Veteran drummer Pete Parada has played in several rock and punk bands, most notably Face To Face, Saves The Day, Alkaline Trio and The Offspring. Back in 2021, Parada was the subject of some controversy when he was fired from the latter of those bands after more than a decade behind the kit for refusing to get the Covid vaccine.
In a new interview on the “Try That In A Small Town” podcast, Parada talked about his dismissal from the band and revealed that despite following his doctor’s advice, he still got the axe. Parada had Guillain-Barre syndrome as a child and was told “not to get a shot at this time” because of his medical history. The Offspring’s manager didn’t accept Parada’s reasoning.
“He was new with the band,” Parada said of the manager. “He’d only been with them since Covid hit. So I didn’t have a lot of history with this guy. He chose to come at me like a flamethrower. I’ve gotten crappy phone calls before, this was the most abusive and threatening call I’ve ever had in my entire career.”
Parada said the manager didn’t care about his medical exemption. “He made it clear that I was either to get vaccinated or I’d be replaced,” he added. “The phone call was so shocking.”
Parada said he wrote to “the two guys in the band that were my boss,” referring to guitarist/frontman Dexter Holland and guitarist Noodles. “I tried to talk to them about him and I said, ‘You might fire me over this but you should know, this guy is not representing you well and if he’s treating me like this, he’s treating your crew even worse’”, he said. “I was told, ‘That’s not the concern right now, he’s not the concern, your refusal to do this is the concern.’”
He continued: “So things deteriorated pretty rapidly after that and less than a week later I found all communication stopped. I had a flight and a hotel and stuff on hold to go to rehearsal, and a week later, I checked my Southwest app and that’s how I found out I was replaced because my flight was canceled.”
Watch Parada’s full interview below.
