The band Eagles of Death Metal will give their first interview since the Paris terror attack on the Bataclan theater to Vice’s Shane Smith. Lead singer Jesse Hughes and bandmate Joshua Homme talk about “those they lost, what happened that night, and…what it is that they—and we—can do next” in the interview, which debuts at Vice.com next week.
In a clip of the interview released Monday, Hughes and Homme reveal that audience members hid in the band’s dressing room, but terrorists found them and “killed every one of them except for a kid who was hiding under my leather jacket,” said Hughes.
For decades, major newsmaker interviews have reliably landed in the hands of a small number of high profile TV hosts–Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric. That this interview will happen with Smith–and online–hints at the shifting nature of TV news.
While network bookers surely have been working for the interview, Vice did have another edge–a connection to the band: “Eagles are a band we’ve interviewed many times before,” Vice reports, and Hughes hosted a video series on the Vice music channel, Noisey.