Eagles of Death Metal Speak for the First Time About Paris Concert Attack

Eagles of Death Metal’s Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme speak for the first time about the gruesome attack that took the lives of 89 people at their concert in Paris a week ago in an interview with VICE co-founder Shane Smith.

In a preview of the heartbreaking conversation, Hughes recounts that many of those who died were unwilling to separate from their friends or trying to protect others. The interview is expected in full sometime next week.

Eagles of Death Metal were playing a show at Le Bataclan theater in Paris on Nov. 13 when gunmen stormed the venue and began shooting. The attack accounted for the highest death toll in the coordinated attacks in the French capital that night. While all of the band’s members made it out safely, their merch manager Nick Alexander and Universal Music Group employees Thomas Ayad, Marie Mosser, and Manu Perez were among the victims. Homme’s charity, the Sweet Stuff Foundation, is currently raising money for the victims’ families.

The band has since canceled their remaining European tour dates and issued a statement:

While the band is now home safe, we are horrified and still trying to come to terms with what happened in France. Our thoughts and hearts are first and foremost with our brother Nick Alexander, our record company comrades Thomas Ayad, Marie Mosser, and Manu Perez, and all the friends and fans whose lives were taken in Paris, as well as their friends, families, and loved ones.

Although bonded in grief with the victims, the fans, the families, the citizens of Paris, and all those affected by terrorism, we are proud to stand together, with our new family, now united by a common goal of love and compassion.

We would like to thank the French police, the FBI, the U.S. and French State Departments, and especially all those at ground zero with us who helped each other as best they could during this unimaginable ordeal, proving once again that love overshadows evil.

All EODM shows are on hold until further notice.

Vive la musique, vive la liberté, vive la France, and vive EODM.