Top Aide to Vladimir Putin Quotes Five Finger Death Punch in Editorial Attacking the U.S.
To say it’s a weird day for stories about heavy metal and Russia would be an understatement of Hoglanian proportions.
First, there was the story of a teenager who used Novembers Doom as the soundtrack for a video he made of himself posing with the body of a teacher he had recently murdered.
Now Vladislav Surkov, one of the top aides to Vladimir Putin, president of Russia and BFF of Donald Trump, has quoted Five Finger Death Punch’s “Wash It All Away” in an editorial attacking the United States.
The Moscow Times reports that Surkov, who “played a leading role in shaping the current Russian political landscape during President Vladimir Putin’s first two terms in office,” quoted the band in a column for the state-run news channel RT earlier this week, writing that “The line ‘Done with all your hypocrisy’ sounds like a prophecy, a verdict, and as the motto of a new era.” Later in that same column, Surkov quoted the same song, asserting that “a strong hand will lead the confused crowds from ‘all of the chaos and all of the lies.’”
In the past, Surkov, commonly known as ‘Grey Cardinal,’ has “written poetry and lyrics for the rock group Agata Kristi.” So we can assume that he considers himself a contemporary of Ivan Moody and an murder mystery aficionado.
FFDP guitarist Zoltan Bathory, who was born in Hungary while it was Soviet leadership, wrote the following about Surkov’s piece on Facebook:
“Ha… Another one in Bloomberg…. The title reads: ‘How U.S.-Russia Diplomacy Went Heavy Metal – In the new Cold War, pragmatic dialogue is out. Quoting Five Finger Death Punch is in’
“Well…. let me just say…. It’s especially interesting that we just happened to be in Russia at the moment. We had a fantastic show at the Stadium in Moscow yesterday… The energy of the crowd was incredible. We love our Russian fans just as much as they love us… They are at the airport when we arrive, follow us all over Europe, all the way to America, even to South America… We see their faces and we see their sawn together Half-Russian-Half-American flags everywhere… We are family… Music Unites….
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“I can tell you…. between the people … there is NO hate… there is NO cold war here… so let’s NOT make one. I grew up on this side of the iron curtain in communism… so I have ACTUAL memories of the cold war…. Even back then… though we were told by the communist media that America was the ‘Enemy’… Nobody… and I mean nobody sane actually believed that… We loved American Music, American culture… and the American people… We understood the difference between propaganda and reality…
“Just as I ran into some Iranian kids in the elevator… as they were taking photos – they actually said – ‘please don’t believe the media’ … they are lying to you! We don’t hate America… and they tried to explain that regular (especially younger) people don’t feel that way whatsoever…
“The media needs to be responsible with their words – choosing ratings over peace is irresponsible
“So let’s tone down the hysteria and try harder with that dialogue…”
I’m not sure why Bathory feels the media was being irresponsible here when all they did was report Surkov’s use of the quote, but then, I’m not sure why Bathory does a lot of things. Honestly, in this case, I’m most confused by his liberal use of ellipses.
Read The Moscow Times‘ complete story here.
[via Rock Feed]
