Former HELLYEAH bassist, Jerry Montano, has seen his fair share of controversy in the past three years, perhaps more than any other bass player in recent rock history. And he even now self-proclaims himself (according to his very own Twitter account) as: “Enemy #1, the bass player they love to hate!”
If you recall, back on May 20th, 2007, TheMetalDen.com learned from a source very close to HELLYEAH band that the bassist allegedly made a death threat the night he was ousted from the super group featuring PANTERA great Vinnie Paul Abbott, during the night of April 10th, 2007 during HELLYEAH’s debut CD-release party at The Clubhouse in Dallas, Texas, for what definitely turned into one chaotic and downright disturbing celebration according to this source. It ended reportedly with an alleged death threat being made by the drunk and out of control Jerry Montano, after he was thrown out of the bar for punching his fellow band mate Tom “Tomcat” Maxwell in the face.
At this point, Montano got up off the ground in front of the club, cursing and yelling, finally stating to the small crowd assembled of security and friends standing nearby:
“I am going to go get a gun, come back and shoot everyone!”
Then last year in Oct/2008, Montano suffered another stroke of misfortune when he was reported to have suffered a broken and bloody nose in a raucous hotel fight on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, after a night of hard drinking at the famed Rainbow Bar And Grill, from the alleged hands of country crooner John Rich.
Montano even filed a lawsuit against the singer that November. Papers on that can be viewed here. The outcome of his suit versus Rich (if any has indeed been reached) has yet to be made public.
Now, the musician has apparently found himself taking a recent visit to the hospital, according to one of his latest MySpace updates on July 24th, 2009 – wherein he notes:
“The hospital isn’t like Grey’s Anatomy. Ugh. Poked prodded and shot up with stuff.
It has not been clarified yet as to why Montano needed to go to the hospital, but he does
appear to still be performing in the club scene throughout America as part of the reformed punk rock group GREEN JELLY (a.k.a. GREEN JELLO).
Later in 2007, HELLYEAH went on to announce to the public that former DAMAGEPLAN bassist Bob “Zilla” Kakaha would now officially be the replacement for Jerry Montano. HELLYEAH is reportedly going back into the studio later this year to begin work on their follow-up album.
http://www.hellyeahband.com/
“If you recall, back on May 20th, 2007, TheMetalDen.com learned from a source very close to HELLYEAH band that the bassist allegedly made a death threat the night he was ousted from the super group featuring PANTERA great Vinnie Paul Abbott, during the night of April 10th, 2007 during HELLYEAH’s debut CD-release party at The Clubhouse in Dallas, Texas, for what definitely turned into one chaotic and downright disturbing celebration according to this source.”
Of course it would! I am not siding either way here but there are a few points I would like to bring up.
To oust someone on a night of celebrating and everyone feeling good in front of the entire close community and beyond, is such a punch in the soul. THAT hurts.
Whether he deserved to be ousted, how it was done is just as bad as his reaction. I would say about even.
If someone walked by and sucker punched your gut or kicked you super hard in the shin, would you react kindly and then walk away lightly? Not if you had any self worth or pride left in you…granted he allegedly causes trouble after nights of “heavily drinking”. Drinking usually helps people believe they can be honest and open then. Be more themselves…of course thats BS but eh – whatever. The guy needs to look in the mirror and think a while. Look into his own eyes and shut off his demonic and noisy mind. He obviously is more trouble than he can afford to be.
Carry stress and bad attitudes around with you everywhere you go and it will surely bounce off of you eventually because it comes from within you.You hurt people and then yourself and how it hurts you is tenfold…like great waves of chaos and that my friends, is a style our model Montano wears well and its called, karma, in the form of a bloody broken face. WAKE UP!!!
But I would never suggest to any of my bands to dump the trouble making member on a big night of celebration and accomplishment. That is going to forever be with him. I think he punched a brother in the face out of anger from a feeling of loss, betrayal, embarrassment in front of all those people,his own messed up mind and mouth which was probably flapping,etc. I believe people get angry in those ways because they care too much about what others think of them.
yeah, I should stop typing…because I wasn’t there and I do not know these people…im probably way off…lol…thanks for reading!
sucks to read about the negatives in such an awesome community: the metal community.
You weren’t there. lol So why would you even leave such a lame comment?
I had several eyewitness sources – who ‘were’ there, tell me this fat slob of a human being threatened to kill everyone. What on earth are you smoking in your pipe, that you think things were “even” cause of the way Vinnie Paul’s crowd reacted to this insane idiot… after behaving in such a terrorist-like manner? Huh? This dude would not even have had a career if it were not for his friend Dimebag, who helped get this guy the gig in Nothingface and then put them on tour with Pantera for Reinventing The Steel tour! And this is how he is repaid by Montano, after he himself got his brains blown out on the stage by a maniac? By acting like a belligerent jackass at Dime and Vin’s bar the night of the cd release party?
You are right in saying that it sucks shit like this has to go down in the metal
community. I extended my hand to this guy even after I ran the story (which BTW, did over 8,800 page views to TMD’s site within 48 hrs), by telling him he needed to get to AA meetings and try and change his ways! But nooooo, he still is drinking his ass to death in Hollywood as I type these goddamn words!
Grow up, Jerry! I am going to piledrive the TRUTH into you and every other
person in the metal music world who choose to live in denial about this
sad and shocking event!!