Emmure frontman Frankie Palmeri was interviewed on episode seven of Hatebreed, etc. vocalist Jamey Jasta‘s ‘The Jasta Show‘ and addressed the beef that led to an altercation between him and The Acacia Strain singer Vincent Bennett back in 2009.
With both bands due to officially tour together later this year for the first time since, Palmeri spoke the situation and their current relationship to Jasta. He also confirmed the well known fact that the groups ‘Keep Calm‘ shirt was at the time directed towards Bennett‘s girlfriend.
“Here’s really how that played out, from the top as short as I can make it, is we were cool. Literally he would come to our shows and like mosh, he thought we were dope. We were fans-we’re still fans now, just to put it out of the way, I still dig the band and ya know, cool guys and everything.
But the relationship went from like us being cool to hearing him talk shit about us. I’m not the kind of person to run my mouth about really anybody, ever, especially if I don’t have a reason to. That’s just how I am. But anyways, everywhere I went ‘oh Vince said this about you’ and I was like, ‘yeah, really don’t care.’ And then they had written a song which everyone was like ‘yo, that song is about you guys’, like 110%.
And so you know, I was like ok, I’m gonna basically get on your level and top you and just completely dis you even harder. And I did it by mentioning a fellatio experience with his now current wife.
That’s where the lyric came from, and so it comes from a personal place for me. So to me its like if you’re offended by that, you’re just looking for a reason to get riled up and truthfully you’re just that bored. That’s the long story short and now we’re cool and when we see each other we say what’s up.
I left the part out we did get into a fistfight at Northern Lights around the same time the album had dropped and I have a scar on my nipple from it and everything, but I won’t… [get into that.]”
When asked if the fight led to more record sales and a higher profile, Palmeri replied:
“Here’s the thing I think that we both gained from it. The hype and the tension—’cause it just built and built and built and when we actually fought it was like the biggest thing ever, like ‘oh my god, it really happened.’ And you know people still rap about it now. But honestly I think at this point I think it’s kind of mellowed out and people don’t really associate us as much as they used to.
Mostly because, like I said, we squashed the beef and everyone knows that so its kind of become a dead subject. I don’t know if I’m ranting in the wrong direction, but yeah we’re totally cool with those guys.
I think that looking back I think we could have made a more positive thing out of it if we were really smart, but we were really stupid and decided to fight. But you live and learn and we were both younger… I really wish I had been smart enough at the time to link up with him and be like ‘yo man lets blow this up and make it bigger and bigger and bigger.’ But you know, whatever it got real for a second and whatever, things like that happen.”
You can hear that episode below, while dates for Emmure‘s forthcoming tour with The Acacia Strain and more can be found here. Meanwhile, Jasta and Palmeri also weighed in on the infamous kidnapping publicity stunt put on by Upon A Burning Body frontman Danny Leal earlier in the year.
Jasta said of it:
“This is not a light subject because when you create a hoax like this, and 911 or any of these missing person lines… I guess this band is from Texas, wherever the town is they’re from, thousands of people called in trying to give information on this guys whereabouts. So people who actually have real missing kids, people who actually have real open missing persons cases—their case gets overlooked. Their workers devote their time on calls dealing this guy when he’s not even really missing…”
Palmeri weighed in:
“Here’s my opinion on the whole thing. I don’t hate on people who do things to hype up their record whether it be putting out a crazy shirt, or making crazy lyrics, doing something that at least has some integrity to it. To cry wolf about being kidnapped is low class. If you respect that band or that person after the fact, you gotta get your head checked.
Cause it takes a special kind of, like I said ‘low class’ to pull on the heartstrings of people. Not even really… If he was just like maybe like ‘fuck my band I fucking quit’ or just some crazy shit like that, and lied about that, alright fine whatever, cool I get it. But to really do something like that is a genuine concern and causes people to really have deep feeling, where they really feel like dread for something, is terrible.”
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