PRO-PAIN's GARY MESKIL Says 'It Took' Him 'A Long Time To Recover' From Violent 2017 Assault In Belgium

In a new interview with FaceCulture, PRO-PAIN frontman Gary Meskil reflected on the July 2017 incident when he was violently robbed in Brussels, Belgium. Meskil reportedly suffered extensive injuries when he was struck on the head with an ice pick before being set upon by a group on individuals. He was admitted to hospital and eventually recovered from the horror attack.

Meskil said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): " Yeah, it was six people [who assaulted me]. And it was all on camera. So, I identified four of the perpetrators. And the police tracked them down. And then after I was home for a couple of months, I got a call from the police department, and they said, 'Well, they, these people, they don't have any permanent addresses in Belgium, so we had to release them all pending trial.' And then they put the ball in my court as to what I wanted to do. And I said, 'Well, what can I really do without making myself a target?' Because I'm kind of a public person, and these are not nice people we're dealing with, and they're in Belgium illegally. So I said, 'Well, forget it.' I'm not gonna continue to pursue something that the police aren't even really interested in pursuing."

Elaborating on what led to him being attacked, Gary said: "I got pick-pocketed, and when I confronted the person that I saw doing it — it was like a multiple-person operation. So I got kind of hit, elbowed from the front. And when that happened, somebody lifted my money out of my pocket and my ID and everything else. And when I confronted them, I was hit with — I thought it was a bat. That's what it felt like in the back of my head. But it turned out to be an ice pick. It's not an ice pick like what people think of, like this big [thing]. It's a small weaponized ice pick, which has the pick end on one side, and it's got like a metal hammer on the other side. And I got hit with the hammer end of it. And so it cracked my skull. And then they kicked my face in, basically. So my orbital was broken, my maxillary was shattered. My whole sinus cavity was completely smashed in. And they couldn't stop the bleeding, and so I was bleeding all night and I lost most of my blood. You can only lose, like, 1,500 ccs [cubic centimeters] and I lost, like, 1,300 ccs. So I had multiple blood transfusions. And then, like an idiot, I tried to come back and get on stage as quickly as possible, and that caused me a lot of problems. The first time I started to sing some songs, I started hemorrhaging again. So, it took a long time to recover."

Asked how he was affected mentally by is injuries, Gary said: "I think most of that is more subliminal. So there's some PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] involved. But it's hard to put your finger on, because it kind of comes out in terms of anxiety, which I never had before. But now I get riddled with anxiety at really strange times, and I can't control it. So that makes traveling really difficult. And it only seems to really creep up and get really heavy when I go on tour. And there's things you could take for it, but I don't really do well with prescription medication, because it makes me really drowsy, and I don't wanna be out of it all the time, so I'd just rather deal with it."

Speaking in more detail about the physical damage he suffered as a result of the assault, Gary said: "I think that was a result of the fracture to my maxillary. So this was broken. So your maxillary is not affixed to the skull anymore, so it kind of just floats. And being that the break was right in the middle, so when you hit a 'S' or a 'T', it was like the most intense pain, so I had to figure out how to pronounce things a little bit differently to get myself through a set. And that healed up nicely. I mean, my jaw is not 100% — it's a little bit off — but I can live with that. And I had some minor brain involvement also, which came up later. So I had some short-term memory issues that came out of nowhere. And that's a scary thing, because you'll be in the middle of doing something, and then you think, like, 'What the fuck am I doing? What's the purpose here?' And that healed also. So these things take a bit of time."

Less than a week after he was attacked, Gary told music journalist Tom De Smet of Gazet Van Antwerpen about the incident: "Last Monday, I went out with Adam [Phillips, then-PRO-PAIN guitarist] in Brussels. Adam returned to the hotel in the Stalingradlaan in the centre of Brussels, and I went for a beer in a bar nearby, around midnight. At the table next to me, there were some young guys and we started talking. It was all very friendly. Just a nice chat. After a while, I went to the bartender to pay my bill. When I returned, two of the guys I had talked to bumped into me. Then I realized that they took my wallet. I confronted them and they start hitting me. They got help from four others. They used an ice pick to hit me on the head. They kept on kicking me after I had fallen to the ground."

He continued: "They robbed me of a lot of money: the fees of several shows. I lost eighty percent of my blood. The doctors said that I was lucky to make it. They even had to remove glass from my eyes, because they kicked the glasses I was wearing. My jaw is broken, and I will need multiple surgeries. I don't know when I will be able to sing again. It can take weeks, possibly even months."

Meskil added that he was usually on his guard and could normally sense danger before it was too late, but he admitted that he "didn't see this coming."

PRO-PAIN's sixteenth studio album, "Stone Cold Anger", will be out on May 15, 2026 via Napalm Records.

PRO-PAIN 2026 is:

Gary Meskil - Bass, Vocals
Jonas Sanders - Drums
Greg Discenza - Lead Guitar
Eric Klinger - Rhythm Guitar