Jason Aldean had “kind of a breakdown” in the months after the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting, which saw 60 audience members were killed and more than 800 more were injured
Jason Aldean had “kind of a breakdown” in the months after the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting.
The 48-year-old singer was on stage at the event in Las Vegas on 1 October 2017 when 60 audience members were killed and more than 800 more were injured and he’s now looked back on the days after the tragedy and how little time he had to process what happened.
Speaking on the Armchair Expert podcast, he said: “It was a festival like we’ve done a million times.
“It was just obviously something that we weren’t prepared for.
“We finally got out of there the next afternoon, home and you’re just glad to be home, show up my mom’s crying.
“You know, my oldest daughter was in school, freaking out, thinking that somebody was trying to shoot us, so all the details were still kind of coming out.”
Jason then performed on Saturday Night Live before returning to Las Vegas to meet with those impacted by the shooting.
He said: “Sunday morning, I was on a flight going back to Las Vegas to go to the hospital and see all the victims. That was tough. People hadn’t recovered from their wounds yet.”
The Try That in a Small town hitmaker then had another month of shows to perform, and two months after the shooting, his wife Brittany gave birth to their son Memphis, giving Jason time at home to process everything that had happened, which soon took a toll.
He said: “All of a sudden at home, we kind of had something else to focus on versus watching that on the news every day.
“I think for me, you know, I kind of had a breakdown in my house one day. It was after my son was born and just all that heaviness of everything, just getting laid on you.
“I ended up having a moment at my house where I kind of broke down thinking about just all the people that I could have lost, all the people that we did lose as far as fans, but my inner circle of people and my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things.”
The country star admitted he felt “guilty” that he and his band had escaped the shooting unscathed when so many others hadn’t.
He said: “It’s easier to talk about now. At the time it wasn’t because you’re still trying to comprehend what had just happened.
“You know, my bass player, my best friend for the last 25 years, his bass had a bullet lodged in it that he was wearing when we were on stage.
“For our little family, our little crew, we got so lucky, not one injury to any of our guys. And you’re happy about that, but then you’re like, feel guilty to be happy about there’s like this guilt ridden thing.”
While Jason – who also has two daughters from his marriage to Jessica Ussery and six-year-old daughter Navy with Brittany – paid for therapy for many affected by the tragedy, he didn’t seek help himself.
Asked if he sought therapy afterwards, he said: “I guess [I’m] too Southern. Here’s the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for all the crews and everybody else. My therapy was me, my wife, my band, all of us that were kind of there. We all talked about it amongst each other. “
The Whiskey Drink singer noted the incident will “forever connect us to that city” and he hopes to return to Las Vegas for a long period in the future.
He said: “At some point you can either kind of run from it or accept it and try and make something good out of it. And that’s kind of what we tried to do.
“I think that’s probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies, but for me to just stop touring and even doing it the way we do it.
“This is what I’ve wanted to do from the time I can remember.”
Jason Aldean had ‘kind of a breakdown’ following Route 91 Harvest Festival tragedy
