.@leebrice: “As human beings, if we just stick to love and stick to each other than I think we can win out and not let the evil take over.” pic.twitter.com/TWCXF3WP0c
— Michaela Pereira (@Michaela) October 5, 2017
Lee Brice performed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Friday, Sept. 29, just two days before Stephen Paddock opened fire on concertgoers during Jason Aldean’s set at the festival. And although Brice wasn’t there on Sunday, he got emotional when speaking out about the domestic terror attack.
“It could have been us, it could have been Saturday night,” he told Michaela Pereira on HLN’s MichaeLA. “The dude [Stephen Paddock] was there.”
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The 38-year-old “Hard 2 Love” singer and dad of three said he talked to Jake Owen, who had performed immediately before Aldean, in the midst of Sunday night’s chaos.
“I texted Jake… and he was like ‘Lee, bodies are down and there’s blood everywhere,’ ” Brice said, saying that the mayhem was even taking place “backstage.”
“The tour bus got shot up, where my tour bus was sitting two days earlier,” he said.
Brice also spoke about the concertgoers who were killed or injured in what turned out to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
“I just cannot stop thinking about all the fans. A lot of these fans, they go to a lot of our shows over the years…they come from all over to watch us,” he said. “They’re our friends, they’re our family.”
He said that he thinks that country music has the power to help country music fans and all Americans heal.
“As human beings, if we just stick to love and stick to each other then I think we can win out and not let the evil take over,” he added.
Owen also spoke out about the tragedy, telling Fox News that like many others, he first thought the gunfire was fireworks. But then he noticed bullets ricocheting “off of the top of the stage and on the stage,” and he then “noticed people literally being shot.”
Like Brice, Owen says that together, Americans can start to heal from the tragedy.
“We put on concerts to take people away from the day-to-day life, to bring them to a happy place and this isn’t by any means what’s supposed to happen at these things,” Owen said. “I think us, as a community, aren’t going to let this bring us down either. We’re going to continue to do what we do… because this isn’t what our America is supposed to be like. We’ve got to fix this.”
Other country music stars, like Aldean, have opened up about the horrific attack; read more here.
Photo Credit: Twitter / @leebrice
