Recently during a show at Metallica’s new Sphere residency in Las Vegas, legendary Metallica frontman James Hetfield took a moment to share his thoughts about defiling music with the politics du jour. “Metallica is not here–like some other entertainers–to influence you with their bullshit.” I couldn’t agree more.

Just to be clear, he wasn’t talking about political music, lyrics or writing songs about politics. He was making a point that often, too many a musician use their platform to spew the banal political bullshit of the day–as if they are the bastion of thought on the various (and complicated) geopolitics that muddy up our beautiful planet. A few artists come to mind here…Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Neil Young, Bad Bunny…to name a few.

Most do it out of ego. There seems to be a strange disconnect between making good music (or even shitty music for that matter) that has the charisma to attract millions of fans and the level of intellectual competence and geopolitical knowledge that it takes to really understand what is happening on our globe. Pro tip: 99% of people are totally asleep and as such accumulate their political knowledge from the media that spoon feeds it to them like baby food. This INCLUDES many popular musicians. And I’m not here to let everybody in on what is “reality” either; I’m just here to champion what James Hetfield is saying. So pay attention!

Because in the end, the music matters more than the politics. Most people don’t come to a concert to be lectured by the low IQ musician on stage. Instead, they want to escape all that bullshit. They want to relax and enjoy the music–imagine that? If you’re late to the party, I’ll let you in on a little secret: politics is a facade. It exists to distract you while “politicians” steal from you. Yes, it can be slightly more complicated than that at times, but ultimately this is the gantlet that we face as humanity. There are certain people who crave money and power above anything else and they are willing to lie, cheat and steal to take it from YOU. So why advocate for the devil?

What’s more–and I’ve blogged about this A LOT–is the potential to alienate half of your fan base. Think about this for a minute…why would any musician–who has generally struggled to amass such a large fan base to begin with–want to turn these people away? And just for disagreeing with ‘their’ particular brand of politics? How pathetically ego driven and stupid can one be to think this makes sense? It’s beyond deplorable; it’s obnoxious. Like Dave Grohl telling you that you have take the test dummy vax if you want to come to a Foo Fighters show. Right…because he’s also a doctor.

It’s OK to have political opinions. It’s also OK to be completely inept, politically. AND it’s fully OK to not want to pay any attention to these giant asshats that are in charge of our country. But it’s not okay to act as if one is holier than thou, regurgitating the political hatred that the media feeds us every day. Grow up! Learn to respect your fans and let them enjoy the show. If you feel the need to talk politics, grab a soap box and head to the local speaker’s corner. Just don’t do it at your concert!

I stand with James Hetfield here. Fuck your politics.