Tom Morello has powerfully defended his decision to chuck a fan’s phone into the audience recently, explaining that “entitled” fans should expect such behaviour if they act that way.

On Saturday night, Tom Morello found himself performing at the PIQNIQ festival for US radio station 101WKQX.

While his set consisted of originals, Rage Against The Machine classics, performances of Audioslave and John Lennon tracks, and some guest appearances by Tim McIlrath of Rise Against, the show also made headlines for the wrong reasons.

Towards the end of the set, Morello asked fans to come up onstage during his performance of ‘Killing In The Name’, specifically requesting that they leave their phones behind so that they’re not tempted to shove their devices in his face while playing.

As you would expect, one fan chose not to heed this warning, attempting to snap a selfie with Tom Morello as he performed the track. Without missing a beat, the guitarist snapped up the phone and threw it into the crowd to widespread cheers.

This isn’t the first time such behaviour has happened of course, with Judas Priest’s Rob Halford recently kicking a fan’s phone during a performance.

“The facts are we love our fans and you can film us all you like and watch our show on your phone rather than in the flesh, Judas Priest later explained. “However, if you physically interfere with The Metal God’s performance, you now know what will happen.”

In fact, while Halford received backlash, Uriah Heep vocalist Bernie Shaw came to his defence, explaining that he “can sure understand [Rob’s] frustration.”

“As a performer, you get into the moment, you get into the mood, and you don’t come out of character until you walk offstage,” Shaw explained to the Do You Know Jack? podcast (via Blabbermouth). “And for him to get interrupted like that… His space was invaded, in my opinion.”

“This is only truly my opinion. I don’t think it was the right thing to do — maybe he overreacted — but I can sure understand where it came from.”

Likewise, Tom Morello also seemed to cop a fair amount of backlash for his decision, with one fan taking the guitarist to task for his actions over Twitter.

“You are a fuckin douche bag for throwing that fans phone,” the Twitter user wrote. “What an egotistical POS you are. Loser ass celebrity.”

“Tom Morello you are the epitomy [sic] of what is wrong with people. God only hopes you don’t have any children.”

However, this clearly raised the ire of the rocker enough for him to directly respond to the user, explaining why he was well within his right to respond in such a way.

“When you invite guests to YOUR stage and CLEARLY TELL THEM ‘if you stick a cell phone in my face I WILL THROW IT’ and then their uncontrollable entitled selfie urges overcome their sense of reason they get their f*ckin phones thrown,” he explained. “Simple.”

So the lesson here is basically that if you feel as though you can’t follow express instructions to leave your phone behind while being asked up onstage, maybe you should reconsider the relationship you have with your device.

Check out Tom Morello performing ‘Every Step That I Take’:

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