Jason Aldean has recalled the trauma he suffered after the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
The country singer, now 48, was performing onstage when the shooting started. Sixty people were killed and more than 800 were injured in the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
Speaking on the Armchair Expert podcast, Aldean said: "It was a festival like we've done a million times. It was just obviously something that we weren't prepared for."
The "Try That In A Small Town" singer explained that the immediate aftermath of the attack was disorienting, as he appeared on Saturday Night Live to honor victims before visiting survivors in the hospital.
He remembered: "We finally got out of there the next afternoon... home and you're just glad to be home, show up my mom's crying. My oldest daughter was in school, freaking out, thinking that somebody was trying to shoot us, so all the details were still kind of coming out."
Aldean continued to tour, performing for another month. His wife, Brittany, gave birth to their son, Memphis, shortly afterwards. It was back at home that he really began to process what had happened.
“I kind of had a breakdown in my house one day,” recalled Aldean. “It was after my son was born and just all that heaviness of everything, just getting laid on you.”
He continued: "I ended up having a moment at my house where I kind of broke down thinking about just all the people that I could have lost… my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things."
Aldean also said he experienced survivor's guilt, explaining: "You're happy... but then you like, feel guilty to be happy about... there's like this guilt-ridden thing."
After host Dax Shepard asked if he sought counseling, Aldean responded that he hadn't.
"I guess [I'm] too Southern," he said. "Here's the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for all the crews and everybody else. My therapy was me, my wife, my band, all of us that were kind of there. We all talked about it amongst each other."
The country icon added that he hopes to return to the city for a series of future shows. "I think that's probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies," he said. "But for me to just stop touring and even doing it the way we do it… this is what I've wanted to do from the time I can remember."
In 2019, Aldean said he "probably should've gone to a few more therapy sessions" after the incident.
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