Four months on from the horrific Nov. 13 terrorist attack on their gig at Paris’s Bataclan Theatre, Eagles of Death Metal are proudly rocking on in defiance of senseless violence with an unlikely ally: music-lovin’ Bowmanville microbrewery Manantler.

Manantler and the Eagles announced on Thursday that they are partnering up on a new brew — dubbed “Boots Electric IPA” in honour of frontman Jesse Hughes’ chosen nom de rock — that will see $1 from each bottle sold funneled to families of the 130 victims of the Paris massacre through co-founder Josh Homme’s Sweet Stuff Foundation.

The whole idea came together so quickly that Manantler co-owner James Gorry hasn’t had time to actually brew a batch of Boots Electric IPA yet. But, in fittingly Eagles-like fashion, the band eagerly came on board the moment it saw one of in-house designer Rachel Riordan’s three pitches for the label: a garish, hot-pink-and-blue affair featuring a caricature of Hughes riding a sunglasses-sporting tiger. (They passed on the one with the unicorn, which would probably also have been awesome.)

“It’s a charity thing, obviously. But if you’ve seen the label then you know it’s also about fun and rock ’n’ roll,” says Gorry, a musician himself who plays in 905 punk outfit Tijuana Jesus and the Bradleyboy-affiliated Billard Blossom combo.

The Bataclan attack, he says, was “pretty personal for me, just because I’ve been going to concerts since I was 11. It really f---ed me up. Any kind of attack like that where innocent people are dying is no good, but for some reason it was worse for me because I could place myself or any of my friends or every person I’ve ever seen at a concert there and it wasn’t comfortable. It was really unsettling. For weeks I wouldn’t stop talking about it and I couldn’t stop empathizing with the situation.”





A major Eagles of Death Metal fan — “To me, they’re just doing exactly what rock ’n’ roll should be,” he says — he was inspired by the band’s commitment to soldiering on as usual after the Bataclan nightmare and had an epiphany about how he might take a small role in that comeback whilst on a cigarette break at the brewery one afternoon.

Five minutes later, he had emailed every contact for the band he could find online and, much to his astonishment, in 20 minutes he got an intrigued response from Eagles’ management.

“I didn’t even have a full idea at that point because it was only 20 minutes before that that I’d even thought of it. So it wasn’t super-calculated. It was a fleeting idea,” he says.

Riordan whipped up the designs in two days and, once the band took a look at them, Boots Electric IPA was born. A tentative date of May 7 is set for the ale’s unveiling, to coincide with the band’s return to Ontario in May. Eagles play the Opera House on May 7.

“They didn’t ask what size brewery we were or where we were,” says Gorry. “I think they liked the idea and they liked that we came up with it based on being musicians ourselves and being moved by the events that happened there and also just ultimately being really big fans of Eagles of Death Metal. They didn’t have too many reservations. They just had faith that we were outgoing dudes enough to email them audaciously and do it.”

Eagles of Death Metal themselves were unavailable for comment Wednesday since they were just arriving in Bogota to commence a South American tour.