During an appearance on the latest episode of “The Jasta Show”, the podcast hosted by HATEBREED‘s Jamey Jasta, KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza expressed his shock over CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist Pat O’Brien‘s arrest.
He said: “I’ve always known that Pat was a little bit obsessed with guns. He told me that, but that’s his… whatever he’s happy with. But I hope he doesn’t have any major problems.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I know that he likes to drink and he gets in trouble when he’s drinking. I hope that’s probably it. But I hope there’s no other substances involved.”
Petrozza also said that O’Brien deserves a second chance to redeem himself:
“As soon as something like this happens, people online, they go, ‘Ha! Look at this guy!’ People wanna see you slip, they wanna see you fall,” he said. “And even though they love your music, [they still go], ‘Ha! Look at this guy!’ And I’m, like, ‘F*ck you.’ The guy has a problem. Have a little respect. And let’s hope he’s gonna get better. Because he’s one of the greatest death metal guitar players, if not one of the best metal guitar players in the world. So, let’s just hope for the best.
“He needs help,” Mille noted. “Whatever he did… I mean, this whole f*cking thing doesn’t make sense. How would somebody break into somebody’s house while his own house is on fire, which is, like, two blocks away or something? So this whole thing doesn’t make sense. It just shows you that it’s some crazy thing. He was just ‘out there.’ It’s nothing that he could control. It’s not like that he wanted to do some bad stuff. So I hope that the Florida justice system sees that and gives him a chance to recover and get off whatever he’s on.”
Describing O’Brien as “a great, great guy,” Petrozza admitted that he was “really surprised” when he heard about the guitarist’s arrest. “Like I said, I knew that he was sometimes a little strange, but not like that, Mille said. “All of us, we’re all strange. Pat was just… he was the sweetest guy ever.”
O’Brien was arrested Monday (December 10) on charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and burglary of an occupied dwelling with assault. Deputies say he burglarized a house and charged at a deputy with a knife.
At the same time, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue was responding to a fire at O’Brien‘s home after a neighbor called 911 after she saw flames coming from the house.
O’Brien was released from Hillsborough County jail on Friday, December 14, after posting a $50,000 surety bond.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.