WASHINGTON — The members of the band who were on the stage at the Bataclan theater in Paris when it was attacked by gunmen earlier this month recall the chaos of that night and about their determination to return to the same stage.
Speaking at Vice‘s Los Angeles office, members of the band recalled their experiences during the Nov. 13 terror attack, including their face-to-face encounters with the gunmen who killed 89 people, including the band’s merchandise seller.
The band had been playing for about an hour when three gunmen walked in and began firing.
Drummer Julian Dorio recalls, “We’re a loud rock band, you know? … (Our volume) is hard to trump, and the initial shots were so powerful for me that immediately I knew something was wrong.”
He jumped off his stool and immediately began to smell gunpowder, and saw two men “relentlessly shooting into the audience.”
Guitarist Eden Galindo tells Vice that when he first heard the shots, he thought it was a malfunction in the sound system.
“And then I realized real quick that it wasn’t.” Guitarist and singer Jesse Hughes ran toward him, and “we went into a corner,” Galindo recalls. “We weren’t sure if they were targeting us, or what was going on.”
Sound man Shawn London heard what he thought were firecrackers behind him.
“They came to the door, instantly walked in and just started blasting. … There was nowhere to go.”
One of the gunmen ran into London, “shot at me, and he missed.” The shots hit the sound console, and “I think he thought I got hit, because I went down so quickly, and everybody else around was hit, and there was blood all over.”
The gunman stood there and continued shooting, London says, and began shouting “Allah Akhbar.”
“That’s when I knew what was going on.”
When the gunman near him “clipped out,” London told those around him it was time to go. They didn’t get out in time, and had to hunker down again. When the gunman ran out of ammunition again, London and the others ran, dodging more bullets as they left the venue. “We jogged over bodies that were dead out front.”
Bassist Matt McJunkins says that when the shooting started, “I threw down my bass and hid for a second, sort of behind the curtains.” He saw the band’s tour manager, and recalls the look on his face: “There’s no exit over here.”
McJunkins faced a decision: “Do I really wanna run across the stage, or do I wanna go into this room and hope for the best?”
McJunkins and the tour manager went into an upstairs room, where fans had gathered, including a few who were hurt. They began to barricade the door and grabbed a bottle of Champagne to use as a weapon.
The gunfire went on for 10 or 15 minutes as hostages were taken.
“And then it would stop, and there would be this sense of relief, and then it would start up again,” McJunkins says.
Then an explosion shook the room. It turned out to be a shooter activating a suicide vest, but at the moment McJunkins and the others in the room couldn’t be sure whether the building was being blown up.
Hughes looked for his girlfriend, Tuesday Cross, in another upstairs room. She wasn’t there.
“I opened up the hallway door, and I saw the shooter. He brought his gun down, and the barrel hit the door frame. And I was like ‘Oh, (expletive),’ because I could tell that people were following me: ‘No no no no! Do not (expletive) come this way!’ ” Gunmen got into the band’s dressing room and killed everyone, except one fan who hid under Hughes’ leather jacket.
Hughes’ girlfriend managed to escape.
In an unfamiliar building, Hughes remembers “mass confusion … the hallways became a labyrinth.” Everyone went to the police station, where “kids covered in blood” (Galindo’s words) were still streaming in.
Confusion reigned. The rest of the world got word of the shooting through news reports, but in the moment, there was no telling what had actually happened or why. Co-founder Josh Homme wasn’t at the gig, and got a text reading, “Everyone got shot. … I got blood all over me.”
Homme recalls, “It took a second to believe that that was really occurring,”
Hughes broke down while recounting the uncertainty of whether all the band members had gotten out, as well as the fate of merchandise-seller Nick Alexander, who bled to death while protecting a friend “without saying a word.”
Homme and Hughes got emotional again as they disclosed that they’ve been writing down the names of all the fans who were killed “and I don’t even know why,” Homme says. “… Just to see it.”
Home says he wants to contact the families of those who died, but doesn’t think there’s anything he can say.
“I want to sort of just get down on my knees and say, ‘Whatever you need.’ Because there’s nothing I can really say … It’s OK that there aren’t words for that. Maybe there shouldn’t be.”
Homme says that, after a postponement, the band will finish the tour. “We have to. We don’t have a choice.”
Hughes says that “I feel like I have a life of blessings,” and is determined to return to Paris.
“I wanna be the first band to play in the Bataclan when it opens back up. Our friends went there to see rock and roll and died. I want to go back there and live.”
Speaking of the band and the fans who were there, Hughes adds, “I feel like we are in it together now.”
(Warning: The video includes strong language and footage of the shooting.)
