On the seventh anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, many in the country music world and at large are grieving the losses of the 60 victims shot and killed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Route 91 Harvest Festival famously featured headlining performances from Eric Church, Sam Hunt and finally Jason Aldean, who was performing on stage during the shooting, which lasted for 11 minutes and injured over 850 people.
Last month, Aldean opened up about his experience being on stage during the tragedy during an interview with former Fox News anchor, Tucker Carlson, on his podcast, The Tucker Carlson Show.
When asked about how he felt the moment that the shots began firing, Aldean said that he didn’t know what was happening, noting that he first thought it was a blown speaker:
“I was on stage. I thought we had a blown speaker, no clue what was going on. It wasn’t until I got off stage… I just heard something sound like it was cracking, but it was the gun going off. It was coming through the microphones and it just sounded weird. But I didn’t know what it was. So we got offstage and I took those out, and I heard him shoot again. And that’s when I knew what was going on. I had no idea until I got off stage.”
He then detailed what happened once he finally got off stage while attempting to find his wife, Brittany, who eventually met Aldean presumably somewhere behind the stage:
“We just kinda hunkered down for a while, and I kept noticing the guy would shoot and then there’d be a little break where I guess he was going to a different window or whatever he was doing. So I just told her, ‘Next time he stops like that, get up and start moving, we’re going to the bus.’ So she got up, and we got about halfway there. And he started shooting again. She kind of froze up, and I grabbed her, took her to the bus, got in the back of the bus and just kind of hunkered down back there.”
Even with the added protection of being on the bus, Aldean and Co. still were not completely safe. He noted after the fact that there were bullet holes riddling the bus, “You go and see the aftermath after it happened. There’s bullet holes in the front of my bus and in the side. The windows got shot out of the bus.”
Earlier in the interview, Aldean detailed more about the aftermath of the shooting and shared one of the most bone-chilling details of the entire night: a bullet that got lodged in his bassist’s guitar:
“My bass player, who was on stage with me, one of my best friends in the world for the last 25 years was standing next to me, had a bullet lodged in the bass he was playing at the time. A bullet hits the bass he’s got on at the time playing.”
It’s widely known that the motives surrounding this shooting are still unknown to this day which has caused many including Carlson to question what exactly caused it. To Aldean, the lack of information surrounding it has been frustrating, “I hated that it happened, and to never have any reason for it or get any closure on what that was all about. It’s just kind of been annoying. It’s just wild that we can put a guy on the moon, [but] we can’t figure that out.”
October 1, 2017, will remain one of the most tragic days in both country music and American history. Rest in peace to the 60 innocent lives taken that night.