DOWN Punch Out ADEMA Guitarist Backstage at OZZFEST

Members of DOWN and ADEMA reportedly got into a scuffle backstage at the St. Louis stop of Ozzfest, where one of the guitarists for ADEMA got punched in the mouth while he was on DOWN's tour bus and it almost led to a showdown between Phil Anselmo and the DOWN boys and Jonathan Davis' little half-brother Marky Chavez and his group ADEMA.

It is unclear whether it was Mike Ransom or Tim Fluckey who got punched in the mouth by someone on the DOWN tour bus, but here is the story as it was related to antiMUSIC by an eyewitness to the incident.

At about 11:30 Monday (August 19th) night, a few of the band members and crew were hanging out next to the ILL NINO bus, where a BBQ was happening. At about that time Marky Chavez and one of the guitarists for ADEMA rolled past in a golf cart, "about a bottle of Crown Royal to the wind." The reportedly drunk duo from ADEMA proceeded to the tour bus housing the members of DOWN, which was nearby.

A few minutes later, the ADEMA guitarist emerged from the DOWN tour bus with a bloody mouth and proceeded to throw a glass bottle across the parking lot in anger according to an eyewitness.

Then the members of ADEMA descended on the scene ready for a fight, apparently looking for "who punched their boy in the mouth." The members of DOWN and their entourage aren't exactly small guys, so it took a lot of liquid courage to confront them. Then things turned to a yelling match with Marky Chavez yelling for the guitarist from DOWN to "come down off the bus." By this time most of the people backstage had gathered around to watch the mayhem unfold.

The yelling from the ADEMA camp apparently worked because soon Pepper and Phil Anselmo came off their bus to confront their antagonist. Pepper, playing the calm cool and collective music and touring veteran, took Marky aside to try and discuss the situation with him without resorting to violence.

Then the head of security, "Big Val", showed up and apparently things calmed down at that point with each band going back to their tour buses to cool off. So a major rumble was just barely averted backstage at Ozzfest but you can be sure there will be no love lost between the members of DOWN and ADEMA from this point on.

This wasn't the only violence backstage that night. Apparently, in an unrelated scuffle, Joe Schigel, the rhythm guitarist of SW1TCHED, was wrestling with one of DOWN's T-shirt guys and it got a little heated and punches were thrown. The message here for other Ozzfest bands is: don't mess with DOWN!

(Thanks: antiMUSIC)