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Artist News
Mastodon apologise for homophobic slur in interview
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 8 November 2021
Mastodon have apologised for homophobic language used by guitarist Brent Hinds in a recent interview. “We want our LGBTQ fans to feel safe listening to our music and coming to see us live”, they said in response to criticism on Instagram.
Hinds appeared on the latest episode of Jamey Jasta’s ‘The Jasta Show’ podcast, where he responded to a question about what bands he would like to tour with by instead listing various complaints about bands Mastodon have already toured with. In particularly Disturbed, with whom the band went on tour in 2008.
Using a homophobic slur to refer to the tour, he went on to say that the shows were bad because “you gotta play to people that like Disturbed”, who are “just a fuckin bunch of drunk Americans” that are “receptive to anything”.
The interview stirred controversy, both for the dissing of other bands and their fans, and the homophobic language used while doing so.
In a comment on a post on Mastodon’s Instagram profile, showing drummer Brann Dailer dressed at Judas Priest’s Rob Halford for Halloween, metal writer Morgan Y Evans wrote: “As an LGBTQ supporter of the band – it was super crappy today to see you all over the press with a member using homophobic language to describe a tour with Disturbed … I love your music and am super pissed at the casual disregard and privilege it takes to still use ‘gay’ as a negative word in 2021 and normalise that kind of association”.
A response posted from the band’s account reads: “This really bums me out. I’m very sorry we hurt your feelings or anyone else’s. That is never our intention. We want our LGBTQ fans to feel safe listening to our music and coming to see us live”.
“We also have no ill will towards Disturbed, they were always super cool to us on that tour”, they went on. “I think that interviewer might have caught Brent on a bad day. Sorry for upsetting you or anyone else. We appreciate you and all of our fans”.
Meanwhile, following the backlash to the interview, Jasta has removed the interview from his public podcast feed – although it remains available to paying subscribers.
Commenting on his decision to take down the episode, he said: “The point of the podcast is to talk to old friends, make new ones, throw some ideas around and maybe make a couple of those ideas happen. This episode was never meant to create division or stress, Brent Hinds is my friend and I want nothing but the best for him”.
“He has a right to his opinion but once his words were being used against him I figured it was best to not let one crappy podcast take any shine away from a killer new album”, he went on. “We all have bad days that we don’t want broadcast and spun into something that it isn’t. We’ll do it again down the line and it’ll be fun like the previous episodes with Brent have been”.
So that doesn’t really address any of the issues, does it? But, as noted there, Mastodon did recently release their latest album ‘Hushed And Grim’. So at least that gets a plug. Not sure anyone’s really going to be happy with how that’s come about though.
