Antiwar singers out of tune with public: the entertainers who have crossed the line in their opposition to war with Iraq are finding there is a high price to pay as fans reject their anti-American rants

Insight on the News, May 13, 2003 by John Berlau

The band Pearl Jam, which became famous during the Seattle "grunge-rock" movement of the 1990s, is not known for having politically conservative enthusiasts. So the reaction of fans at the opening of a new U.S. tour to an antic that lead singer Eddie Vedder performed without controversy in Australia and Japan came as quite a shock to him and to the music industry.

After making a series of antiwar and anti-Bush remarks at an April 1 concert in Denver's Pepsi Center, which were met with a mixture of cheers and boos, Vedder impaled a mask of President George W. Bush on a microphone stand, stabbed it into the floor and began stomping on it. Suddenly the boos were thunderous and dozens of patriotic Pearl Jam fans stormed out of the show.

"When he was sharing his political views ... that's okay," Keith Zimmerman, one of the angry fans, told Denver's Rocky Mountain News. "When he takes what looks like the head of George Bush on a stick, then throws it to the stage and stomps on it, that's just unacceptable. I love Pearl Jam, but that was just way over the edge."

When a fan yelled "Shut up!" at Vedder, the singer fired back in the same manner as have antiwar celebrities ranging from the Dixie Chicks to Martin Sheen to Tim Robbins--that by exercising their own right to free speech the critics somehow are denying that right to the pampered left-wing celebrities. "I don't know if you heard about this thing called freedom of speech, man," an angry Vedder shouted to the patriotic fans. "It's worth thinking about, because it's going away. In the last year of being able to use it, we're sure as f--going to use it."

But a fellow rocker said if performers continue to do outrageous things such as stabbing a Bush mask, they should expect their record sales to go down. "I don't think everybody that booed will stop buying Pearl Jam records or going to Pearl Jam concerts," observed Gene Simmons, a founder and front man of the heavy-metal band KISS, which has sold more "Gold Records" than any other American music group. "But I do know that a segment of the audience will stop." Simmons tells INSIGHT, "I'm one. I've bought Pearl Jam records. I'm out. He crossed the line."

The Pearl Jam incident proves that it's not just country-music fans who will hold celebrities accountable for irresponsible antiwar statements. "It speaks volumes," says Christian Josi, an internationally known jazz singer and Washington public-relations consultant who was executive director of the American Conservative Union. "That's obviously a very different fan base than the Dixie Chicks have. The fact that Pearl Jam fans would walk out on Eddie Vedder just underscores dramatically that the president sold this to the American people a long time ago, and people just got sick of hearing these celebrities talk out of their ass."

Many antiwar celebrities have not fared well--the plummeting record sales and reduced airplay of the Dixie Chicks, and the abysmally low ratings of Susan Sarandon's CBS TV movie, Icebound, on Easter Sunday, which finished dead last, are examples. In the meantime, celebrities--not all of them necessarily conservative--who made thoughtful arguments in support of the war, such as comedian Dennis Miller and actor James Woods, gained new respect. "The really outspoken anti-Bush celebrities--the Tim Robbinses of the world, the Natalie Maineses of the world--are really going to have a rough time," Josi observes. "That's compounded by the fact that you have other celebrities who you're not used to hearing from: Dennis Miller, James Woods, people who are very thoughtful, very credible and, in some quarters, seen as liberals, all coming out and very intelligently saying why these people are stupid."

Simmons, who gained fame for wagging his long tongue and wearing layers of makeup when KISS shocked the music world in the 1970s, again shocked many in April when he laid out on his Website (www.GeneSimmons.com) his reasons for supporting the war. "I'm ashamed to be surrounded by people calling themselves liberal, who are, in my opinion, spitting on the graves of brave American soldiers who gave their lives to fight a war that wasn't theirs in a country they've never been to, simply to liberate the people therein" Simmons wrote on April 10, just after Iraqis toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein. "[T]he answer to any doubters lies in watching Iraq's people dancing in the streets."

Simmons said the ratio of supporters to opponents who e-mailed his Website was about 70-30--the same percentage as in public-opinion polls on the war. He tells INSIGHT that he disagrees with Bush and Republicans on many issues but not on the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein. "I often don't agree with the Republican Party's stance on air, water, big business, Roe v. Wade, ad infinitum," Simmons says. "But in time of war, it's time to cut it out, or we're not here. We can't wait for Saddam Hussein [to act]. He is not a threat to the United States in the conventional sense. But in a very real way, if this son of a bitch gives one suitcase filled with dirty materials--whether it's a nuclear dirty bomb or anything else--to an al-Qaeda guy who's out of his mind. ... Do I have to wait for what will happen in order to say now he's a threat?"