Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge was recently interviewed by Alternative Press and gave his side of the story regarding the band’s recent altercation with Alesana at the Denver stop of the Vans Warped Tour. According to the article, Dragge says the incident was the product of a simple misunderstanding and that the band holds no animosity toward Alesana. The confrontation only lasted about a minute before Dragge was subdued by police with a taser and arrested on assault charges. The guitarist spent the night in jail, and was released around 5PM on Monday after Alesana dropped the charges. Here’s a snippet from the interview:
“We were coming back from a bar across the way from the Warped buses in Denver after the show had ended. We saw what we thought was the RV of Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band. We’d been hanging out with those guys and since it was our last night on the tour, we wanted to drop by and say goodbye. They were driving a very distinctive RV, and I thought it was the only one on the tour. Apparently Alesana have the exact same van. We walked in and nobody was there, so we sat down thinking somebody’s gonna pop up or something. That’s around when [Alesana’s] tour manager came onboard and said, “What are you guys doing here? Who are you? You need to get out of our vehicle.” He was totally in the right. It was a situation where we thought we were in one place, and the tour manager for Alesana didn’t recognize us. Of course, if the roles were reversed and we found people on our bus, we’d tell them to leave, too.
Their tour manager said we had to go, and I think I said, “I’m gonna make a sandwich real quick.” That’s typical, smart-ass drunken Fletcher behavior. He went outside to get some of his team members to get us off the RV. This isn’t a bus; we’re talking about a pretty small area. All of a sudden, there’s me and Randy and six other guys in this kitchen area, and I think someone grabbed Randy’s arm saying, “Let me escort you off the bus.” It wasn’t violent. But everybody had been drinking and push came to shove. It’s kind of a blur, but it turned into a little bit of a melee. For us, we felt a little bit trapped in there because there was only one way out and there were people in the door way and people coming at us. We were in the wrong. We were in the wrong place and [Alesana] came to get us off their territory. It turned into a situation where we felt like we were outnumbered, even though we’re obviously older and bigger than those guys. It turned into self-defense mode. It went on for a little bit, and everybody took a couple bumps. In the middle of it, I think their TM realized who we were and that we just didn’t know where we were. Then it became about getting Randy off the RV. That’s when the cops rolled in and took control of the situation, or I guess, me, with the taser. All I saw was more people coming up the stairs who I thought were gonna do some more damange, and they wound up being officers of the law. They blasted me with the taser about five times, but I used to be an electrician, so I’m used to it. [Laughs.] We weren’t looking for a fight. We were just looking for the Rev.”
Read the entire interview here.
Source Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge was recently interviewed by Alternative Press and gave his side of the story regarding the band’s recent altercation with Alesana at the Denver stop of the Vans Warped Tour. According to the article, Dragge says the incident was the product of a simple misunderstanding and that the band holds no animosity toward Alesana. The confrontation only lasted about a minute before Dragge was subdued by police with a taser and arrested on assault charges. The guitarist spent the night in jail, and was released around 5PM on Monday after Alesana dropped the charges. Here’s a snippet from the interview:
“We were coming back from a bar across the way from the Warped buses in Denver after the show had ended. We saw what we thought was the RV of Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band. We’d been hanging out with those guys and since it was our last night on the tour, we wanted to drop by and say goodbye. They were driving a very distinctive RV, and I thought it was the only one on the tour. Apparently Alesana have the exact same van. We walked in and nobody was there, so we sat down thinking somebody’s gonna pop up or something. That’s around when [Alesana’s] tour manager came onboard and said, “What are you guys doing here? Who are you? You need to get out of our vehicle.” He was totally in the right. It was a situation where we thought we were in one place, and the tour manager for Alesana didn’t recognize us. Of course, if the roles were reversed and we found people on our bus, we’d tell them to leave, too.
Their tour manager said we had to go, and I think I said, “I’m gonna make a sandwich real quick.” That’s typical, smart-ass drunken Fletcher behavior. He went outside to get some of his team members to get us off the RV. This isn’t a bus; we’re talking about a pretty small area. All of a sudden, there’s me and Randy and six other guys in this kitchen area, and I think someone grabbed Randy’s arm saying, “Let me escort you off the bus.” It wasn’t violent. But everybody had been drinking and push came to shove. It’s kind of a blur, but it turned into a little bit of a melee. For us, we felt a little bit trapped in there because there was only one way out and there were people in the door way and people coming at us. We were in the wrong. We were in the wrong place and [Alesana] came to get us off their territory. It turned into a situation where we felt like we were outnumbered, even though we’re obviously older and bigger than those guys. It turned into self-defense mode. It went on for a little bit, and everybody took a couple bumps. In the middle of it, I think their TM realized who we were and that we just didn’t know where we were. Then it became about getting Randy off the RV. That’s when the cops rolled in and took control of the situation, or I guess, me, with the taser. All I saw was more people coming up the stairs who I thought were gonna do some more damange, and they wound up being officers of the law. They blasted me with the taser about five times, but I used to be an electrician, so I’m used to it. [Laughs.] We weren’t looking for a fight. We were just looking for the Rev.”