Delta Airlines Employees Robbed High on Fire / Sleep Frontman Matt Pike

Ask any touring musician who’s ever been forced to hand over their prized instruments to airline baggage handlers what doing so feels like and you’re bound to get answers ranging from a mild panic to complete existential dread. Anything could happen anywhere along the chain of the dozens of people who lay hands on the essentials tools of your trade, and the feeling of letting go is absolutely horrifying. Best just not to think too hard about it.

The worst came to pass last week when legendary non-shirt-wearer Matt Pike, while on tour with Sleep, had has pedalboard broken into by an employee of Delta Airlines. The pedalboard was in a Pelican roadcase — a high-end brand designed to withstand such attempts — that was zip-tied shut, and after it first went missing en route it was eventually returned to Pike with all of its contents gone, every single pedal! Some of them one-of-a-kind, custom items made just for Matt, and hence irreplaceable. What’s more, Delta Airlines denied Pike’s claim for damages. Shameful!

It’s unclear precisely when and where the robbery happened — the band played in Athens, GA (near Atlanta) on June 15th, Tampa on June 17th and Miami on June 18th — but tattoo artist and illustrator Alyssa Maucere, who collaborated with Pike on the design of the Black Arts Toneworks Rabid Mammal pedal, is asking fans in the Atlanta and Miami areas (why not Tampa?) to keep an eye on local pawn shops and online listing sites like eBay and Reverb. In a post to Twitter, Maucere included a list of every pedal stolen, which we will re-post below along with her tweet.

So: keep an eye out for Matt. And harass Delta Airlines while you’re at it for refusing to take responsibility: do so on Twitter right here. Together the metal internet can will Matt’s pedals back into his hands, just like we did for Lamb of God’s stolen guitars, Marianne Williamson style.

https://twitter.com/AlyssaMaucere/status/1144327186481991680

[via Ghost Cult Mag]