Riley Gale of Power Trip Opens Dialogue With Host of Fox News Program After Song “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)” Played on Show

Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi

Late last year, Texas-based thrash metal band Power Trip was featured on the Fox News program “The Five” as one of the hosts of the show, Greg Gutfeld is an avid metalhead. Gutfeld played the Power Trip song “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe),” a particularly thrashing blast of metal from their awesome 2017 release Nightmare Logic. The band did not take lightly to being played on a conservative news network, with the group tweeting out a cease and desist order.

According to The PRP, the band’s singer Riley Gale reached out to Gutfeld after the incident. Despite having differing political views, Gale and Gutfeld found some common ground, with Gale suggesting other metal bands that would be a good fit to be played on “The Five.” However, Gale has made it clear that the band does not condone the type of political message pushed by Fox News, stating that he hopes fans of the band adhere to some of the morals and political views as the band itself:

“We’re political in a sort of morally relativistic way where if someone is wearing a Power Trip shirt, you can probably assume that that person isn’t like some weird, racist, meathead piece of shit — hopefully. We try to make it pretty clear that we might all be white males, but this is not a band for white males to enjoy and be dumb rednecks.”

Power Trip has been on a tear in recent months, with the group about to head out on a North American tour with The Black Dahlia Murder, in addition to scheduled appearance at the Decibel Metal and Beer Festival,  both of which will surely be exciting as the group is one of the most devastating live bands in the metal underground today. The band also contributed a new song to the Adult Swim Singles Program in the form of the ripping “Hornet’s Nest.”

Photo credit Mehreen Rizvi
Andy Lindquist: Music news writer at mxdwn.com. Part of the mxdwn team since 2017. I have been writing about music for some time now and also play in an pop/rock band. I have a BA in rhetoric from UC Berkeley. Born and raised in the San Francisco bay area and still currently living out on the eastern side of the bay.
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