Did you have a different view on that, Joey?
Joey Holman: “If it makes people upset, I really don’t care. But when I read what people are saying, that was actually was really hard for me. I had never been in a place to get feedback that was so hateful. I didn’t care about people not liking it because I’m not stupid, and not everyone should like it. That doesn’t bother me. But to specifically see why people don’t like it and it be personal attacks about my size or my sexuality was so jarring. It felt like people were saying that directly to me. When Roddy and I first discussed that this was happening specifically on the one outlet in particular, Roddy was really good at centring me immediately. He created boundaries very quickly; he didn’t want to hear about it. He knew it was going to happen, but that taught me and led me to not put stock in what naysayers are saying because they’re going to exist no matter what.”
Roddy: “I just drew the line. It’s a tricky thing. People are talking about you, and you want to read what people are saying. That’s just human nature. We stumbled onto that Blabbermouth thread, Joey was reading aloud what some of those responses were, and I said, ‘No, I don’t want to hear this. This doesn’t do any good for me.’ I’m fine to know that that exists, and I know in the world that we live in there’s people whose ideologies don’t match up with ours. I knew it would happen, but reading it doesn’t serve any purpose. So the line that I drew was just to not engage or not hear those things, which I’m fine with.”
Were you at all surprised that the homophobia in the comments on the Blabbermouth post got any pushback with media outlets saying, ‘Hang on, we need to say something about this, this isn’t good’?
Roddy: “It was really great to hear [Kerrang!] pipe up in that way. I wasn’t really sure if that would be addressed. It seems like the change that we’re all going through as a world with social justice, injustices, and people stepping up to the plate, I’m seeing [change] in a way that I wasn’t sure we would. It was nice to see it come into our realm. People standing up for us.”
Joey: “I’m curious about the social responsibility of outlets who are posting our news stories using the same photo of us in our underwear, knowing that it will get straight guys to click it and comment poorly on it. Because the more clicks they get, the more comments they get, which means that they’re on the website longer, all of which means that they’ll get money from advertisers. There’s such a bigger game at play besides just homophobia. And then culturally, I know for a fact there are gay guys who are in the closet, who are probably posting homophobic stuff about our music because what we’re doing scares the shit out of them because it reveals in themselves what they like. I’m not saying that everybody who says homophobic stuff is gay, but I know what it’s like to be a kid from the South in America, grow up in this religious environment, and need to give lip service to homophobia so nobody knows that you’re gay. There’s so many more things at play than just somebody saying something mean.”