Like many other artists these days, Zac Brown and his Zac Brown Band decided to cancel upcoming tour dates for precautionary reasons due to the coronavirus global pandemic. That wasn’t a decision he made lightly, as he had tears in his eyes while talking about it — and about people who aren’t taking the coronavirus seriously, including the US government — in a video he shared on Instagram.
In the clip, a clearly emotional Brown spoke about how difficult it was for him to cancel shows and put the people who help make his tours possible out of work. He said, “For the last 15 years, my crew and who I carry with me out on the road to play my shows and do what we do, I’ve had to let go of about 90 percent of my family, the people that I’ve traveled with and grew my business with, the people I high-five on the way out to the stage, the people that have done all their jobs and done them well. I hate having to make this call, but I can’t generate out there and I can’t tour because of the coronavirus.”
He went on to address people who aren’t respecting the severity of the pandemic, saying:
“I got this message that I want to say to the people that aren’t taking this seriously, and the people who are out partying, and the people that are sitting on beaches, and the people that don’t care if they get this virus or bring it home to their grandparents, and maybe kill their grandparents or complicate their lives: The longer that America doesn’t take this seriously and doesn’t stay in and try to contain this, the longer that everyone’s going to be out of jobs, the longer that we’re going to be pushed into this recession that we’re all about to enter into. The sickness has just begun here, it’s just started to rear its head. So you need to wake up, you need to stay indoors and try to socially distance yourself and stay inside.”
He then set his sights on the US government’s handling of the situation:
“America can heal from this, America can come together, we can celebrate with music, we can celebrate with song, we can celebrate on video chat, but the sooner that we take action on this and we don’t wait on our government to tell us that this is a serious issue and that this should be… We’re late to the game. I’m pretty ashamed of the way our leadership has handled this. I’m pretty ashamed of a lot of things. We can’t rely on our government to tell people what they need to do. You can read between the lines, you can read all the articles [about what’s happening] around the world, and we’re less protected than a lot of those countries. No one can tell us what to do. We have to decide for ourselves as Americans, and we have to look our for the future of all of our jobs and for the economy and for each other.”
Brown concluded, “I love to spread music and spread love in song and share music with the world. I’m going to do my best to do that from closed doors, but if we’re going to heal from this and we’re gonna get back to doing what we were doing before this hit, then everyone’s got to take this seriously.”
Watch Brown’s video above.
