The Eagles of Death Metal recount their stories of being inside the Bataclan Theatre.

An hour into their show on November 13, three gunmen entered the Bataclan theatre in Paris and began shooting indiscriminately. The act of terrorism left at least 90 people dead. A further 40 were killed in linked attacks in Paris and many more are still in critical conditions.

Now, members of US rock band the Eagles of Death Metal have opened up about the horrific experience in an emotional interview with Vice.

You can watch the full interview here:

Shawn London (sound engineer)

Shawn says moments before the attack, the crowd was singing along and having a great time.

“And then out of nowhere I just heard these, what I thought was firecrackers, directly behind me,” he said.

“They came in the door, instantly walked in and just started blasting… and instantly people started dropping to the ground – injuries, death – and then also running… I was still standing up and I could see the gunman and he looked right at me, and he shot at me and he missed, and he hit my console and buttons went flying everywhere… That’s when I went instantly down to the ground and we all just huddled.

“I think he thought I probably got hit because I went down so quickly and everybody else around was injured, there was blood all over.

“He stayed there and continued to shoot, and shoot, and slaughter and just, just scream at the top of his lungs, ‘Allahu akbar’ [Arabic for God is great] and that’s when I knew what was going on.”

Julian Dorio (drummer)

“I immediately, I knew something was wrong,” Julian said.

“I kinda bailed off my stool, almost immediately. The gunpowder hit my nose.

“I saw two guys out front and that might just be the most awful thing ever, them just relentlessly shooting into the audience.”

Eden Galindo (guitarist)

“I just thought it was the PA cracking up, then I realised real quick that it wasn’t,” he said.

“And I recognised what it was. At that time, Jesse ran towards me and we went in the corner of the stage. We weren’t sure if they were targeting us, or what was going on. [Another crew member] saw the gunman’s cartridge run out, so he took it out to put another one in, and that’s when he was like, ‘let’s go’. And then we got up and ran off the stage.”

Matt McJunkins (bassist)

“I see pops go off, the lights flashing, sort of dive over and have to make that decision of whether do I really want to run across the stage or do I want to just go to this room and hope for the best,” he said.

“So I went into the room with a bunch of people… there’s a few people who’d been shot and were bleeding, we started grabbing chairs to barricade the door… and someone had left a bottle of champagne in the room for like a post-show thing – we had that to use in case [as a weapon]. That was all we had.”

Jesse Hughes (co-founder and vocalist)

“I ran up to the dressing room… opened up the hallway door and that’s when I saw the shooter. And he turned on me, brought his gun down and the barrel hit the doorframe and I was like, ‘Oh, f—k’. And I turned around and I started – cos I could tell people were following me – and I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, do not f—king come this way’, and we started heading down.”

“I felt so guilty in a way that I’d left Matt on the stage, and maybe Davey too, and I didn’t want anything to have happened to them and I really needed them to have gotten off the stage.”

Jesse said the band’s merchandise manager, Nick Alexander, died in the attack while protecting a friend of his.

“He stayed quiet and never called for help until he bled out because he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt,” he said.

“A great reason why so many were killed is because so many people wouldn’t leave their friends and so many people put themselves in front of people.

“I cannot wait to get back to Paris. I cannot wait to play, I want to come back. I want to be the first band to play in the Bataclan when it opens back up. Because I was there when it went silent for a minute. Our friends went there to see rock and roll and died. I’m gonna go back there and live.”

“We have to finish the tour.”