Hey everyone, Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. And, I gotta say, I'm a little freaked out because, uh, something must be in the water right now because within a 24-hour period we saw two of the most crazy headlines to come out of the music world.

First, a story involving rapper Pooh Shiesty and his father coming to a quick close thanks to the FBI apprehending them. And apparently, they've been charged with the kidnapping of Gucci Mane. Now, thankfully, from what I understand, Gucci is currently safe, but somehow an even more explosive and concerning story has come out about the band Turnstile.

Now, if you follow rock music news at all closely, you most likely have seen some headlines and back and forth over the last few years involving the band's ex-guitarist Brady Ebert, who was one of the founding members of the band.

And following the band's super successful breakout album cycle behind the record GLOW ON, it was announced that Ebert would be leaving the band, and while the group obviously continued to grow and evolve, make their next record, go on to win a Grammy, it became increasingly obvious just how much bad blood between Ebert and the band there was over this split; at one point, Ebert took to the internet to criticize the band, their authenticity, whether or not they actually care about some of the social issues they platform.

And at the time, Ebert's comments caused quite the stir. I didn't cover them myself because I thought at the time, who knows, people who get kicked out of bands or leave bands say all sorts of nasty things about the groups they used to be in afterwards —But I was getting quite a few messages and comments at the time asking whether or not it sort of shook my views on Turnstile.

These public comments led to another interesting occurrence, though, Ebert getting kicked out of his other band, The S.E.T., and then having to go on and start another one. And this ejection also came along with a public statement from the band calling Ebert's comments ridiculous.

And Ebert also accused Turnstile's lead singer, Brendan Yates, of basically stealing, embezzling fundraiser concert money. So yes, things clearly were not very good between Ebert and his former band.

There are even multiple articles and sources on the internet confirming that multiple Turnstile members around the point of Ebert's departure sought temporary peace orders against Ebert from the court. Now, those orders were denied, and now we are just seeing how serious those concerns of violence or continued friction between Ebert and the band actually were.

The full details of what has occurred here are not completely out yet, but what we know so far is that Ebert essentially showed up at the home of Brendan Yates's father. In fact, there may have even been some knowledge that he was on the way. Police say there's even surveillance video showing at least some of this involving a verbal altercation between Yates's father and Ebert — with Ebert in his car, of course.

And the further details cited in this article from The Banner are pretty chaotic, with Yates having to physically maneuver his body to avoid getting hit by Ebert's car, allegedly throwing a rock at that car, which, given those details and those details alone, maybe there could be an argument made that, uh, maybe this man did this by accident and was merely trying to escape an attack, the rock, so on and so forth.

But then, in addition to this, as Yates was lying on the ground with severe trauma to his legs, apparently even a bone sticking out of the leg according to his legal defense, Ebert got out of the car while this guy was on the ground to say that he deserved it. Not really something you want to say if your argument is going to be, 'oh, I was attacked first,' or 'this wasn't my intention.'

Now, in the wake of this, Turnstile has released a public comment, and from the nature of the wording, it seems like they are most likely just going to kind of leave things here, or attempt to.

"Turnstile cut ties with Brady Ebert in 2022 in response to a consistent pattern of harmful behavior affecting himself, the band, and the community. After exhausting every available resource to support his access to help and recovery, a boundary ultimately had to be set when healthy communication was no longer possible and he began threatening violence.

In the years since, his baseless tirades have continued in public. We never addressed it. We chose to protect his privacy and the circumstances around his departure, even when he did nothing to be deserving of that protection. Over the past few months, his threats only escalated further.

This past week, that violence led to a physical attack when Brady went to the house of Brendan's parents and used his vehicle to run over Brendan's father, causing severe physical trauma. We are grateful that Mr. Yates survived, has successfully undergone surgery, and we're hoping for the best possible outcome in his recovery.

We have no language left for Brady.

Please respect our privacy in this time."

So again, currently Ebert is charged with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault. Sources say he wasn't exactly quiet during the court hearing and gave way to some allegations that may have been a motivation for his actions, saying he's only made like $18,000 this past year, and the band that he used to be in is essentially stealing money from him in terms of like residuals.

Apparently, his home had recently been foreclosed on, too. None of this being justification for what he did, obviously, because at this point, who knows how much validity there is to what this man is saying. Even if there is money owed, human life is not a trade for that. An act of violent revenge here is obviously not the answer.

But there you go, the story that we have so far, and my thoughts on it. There will most likely be further updates on theneedledrop.com (where you're reading this) if anything else major comes out, and I will leave it there.

Anthony Fantano, Turnstile. Forever.