US rock outfit Filter have had their Texas gig cancelled this past week after the band shared anti-Trump comments prior to their performance.
Ask anyone, and they’ll likely tell you that Donald Trump is a rather contentious fellow. In fact, numerous musicians have hit out at the US President, including R.E.M., Trent Reznor, Dave Grohl, and Jack White, just to name a few.
Now, Ohio rockers Filter have found themselves in a bit of hot water, having their recent show cancelled over their anti-Trump sentiments.
As Consequence of Sound reported, Filter were set to perform at the Speaking Rock Casino in El Paso, Texas on Thursday, March 7th, though their gig was cancelled shortly beforehand.
After completing their soundcheck that same day, Filter shared a video of the venue, telling fans that the venue “will be packed”, that their set would contain “a lot of Trump bashing”, while also jokingly asking for Texas politician Beto O’Rourke.
Unfortunately for the band, this rhetoric – along with their plans to display upside-down images of the American flag – caught the attention of the venue owner, who swiftly canned their gig.
In a post shared on Instagram later, the group explained that the venue manager told them that “the First Amendment does not exist in this Casino,” before advising them to “get the fuck out.”
“Management also told Patrick that it was illegal to display the flag upside down in their video,” the post continued. “The law to which they might refer is Title 4, US Code ‘(a) The flag should never be displayed with union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property’.”
“Patrick explains ‘This is a dire emergency! This country is totally jacked up!! This is my right to artistic expression.'”
In an interview with Billboard soon after the incident, Filter frontman Richard Patrick explained in greater detail what went down, including what riled up the venue manager in the first place.
“The club has a video screen behind the stage, and that afternoon, I was working with the lighting guy picking out images to run behind our logo, and I picked about five and one of them was an American flag,” Patrick explained.
“Now we have this song, ‘American Cliché,’ and at the end of it, I say Donald Trump quotes, but I do it in a bad German accent – ‘Vee have to build za wall!’ – so I told the lighting guy to turn [the flag image] upside down and make the colors all trippy and weird like it’s a bad acid trip.”
“So afterwards, the band had left and I was walking out and one of the managers came up to me – really pleasant, very decent – and said, ‘I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but you can’t do that to the flag’,” he continued.
“When I asked him why not, he said, ‘It’s illegal.’ And I said, ‘No, it’s not.’ And he said, ‘You can’t hang it upside down unless it’s an emergency.’ So I said, ‘Well, President Trump has declared a national emergency because our southern border is being invaded by rapists and drug dealers, and babies have to be taken from their mothers, so this is an emergency.’”
Check out Filter’s ‘Hey Man, Nice Shot’:
Explaining his side of the story, venue manager Karl A. Maahs explained his side of the story, noting that El Paso, Texas is a large military town, and such rhetoric could have been rather dangerous in such an environment.
“[Richard Patrick] said that if he didn’t get to do whatever he wanted, that he had freedom of speech, that he wasn’t gonna play, and we told him, ‘We’re paying for the show, we just want a show, and if you want to turn it into a political rally, we’re gonna cancel the show.'”
“The band was paid in full before they got here, and it was a free show, so we didn’t have to refund any customers any money, but I am the general manager and I wasn’t gonna make our employees feel uncomfortable posting the American flag upside down and putting different graphics over the top of the American flag. ”
“And we’d rather cancel the show than be in the spotlight with all this anti-American political thing, especially when it came down to the American flag being hung upside down for the show and being desecrated.”
While Richard Patrick has claimed that Karl A. Maahs was “straight-up lying” about his side of the story, it appears as though Filter might not be welcomed back to that venue any time soon.
Filter’s last record, Crazy Eyes, was released in 2016, and the group are reportedly working on a follow-up to 1995’s Short Bus, apparently titled ReBus. The band’s last tour of Australia took place in 2014 for the penultimate edition of Soundwave.
Check out Filter’s ‘American Cliché’:
