Anthrax Singer Talks About Getting Tackled During Show
Anthrax frontman Joey Belladonna was attacked during an Oct. 22 show at L.A.’s Club Nokia while on tour to support the band’s new album ‘Worship Music.’ In an interview with Metal Assault, Belladonna commented on the incident.
“Yeah, it wasn’t even just [that the security guard] land[ed] on [me]… He bulldozed me down, man. I got, like, slammed… And then once I got buried, it was like an eight-guy pile-on, too, on top,” Belladonna said. “It was just a weird thing that happened.”
The Anthrax frontman continued to describe the incident, saying, “Usually, that doesn’t happen with me involved. I just wanted to go [to the fan that came onstage], ‘Hey, guy, what’s up?! Everything’s good.’ And within seconds I was on the ground. I had both arms on [the fan's] shoulder, and as I turned out, within seconds, I got plowed over. . . I know under certain circumstances [the security guards] have to react quite quickly, because it could be a matter of minutes [before something really bad happens]. But at that point, maybe it just didn’t look right to [the security guard].
“I don’t know… I’ve seen people come out and really get too quick with it. If mean, if [the security guard is] that big, he could have just put his arms around [the fan and said], ‘OK, you’re done now. I’m just gonna hold you and now we’re gonna walk you off. And if you don’t wanna, then we’ve gotta fight.’ ‘Cause I’ve seen people resist, and that’s when it gets ugly, too.”
Leave it up to Anthrax’s stringman Scott Ian to address the situation head on. He tweeted, “Joey is banged up but OK. You’d think security would know he’s in the band. He’d only been on stage for 90 minutes.”
Hopefully no more onstage tackles take place for the rest of Anthrax’s North American tour, which wraps up on Nov. 19 in Milwaukee.