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Jason Aldean Says He Still Has PTSD After Route 91 Music Festival: “We Funded A Ton Of Therapy… I Never Went”
Jason Aldean is still working through his PTSD stemming from the tragic Route 91 shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
On a special Labor Day drop of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, the comedian and actor had country music star Jason Aldean on as a guest. Dax is a household name thanks to some of his roles in TV shows like Parenthood and movies such as Without a Paddle and CHIPS. That being said, in recent years, the biggest thing he’s known for his undoubtedly his podcast, Armchair Expert, which he started in 2018.
Shepard’s show mainly focuses in on celebrity interviews, and the 50-year-old has previously shared that he has a passion for speaking with others, learning more about them, and hearing stories that could potentially help others in similar circumstances. He’s been at it for over six years, and Dax rarely ever passes on the opportunity to talk with someone interesting.
He’s been on somewhat of a roll as of late with country music artists as guests. Just a few weeks ago, country music superstar Luke Combs sat down with Dax to talk about everything that’s going on in his life. This week, on a special Labor Day drop, Dax Shepard had Jason Aldean on his podcast… and his fans were pretty upset about it.
But I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people didn’t even give the episode of a shot, because if they did, they would have heard a very healthy conversation between two people that might not share the same political beliefs (can you believe that?). At one point, Dax even felt comfortable enough to ask Aldean about the Route 91 Music Festival shooting that took place while the country singer was performing on stage.
For those that might not know, Aldean was playing at the country music festival when bullets started flying and the festival became known as site of the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. It was at Route 91 where a lone gunmen opened fire from a Las Vegas high rise, killing 59 people and injuring over 500.
Understandably, Aldean doesn’t like to talk about the topic all that much. He said in the interview that he hasn’t gone to therapy to work through it, and that he still suffers from PTSD and survivor’s guilt. He said at a recent show in Canada a car backfired and sent a the band into a flashback while they were walking down the street:
“We were in Canada just a couple days ago playing a show up there and we’re in kind of downtown the city walking to our hotel at night, probably midnight and a car backfires.
It sounds like a shotgun went off and I mean you’re right. All my crews with me that, you know, we’re all in that too, and so we’re all like, “What the f***?” And you know, so you still have those moments.
I never went. We And here’s the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for a ton of therapy for all the crews and everybody else. And then, you know, obviously I didn’t go.
So, my therapy was me, my wife, my band, you know, all of us that were kind of there. We all talked about it amongst each other. Yeah, that’s good. You weren’t alone in it. And that’s helpful.”
Dax was very patient with his questions, and wasn’t trying to be exploitive. He just wanted to know how Jason Aldean’s appearance on Saturday Night Live days after the shooting came to be.
Aldean explained that in the midst of he and his family processing the events, and considering canceling the rest of his tour (Route 91 Music Festival was one stop in the middle of a year-long tour for Aldean) when he was informed that SNL’s longtime showrunner and creator wanted him to be the musical guest less than a week after the shooting:
“I was home for a couple of days and I got a call from my manager, and he goes, ‘Hey, Lorne Michaels just called and he wants you to come play Saturday Night Live.’ This is like, on Thursday. It was (a really complicated offer). Obviously, ‘Saturday Night Live’ is something I’ve always wanted to play. That’s like one of those things as an artist. It’s an iconic show.
I hated that it was like that. Part of me was like, ‘F**k, I don’t want to do it like that.’ We were shell-shocked. Tom Petty had just died that Monday… so I said, ‘If you’ll just let us play whatever we want to play and let me say whatever, (I’ll do it).’ They wanted us to do a cold open. So I said, ‘I don’t want you all writing s**t for me to say.'”
Ultimately, Jason Aldean accepted the offer, rallied his band together in a short amount of time (he says they said “yes” on Thursday for the show that’s live on Saturday), and decided to play Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” as a tribute to both the tragedy that unfolded and the rocker’s passing. It was a whirlwind couple of days, and right after the show, he caught a flight to Las Vegas to visit with victims that were still recovering.
You can hear more from Jason Aldean on the tragic incident, and his SNL appearance days after it, in the interview below:
And here’s that very cold open that Jason Aldean was talking about in the interview:
The post Jason Aldean Says He Still Has PTSD After Route 91 Music Festival: “We Funded A Ton Of Therapy… I Never Went” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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