Jamey Jasta on Internet Content: “Somebody’s [Always] There to Shit On It”
Jamey Jasta is one of the realest motherfuckers in all of metal (excuse me, hardcore, if you’re the elitists at Metal Archives). From Hatebreed to Headbanger’s Ball to Kingdom of Sorrow to his successful podcast, dude has always struck me as someone who’s in it for the right reasons. And throughout it all, constantly open to exposure and criticism, he’s maintained a positive attitude. He’s pretty much the poster child for PMA as far as I’m concerned.
We turned the mic back on Jamey in this week’s edition of The MetalSucks Podcast, and naturally the topic turned to internet haters, an issue anyone who produces content of any kind has to deal with. Here’s how Jovial Jamey recommends dealing with the inevitable negativity:
“Doesn’t matter if it’s a podcast, if it’s a painting, if it’s a poem, if it’s a record, if it’s a film, a script, whatever. Don’t be paralyzed by fear and don’t be listening to what I call it the vocal minority of negativity on the internet, where as soon as you put out any sort of content somebody’s there to shit on it. It is what it is. You gotta keep doing it no matter what.”
Elaborating on that concept later in the chat, Jolly Jasta spoke about how the idea that metal fans are a bunch of proverbial angry old guys on the lawn is completely untrue, instead highlighting the unity he sees in the scene between disparate groups:
“There’s a lot of this ‘angry old guy on the lawn’ reputation that comes with metal and it’s really not like that at all.
“I just was seeing someone on Twitter saying who was saying there was a 60-year-old guy on Ice T’s twitter saying, ‘I’m 60 and I just heard of Body Count now and I fuckin’ LOVE it! This is amazing!’ [Laughs]
“And I get shit like that all the time, and then I get 12 year olds. Like this morning I was going on Instagram, and if a new [direct message] comes in I’ll check the folder, the ‘other’ one. ‘Cause people reply to the one which is your story and there’s like another one.
“So I was checking the other one and… I had this one bit about Mortiis on a recent episode so everybody’s writing me about Mortiis. I learned all this stuff about Mortiis. I was in a shuttle going to a festival with this guy and he said he was Mortiis, but I was like, ‘how would I know?’ Anybody could say they’re Mortiis. Is his real identity out there? I don’t know.
“But I was checking some of those [messages] and I had a lot of funny messages about that — people were great. And then one of them was, ‘Hi, I’m 12, I love your music, I heard it on Pandora. You’re the best.’ And it’s like, there you go. You got a 60-year-old and a 12-year-old.
“When I was 12, I would write the bands snail mail and some bands would write back, some wouldn’t. But it’s cool when someone takes time and the initiative at that young of an age and they’re already finding this. ‘Cause I went to my first show at 13 and couldn’t believe that the stage was right there; at that point, I’d only been to like U2 at the arena or James Taylor, I went when I was really young with my mom.”
You can listen to full episode below.
Hatebreed’s spring tour with Havok was canceled, and the release of their new album was postponed indefinitely.
