EAGLES OF DEATH METAL MAKE FIRST STATEMENT SINCE PARIS ATTACKS

“Love overshadows evil.”

That is the message that Eagles of Death Metal, the American band playing at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris last Friday, conveyed in its first comments about the attacks there. In a statement posted Wednesday morning to its Facebook and Twitter accounts, the band said that it had returned home but was still shaken.

“We are horrified and still trying to come to terms with what happened in France,” the statement said.

“Although bonded in grief with the victims, the fans, the families, the citizens of Paris and all those affected by terrorism,” the band wrote, “we are proud to stand together, with our new family, now united by a common goal of love and compassion.

“We would like to thank the French police,” the group’s statement continued, “the FBI, the U.S. and French State departments, and especially all those at ground zero with us who helped each other as best they could during this unimaginable ordeal, proving once again that love over- shadows evil.”

Of the 129 people who have been reported dead in the attacks throughout Paris, 89 were at the 150-year-old Bataclan theatre. The band, from Palm Desert, Calif., had not spoken publicly since late Friday, when it posted a brief message saying that it was still trying to account for all members of the band and its crew.

Among those killed at the Bataclan were Nick Alexander, a 36-year-old from Colchester, England, who was selling band merchandise and was well known among touring musi- cians. Eagles of Death Metal’s statement — which included tributes to Alexander as well as three other victims: Thomas Ayad, Marie Mosser and Manu Perez, who worked for its record company, Mercury — was posted with an image of hand signs from the group’s first album, Peace, Love, Death Metal, superimposed over the colours of the French flag.

All of its concerts, the band said, have been put on hold.

“Vive la musique, vive la liberté, vive la France, and vive EODM,” the band concluded.