Jason Aldean Details His ‘Breakdown’ Months After the Las Vegas Route 91 Festival Shooting

Nearly eight years after the deadly shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Jason Aldean is opening up about the impact the event had on him. 

Aldean, 48, was performing on stage at the time of the shooting, which took 60 lives and injured more than 800 more on Oct. 1, 2017.

“It was a festival like we’ve done a million times,” Aldean shared on the Monday, Sept. 1 episode of the Armchair Expert podcast. “It was just obviously something that we weren’t prepared for.”

The “Try That in a Small Town” singer detailed his packed schedule in the wake of the shooting, including reuniting with his extended family and opening Saturday Night Live days later. 

“We finally got out of there the next afternoon, home and you’re just glad to be home, show up my mom’s crying,” Aldean said. “You know, 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 added that after his SNL performance, he was on the move once again, honoring those impacted by the shooting. 

“Sunday morning, I was on a flight going back to Las Vegas to go to the hospital and see all the victims. That was tough,” he shared. “People hadn’t recovered from their wounds yet.”

These appearances were followed by Aldean finishing his tour, which consisted of another month of shows. Then his and wife Brittany’s son Memphis was born two months after the shooting, sending Aldean home to spend time with family and to reconcile all that he had experienced. 

“All of a sudden at home, we kind of had something else to focus on versus watching that on the news every day,” he said. “I think for me, you know, I kind of had a breakdown in my house one day. It was after my son was born and just all that heaviness of everything, just getting laid on you.”

He shared that his emotions were related to the many “could have been” thoughts he experienced after the shooting. 

“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, all the people that we did lose as far as fans, but my inner circle of people and my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things,” he explained.  

The country singer admitted to grappling with his emotions during this time and struggling to decipher just how he was feeling. 

“It’s easier to talk about now. At the time it wasn’t because you’re still trying to comprehend what had just happened,” he said. “You know, my bass player, my best friend for the last 25 years, his bass had a bullet lodged in it that he was wearing when we were on stage. For our little family, our little crew, we got so lucky, not one injury to any of our guys. And you’re happy about that, but then you’re like, feel guilty to be happy about there’s like this guilt ridden thing.” 

When asked by podcast host Dax Shepard if he went to therapy for the incident, Aldean replied, “I guess [I’m] too Southern. 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. 

Aldean said the incident will “forever connect us to that city,” adding, “At some point you can either kind of run from it or accept it and try and make something good out of it. And that’s kind of what we tried to do.”

Moving forward, Aldean hopes to return to Vegas some day soon for an extended period of time. 

“I think that’s probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies, but for me to just stop touring and even doing it the way we do it,” he shared. “This is what I’ve wanted to do from the time I can remember.”