Metal legend Bobby Liebling grapples with fame gone wild

Pentagram spent fifty years in the trenches, yet their career was more entangled in scandal than in financial success. Bobby Liebling, the band’s 71-year-old vocalist, is largely to blame for the lost momentum and squandered chances. From the reception to his 2011 documentary “Last Days Here,” he and his band were given a fresh lease on life after falling into drug addiction and solitude in the 1990s and early 2000s. With the help of the movie, Liebling was able to improve his life and put the band back on course. It was by no means easy, though, as other issues surfaced a few years later. King Woman and Wax Idols left a 2016 tour with the band, claiming harassment from the Pentagram camp and inappropriate behaviour. Liebling was caught and given a prison sentence for attacking his elderly mother around a year later. Bobby’s bandmates would later claim that he was in a “drug-induced rage” when the incident occurred. A “remorseful and rehabilitated” Liebling rejoined the band after being released from prison, and the group has continued to exist ever since. The band’s prominence was significantly altered in February of last year, though, when video of a groggy Liebling performing onstage went viral and received millions and millions of views. Liebling and his bandmates have become much more well-known to the general public now that they are required to be escorted by police in some areas. Liebling discussed how the band’s path has been impacted by the viral video in an interview with Altars Of Metal a few weeks ago.

The whole thing flipped me out at first. It was pretty weird. I always had this dream of maybe someday I can have a post on Instagram or Facebook, and it will be viral. And it was like… Jesus, wow…Careful what you wish for, because it kind of blew up more quickly than I expected it to for damn sure. But it was pretty cool, you know? And it’s really fun, though, playing music for over half a century and then becoming famous for being a joke. The band’s profile went through the roof immediately, which is pretty obvious that it would. And we got stopped in airports by TSA people, and we’ve gotten stopped on planes by pilots coming out of the cockpit to say hello, and soccer moms in the airport and groups of little kids and stuff like that. It’s pretty wild, man. I really didn’t know how to react, and I still kind of don’t because everywhere we go, it’s someone [saying], ‘Aren’t you that guy?’

Liebling added also:

When it happened, we were actually on tour already, and so the sales didn’t really increase or anything because the places were sold out, actually, when we were doing the West Coast tour, which is when it came about. And then the South American tour, which was mostly sellouts too. So I don’t know how it really bolstered the situation of the attendance, but I do know the ‘seeming popularity’ – and Lord knows why – but it went through the roof. It was a trip. People are clawing, trying to get through crowds. And you got police escorts surrounding you to get to a van when you leave a gig. It was wild, man. It still is.