Godsmack singer ambushed by Arthur Magazine for supporting US military

I found this article via http://www.boingboing.net/ -- Jay Babcock, editor of "Arthur Magazine" basically did an ambush interview yesterday with Sully Erna, lead singer and lyricist of rock band Godsmack. It starts off fairly normal, but quickly degenerates into a nigh-incoherent rant by the interviewer about Godsmack's letting some of their songs be used by military recruiters in TV advertisements.

I don't necessarily endorse a lot of what the US military has done, and especially in cases like Abu Grahib and other sites where our military has tortured prisoners under the pretext of extracting information from them (as if anybody is fooled by terms like "coercive interrogation techniques" or believes that useful information is extracted that way). We've also made some relatively bone-headed decisions in the past. But Erna is, in the interview, being fairly respectful of the military, and acknowledges the existence of some problems (though he wasn't prepared to talk about them, since he thought he was doing some publicity for the band's new album).

A relatively mild snippet (some profanity, but I can understand it, giving the amazingly one-sided interview technique):

Jay Babcock: [incredulous] YOU DIDN’T THINK THE MEDIA WAS BEING CONTROLLED BY THE MILITARY?!?

Sully Erna: Well, it could be. I don’t know.

JB: YOU DIDN’T LOOK INTO IT?

SE: Listen. Are you a fucking government expert?

JB: I’M NOT TELLING PEOPLE TO GO JOIN THE MILITARY AND THEN NOT KNOWING WHAT THE MILITARY IS DOING.

SE: I don’t tell people to go join the military!!
JB: YOU DON’T THINK USING YOUR SONGS –THE POWER OF YOUR MUSIC, WHICH YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT—HAS AN EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE THAT HEAR IT WHEN IT GOES WITH THE VISUALS THAT THE BEST P.R. PEOPLE IN THE WORLD USE?!

SE: Oh man, are you like one of those guys that agrees with some kid that fuckin’ tied a noose around his neck because Judas Priest lyrics told him to?

The full interview is at:
http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1244

Read it, and weep.