stopped the performance and, uh, well…

http://youtu.be/l-J1T1VS5NE

I think we’ve all seen this kind of thing too many times — not just dudes grabbing women who are crowd surfing in inappropriate ways, but also doing so to women who are moshing. (And don’t say “Sometimes you have no choice but to grab a crowd surfer’s ass cheek or crash into a fellow mosher’s boob.” Yes of course sometimes there is going to be some touching which would be socially unacceptable when people are running around crashing into one another or helping to lift someone along a line of people. You know when what you’re seeing is an avoidable consequence of these activities and when it’s just some guy being creepy, and don’t pretend otherwise.) So, obviously, Lewis deserves kudos for the way he handled the situation. Perhaps even more kudos than he’d deserve if he retired from making music.

Revolver, meanwhile, has debuted another new single from Body Count, who have a somewhat different approach to the issue of women at metal shows.

Although I couldn’t blame anyone for objecting to the manner in which the band uses the word “bitch,” and it seems a little, y’know, old to be so surprised that girls like to mosh, I don’t think the band meant any harm here. I interviewed Ice-T yesterday (it will appear on Monday’s episode of The MetalSucks Podcast!), and it’s pretty clear (as if there were any doubt) that he’s actively trying to be provocative. He himself may not see the big deal about referring to women as “bitches,” even if he means it affectionately — but he’s almost surely aware that continuing to use the phrase will offend people. Whether or not that’s a crime against humanity is a matter of opinion I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6VTj7LhCtE