Music

Navy SEAL who "blasted bin Laden" says Metallica didn't want the military using their music in interrogations anymore

by Tyler Munro

According to a lengthy (and great) Esquire interview with the nameless Navy SEAL who shot Osama Bin Laden, Metallica had to ask the military to stop using their songs to interrogate prisoners of war.

“When we first started the war in Iraq, we were using Metallica music to soften people up before we interrogated them,” he said. “Metallica got wind of this and they said, ‘Hey, please don’t use our music because we don’t want to promote violence.’ I thought, Dude, you have an album called Kill ‘Em All.”

Stressing that “repetitive questioning and leveraging fear” was as aggressive as he went in interrogations, the soldier then explains how the army found its heavy metal replacement in Christian metal band Demon Hunter.

“[W]e stopped using their music, and then a band called Demon Hunter got in touch and said, ‘We’re all about promoting what you do.’ They sent us CDs and patches. I wore my Demon Hunter patch on every mission. I wore it when I blasted bin Laden.”