Matt Heafy, frontperson for Florida metalcore act Trivium, has taken Slipknot’s side in the band’s beef with Machine Gun Kelly, labelling him “Squirt Gun Smelly”.
Heafy joined the fracas on Twitter, writing, “I’d like to formally diss Machine Gun Kelly for ‘being 31 years old wearing a fucking 16 year old pop punk cosplay identity on a fucking stage’.”
His words echoed Kelly’s onstage diss of Slipknot at Riot Fest in Chicago earlier this month, where he said, “Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on a fucking stage. Fucking shit.”
Slipknot and Kelly were on-stage—two different stages—at the same time, which had earlier prompted Kelly to say, “Turn the lights up. Let me see who chose to be here instead of with all the old, weird dudes with masks.”
In a follow-up tweet, Heafy said he’d never thought about Kelly until he took the shot at Slipknot. But given Slipknot’s role in paving the way for bands like Trivium, he thought it warranted attention. “Squirt Gun is a clout chaser,” Heafy said. “And even though it’s all a PR stunt, a shot at SK needs an addressing.”
Trivium played at the Slipknot-headlined Knotfest Iowa on Saturday, 25th September, on a lineup that also included Lamb of God, Megadeth, Gojira and more.
Kelly, meanwhile, was busy getting in a mid-show punch-up with an audience member at Kentucky’s Louder Than Life festival.
