Heart Of A Coward's Vishal Khetia: Racism In Metal Exists

With first-hand experience, Heart Of A Coward bassist Vishal Khetia is very much aware of racism in the global metal scene, and he doesn’t want to see the issue swept under the rug…

“When I first started playing this genre of music I was fairly oblivious to the existence of racism in the metal scene, but I think in recent years it’s become more prominent. With everything going on in the world and racist attitudes becoming more visible in numerous countries it’s drawn it out, and when you see a video of Phil Anselmo giving the Nazi salute [onstage on January 22, 2016; he has since apologised] that’s something that’s not okay.

“It’s also become more apparent to me with some of the places that I’ve visited. It’s a very sensitive topic, and I’m not saying this country or this city is particularly racist, but in some of the places I’ve visited I have felt like an alien because of the colour of my skin. There are not many Indians within the metal scene as it is, and I very much have experienced people staring at me and have been harassed. Recently we were in Cologne, and I was walking to the venue and had some guy shouting at me. It was an intimidating experience, which was a shame because everyone else there was lovely. Whenever we get offers for shows it always crosses my mind as to what the demographic will be like, because at the end of the day I am slightly different, so it’s something I have to think about. We did a Russian tour with Thy Art Is Murder, and before we went I was on the internet looking up the state of racism in cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, really worried about it. I did have people looking at me like I was a piece of shit and shouting things I didn’t understand while we were there.

“I mentioned Phil Anselmo before, and I love Pantera and I love Down, but I saw videos of him playing The Underworld [in Camden, London] recently and I don’t understand, because have we just forgotten how he behaved? That’s really bad in my opinion. You shouldn’t be able to get away with that and then continue to tour in an industry that you’ve tainted. I think we should be having a conversation about it. I think we shouldn’t keep quiet about discrimination, and make people aware that it’s a real thing instead of ignoring it and hoping it goes away. This scene is a family, and we need to stick together rather than letting something like the colour of skin separate us.”

Heart Of A Coward’s new album The Disconnect is out now via Arising Empire Records

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