Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick shared a lengthy article about fans’ stances over his political views.
Back in 2021, the rocker took to New Lines Magazine to write about the issue. He touched on the fan complaints and talked about the ‘shut up and play your guitar’ attitude. The musician even mentioned being threatened by fans:
“Quite a few fans of Testament have threatened to stop listening to the band as a direct result of my mainstream, left-of-center views. Such threats seemed to peak in the wake of my most notorious moment: a self-produced, comedic rap video titled ‘Trump Sucks,’ released prior to the 2020 U.S. election. The track — one in which I proudly wear Zappa’s influence on my sleeve — was thankfully found to be hilarious by the other members of Testament.”
He wouldn’t blame his bandmates for a different reaction though. He continued:
“Although I wouldn’t blame them if there was cause for concern, they’ve been generally supportive, and the old adage of there being ‘no such thing as bad publicity’ has held firm. Meanwhile, the band seems to have suffered no noticeable decline in user engagement as a direct result of my political moonlighting.”
Skolnick Won’t Pretend To Support Right-Wing
The guitarist has openly talked about his thoughts on politics many times throughout his career. This caused Trump supporters to slam and criticize him. A month after he shared the essay on the website, the guitarist spoke to Newlines Magazine’s Faisal Al Yafai and Idrees Ahmad about the issues.
He talked about why artists should be honest about social and political issues, why he’s not bothered about losing fans who disagree, and why he wrote a rap song called ‘Trump Sucks.’ He said:
“I think it’s beyond politics ’cause I’m not attacking traditional conservative politics. It would be very different if this was the ’80s or even the ’90s and I was talking about people who believe in lower corporate tax rates. Now it’s gotten so disingenuous. And the whole belief in the right-wing news echo chamber and these headlines.”
He then explained what kind of people criticized him for his political stances:
“Current headlines on Fox — one example, [President Joe] Biden just gave a press conference, and one of the banner headlines on Fox: ‘Biden gives press conference full of lies.’ These are the same people when Trump was giving his public appearance, they were praising it, falling over. So it’s so disingenuous. And these same people that are criticizing me and threatening to not listen to my music, they’re buying into that. And I can’t support that. And I can’t pretend to support that.”
You can read the entire article here.