GOD FORBID Guitarist: DIMEBAG's Murder 'Would've Never Happened Anywhere Else In The World'

GOD FORBID guitarist Dallas Coyle has written the latest entry for his weekly column on MetalSucks, "The Hard R." In this installment, Dallas talks about the events that led to and influenced the band's album "Constitution of Treason", including the 2004 U.S. presidential election and the murder of PANTERA/DAMAGEPLAN guitarist Dimebag Darrell. An excerpt from the blog follows:

"This blog is also about Dimebag and how his unfortunate murder shaped 'Constitution of Treason'. On December 8th, 2004 a ton of shit was going on. The presidential election just happened and we all saw how fucking stupid Americans were on a general level when they re-elected the best comedian our soil has ever seen. I'll never forget that stupid shit and how Europeans couldn't understand how Americans could elect such a fool. I got tired of explaining the two Americas most of us know and why George W. was still our president. I live in New Jersey which is the melting pot of ALL things but in most places in America there is no such thing as a melting pot.

"On December 8th we were playing in Serbia with MACHINE HEAD. It was about 9AM over there when I heard our guitar tech Nick talking about how Dimebag was murdered. Him, his girlfriend and one of his best friends worked at the Alrosa in Ohio. All of us were typically stunned, saddened and just fucking mad. His girlfriend was the one who actually called the cops when the gunman killed all of those people. One of Nick's best friends was one of the bodyguards who was murdered trying to save and protect everyone from the gunman. So this incident for all of us was a lot more personal than any of us ever could have imagined.

"Through that day, I got to thinking about the state of the world, my place in it and just how fucked things are in general. After the election and Dimebag's murder it made me realize how Americans don't recognize the power within themselves and how they fall into a general state of apathy to fight their problems. What happened in America with Dimebag would've never happened anywhere else in the world. That's a fact. John Lennon was killed by a crazed fan just like Dimebag on the same day of the year. John Lennon was British. I'm not shitting on America, I'm shitting on the people in America who act like they can't change things. I'm shitting on the people who make decisions out of fear; the people who want the same taste of the week every week; the people who take up space and don't give anything back except complaints and bad attitudes.

"That's where the album title 'Constitution of Treason' came from. Americans every day are writing a constitution of treason against their country they are supposed to love. They sit in their seats watching reality TV succumbing to the worker bee mentality. If something bad happens they are able to gloss it over as if it never mattered to them and never will because of all the shit there is to distract them. Apathy is their form of treason. Not standing up and saying what pisses them off; not saying what they see to be unacceptable. These are things people are not doing that cause our country to fall into a terrible trap of apathy."

Read the entire blog post at www.metalsucks.net.