Lamb Of God vocalist Randy Blythe has doubled down on his criticism of Elon Musk and the Tesla/SpaceX CEO’s recent controversial gesture.
In January, Musk appeared onstage at the inauguration of US president Donald Trump and – following a speech where he said, “My heart goes out to you” – put his right hand on his chest then raised it up and to the right. He then turned around and repeated the gesture to those behind him.
Many observers and journalists compared the action to a Nazi salute, and Musk took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to criticise that viewpoint. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” he wrote.
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One of those who spoke out against the gesture was Blythe. In a post to his Instagram stories, the singer put Musk on blast for his behaviour, calling him a “fucking asshole”.
He wrote in part: “Maybe he’s a Nazi? Maybe he’s just trolling? Maybe he’s just so socially awkward he can’t control himself? WHO KNOWS? The motherfucker is weird. But one thing is blatantly obvious – he’s a FUCKING ASSHOLE.”
Now, in an interview with NME, Blythe says his criticism of Musk stemmed from his formative years in the punk scene. “I come from the punk rock scene and we’ve been warning about this for a long time,” he explains. “There’s a band called Corrosion Of Conformity who released a record in the 80s called Technocracy, and that’s what we’re heading into now.”
He then continues to savage Musk, alleging that the gesture the billionaire made was not an accidental one and calling it “dangerous”. “If we are afraid to say, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ we’re screwed. I will not swallow that bullshit, and I will not comply with fascism. Fuck you.”
The singer continues: “I don’t know if you can print this shit or not, but I get very upset about this stuff. It’s dangerous and you’re seeing it not just in America, but in other parts of the world as well. Power is consolidating. All you have to do is follow the money.
“If you look at Trump’s inauguration, how many tech billionaires are there? Someone like Elon Musk, he’s not doing it for money, he has all the money in the world. Some of his contemporaries have said that he’s bored with money, now it’s time for power. It’s just obvious, and anyone that can’t see that is blind.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Blythe talks about Lamb Of God’s progress on new music. The band released their latest album, Omens, in 2022.
“There will definitely be a new record, it’s just a matter of us getting it all together,” he says. “We’re always writing. I’ve been writing lyrics, my dudes write riffs all the time, and we’re always documenting stuff.
“For now though, our guitar player, Mark [Morton] has got a new solo record [Without The Pain] coming out, so he’s been working on promoting that. I got my book [Just Beyond The Light] coming out too, so people are always doing various things. But yes, there will most definitely be new Lamb Of God music and it won’t take five years to come out, I promise.”
Just Beyond The Light came out on February 18. It’s Blythe’s second book, following his 2015 memoir Dark Days, which discussed his time in a Czech prison awaiting a manslaughter trial in 2012. Blythe was acquitted of all criminal charges in 2013.
