A Local Security Guard Attacked a Member of Slipknot’s Touring Crew and Broke His Ribs
The issue of police brutality has experienced a badly-needed boost into the spotlight of late as a result of the senseless murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other black Americans at the hands of the police. Far be it from Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor to resist speaking up about political issues — it’s one of the reasons we love him, and why he is actually The Most Important Person in Metal™, even though we often jest — and how they impact the metal community specifically.
In a new interview with The Mistress Carrie Podcast, Corey told a story about how a high-ranking member of the band’s touring crew was once “brutalized” by a “horrible” local security guard at one of the band’s shows. Corey didn’t bring race into the picture (I’m not sure whether or not it was a factor), but I think we can all agree that abuse of power by enforcement officials (even hired ones) is a problem in general, even if an isolated incident at a metal show doesn’t carry the import the national conversation about police brutality does. What’s more, this is a problem many concertgoers have complained about forever; take a look at this footage of a security guard going ham on an innocent audience member at a Terror show last year, for example.
Anyway, here’s what Corey had to say:
“I’ve seen good security, and I’ve seen horrible security – I’ve seen wonderful security who takes care of the crowd, understands that it’s a great time and people are just having fun; no issues, no mortalities, no brutalities, no nothing. The flip side of that is I’ve seen security teams that are so amped up, they have no training, they have no qualms about hurting a person.
“They went after a member of our team who had the right credentials, who had all of the right security passes, and they broke his ribs – we’re still suing them. This is an absolute true story, and this is a person who was just going down in a bit to make sure that our security team was fine – because our security team was down there. And before he could get to our security team, the local security, who apparently didn’t know what the hell they were doing, had brutalized a member of our crew.
“They brutalized a member of our crew, and this is a high-ranking member of the crew, so there are issues all over the place when you have people who are clearly not trained for what they’re supposed to be doing. When they’re amped up and looking for a reason to exert power, to exert force, anything can happen, and it could happen to anyone.”
Taylor just finished a solo album and is slowly working on a coffee table book featuring nonsensical quotes by his bandmate, Clown.
You can listen to the full interview here.
[via Ultimate Guitar]
