Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed, etc.) is among the few people in the metal community who has openly talked about As I Lay Dying’s controversial return, and during a recent episode of his podcast “The Jasta Show,” he discussed it even further. The particular episode, which can be found HERE, features Bleeding Through‘s Brandan Schieppati, who happens to be a good friend of Tim Lambesis. However, Jasta was unaware of this before recording the episode, so he decided to add a new intro to voice his concerns.
“So I reached out to Brandan [Schieppati] saying like ‘Hey man, I wish I knew you were in contact with Tim Lambesis from As I Lay Dying because I have feelings about that whole situation.’
And this episode was recorded before Brandan posted a picture, you know, publicly aligning himself with Tim. Now I’ve since spoken to Tim and I’ve traded messages with Brandan… the verdict is still out if this is a good idea.
I wish no ill will upon anyone. But when you commit such a heinous crime and then you come out and you don’t make a statement from the band—the band that everybody in the band was like ‘I’ll never jam with this dude again, he ruined our lives.’ I shouldn’t say everybody in the band, but some people in the band we’re greatly affected by this.
Obviously it ruined the band’s career up until this point, right? So I just found it interesting that these guys would not only go back to jamming with Tim, but that also no statement, like ‘Oh, he’s a changed man’—no evidence of him being changed.
And we’ll give Tim the benefit of the doubt. I’m not saying that people can’t be rehabilitated. I’m not saying people don’t deserve a second chance. I just haven’t seen anything yet.
So when I see people following along blindly—and Brandan has a different relationship with Tim, they’ve been in contact this whole time. I wish I knew that before this episode because that would have drastically changed this episode.
I’ve dealt with people close to me in the past that had drug issues that became criminals. Some were rehabilitated, some went right back to doing the same shit they did before they were in jail, before they were caught.
I don’t want to see that happen with Tim, but I’m coming from a different place with this whole thing. I’m not just gonna follow blindly and go ‘Oh yeah dude, welcome back.’
This is gonna be a discussion that’s gonna come up on future episodes. And you see with other situations where people were acting really fucking shady—you look at Kevin Spacey, Kevin Spacey‘s not making movies right now. He doesn’t have a Netflix show.
What we do is a gift. What we do is a privilege and it’s gotta be earned. And it’s gotta be earned back if you fuck up and you hire someone to KILL. YOUR. WIFE. OK?
‘Oh, it didn’t happen. Oh, you never wanted to kill your wife? OH, You never wanted to kill somebody?’ No motherfucker I’m not saying that. Don’t fucking put words in my mouth. I’m saying what has been done… ‘Oh he served his time’—no, he served an abbreviated sentence.
Look he’s got time to show and prove. He’s got an open invite to come on the podcast and we’ve spoken. And we’re gonna have to get Brandan back on and see, because I think this is gonna be very polarizing for Bleeding Through fans—especially their female fans. With the Me Too movement going on right now and with Marta in the band, I gotta be honest I don’t think it’s a good look for him to be aligning himself with Tim Lambesis.
But they have a friendship and I like Brandan a lot. I respect him. I respect his hustle and his grind. We’ve toured before, we’ve shared a bus before. I consider him a friend but I just hope he’s not being manipulated.
And I hope that this isn’t a ploy for a band like As I Lay Dying to now get credibility off a band like Bleeding Through and that might not be the case, but this is just kind of my skeptical thinking, or my thinking right now.
And I want to be honest with my listeners and with my fans. And as you’ve seen—and this is the reason why I had to do an emergency intro before this episode—I’m like the only one who has sort of come out publicly in saying ‘Hey, hey not just yet, not just yet.’ ‘Oh well the song is a statement’, huh, OK. Interesting…
To each their own. If you want to support it and if you can separate the art from the person, that’s fine. But you are in a different position than I am in. Let’s be upfront. Let’s be honest about it. The stage is sacred. I worked my whole life, trying to treat people decently, trying to be a good guy.
You don’t just get this privilege and this honor and this gift back after an abbreviated sentence and without really a statement from the rest of the band or your ex or your kids saying ‘we’ve forgiven you.’ If that was the case then maybe my opinion would be different…”
Lambesis infamously tried to hire a hitman to kill his wife in 2013 and was released from prison in December 2016. He has since reunited with the band’s classic lineup to release a new song called “My Own Grave”. The group are currently scheduled to play a sold out show on June 16 at the SOMA Sidestage in San Diego, CA, and are planning to address their return in the near future.
