The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins is back with another video on YouTube — and it’s about Ingrid Andress’ recent national anthem performance.
In the video, the rocker analyzed the performance and explained how he sympathized with the country singer:
“When I was looking at that footage I just thought that’s a person. There’s something in her body language that sort of suggests that she didn’t believe that she belonged there. She’s probably medicated that sort of impostor syndrome with some alcohol and I know what [it feels like,] I used to be like at at her age. She’s made a pig’s ear of it but in fairness, some of it was actually all right.”
He added:
“I thought it started well, it wasn’t completely and utterly appalling but it has garnered a lot of attention, and now there’s people interested in what she does outside of her national anthem work. So perhaps it’s a case of just taking the rough of the smooth.”
Another Rocker Supports Andress
On July 15, Andress sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ The performance went viral on social media and the singer received a lot of criticism. Even though the singer received backlash both for showing up drunk and messing up the national anthem, Lzzy Hale supported her.
The Halestorm singer took to Instagram to share her opinion on the performance. She wrote:
“Ingrid Andress. I keep thinking about this poor girl and the national anthem gone horribly wrong. Whether she really does not have the ability yet to sing the national anthem, which even for the greatest of singers is a difficult song to pull off, or if she really was drunk… I have so much empathy right now for her because it sounds like she actually just had the wrong people around her, people she probably trusted blindly, but that didn’t have her back.”
She also mentioned her own struggles as a singer:
“As a singer, performer, songwriter, artist, musician, a woman in this business, and as a human… I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by people who love me and look out for me, people who aren’t afraid to have the hard talks, do the hard things, have the disagreements, people who have loved me through my darkest times and were willing to bear some of the weight and pain with me when I couldn’t carry all of it by myself.”
The singer emphasized that having imperfect days was normal:
“We are all flawed, and we all have talents, we all have good days, we all have bad days. We all have times where we chose the wrong thing over the right thing. I hope that Ingrid takes the time to seek out her peace in all this, And I hope that she finds her tribe to surround herself by…people that will be brave enough to fight beside and for her…flying her banner.”
You can see Hawkins’ video below.
