A former member of the popular hardcore punk band Turnstile has been charged with attempted murder after hitting the father of the band’s lead singer with his car, the authorities said.
Brady Ebert, 33, of Silver Spring, Md., a guitarist and founding member of Turnstile, was taken into custody on Wednesday on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree assault. A district court judge ordered him held without bond. A hearing was set for Thursday afternoon.
According to charging documents, William Yates, 79, was helping his daughter and grandchildren out of their car on Sunday when he spotted Mr. Ebert driving toward his family, honking his horn.
Mr. Ebert and Mr. Yates live down the street from each other in Silver Spring, just north of Washington, D.C. Mr. Yates is the father of Brendan Yates, Turnstile’s lead vocalist.
William Yates came down to the driveway to warn his family. But as he got to the bottom of the driveway, Mr. Ebert swerved toward him, the charging documents say. Mr. Yates then threw a rock and hit the back door of Mr. Ebert’s car, hoping to get Mr. Ebert “away from his family so they could all get into the house,” Mr. Yates later told the police. Mr. Yates’s daughter, Erin Gerber, grabbed her 3-year-old son and dragged him onto the front lawn to avoid being hit.
Ms. Gerber told the police that she pleaded with Mr. Ebert to stop, but instead, he put his car into reverse and backed up toward Mr. Yates. He then shifted into drive, accelerated quickly, made a sharp turn into the driveway and struck Mr. Yates, who was attempting to run away from Mr. Ebert, according to the charging documents. Mr. Ebert continued driving onto the front lawn and made a sharp turn toward Ms. Gerber and her son before fleeing the area. Mr. Yates suffered “severe trauma to both of his legs,” the authorities said.
The encounter was captured on a neighbor’s security camera. A lawyer for Mr. Ebert declined to comment.
Mr. Yates told the police that while he was on the ground, waiting for the ambulance, Mr. Yates returned to the scene and yelled at Mr. Yates that he “deserved it.” He told investigators that Mr. Ebert had been “causing issues” with the Yates family since he was dismissed from Turnstile in 2022.
Most recently, on March 13, Mr. Yates was walking in the neighborhood when Mr. Ebert pulled up next to him in his car and cursed and yelled obscenities at him, he told the police. Mr. Ebert then made a three-point-turn and drove toward Mr. Yates “at a high rate of speed, giving him the middle finger and narrowly missed striking him,” according to the charging documents. A few days later, Mr. Ebert pulled up to the house as Mr. Yates’s wife and a friend were sitting outside and yelled obscenities at them, the documents said.
In a statement, Turnstile said it cut ties with Mr. Ebert “in response to a consistent pattern of harmful behavior affecting himself, the band and the community.”
“After exhausting every available resource to support his access to help and recovery, a boundary ultimately had to be set when healthy communication was no longer possible and he began threatening violence,” the band said.
Mr. Ebert’s threats had escalated in recent months, the band said.
“We are grateful that Mr. Yates survived, has successfully undergone surgery, and we’re hoping for the best possible outcome in his recovery,” the band said. “We have no language left for Brady.”
Mr. Ebert and Brendan Yates founded Turnstile in Baltimore in 2010 with the drummer Daniel Fang, the bassist Franz Lyons and the guitarist Sean Cullen, who left the band in 2015. The group worked its way up through Baltimore’s hardcore scene before establishing itself as one of the most popular punk bands of its era. Its 2021 breakthrough album, “Glow On,” propelled the band to mainstream stardom with TV commercials, Grammy nominations and an opening slot on Blink-182’s arena tour.
Last summer, the singer Charli XCX proclaimed it would be a “Turnstile Summer” on a huge screen during her Coachella set. The band’s 2025 album, “Never Enough” — its first since Mr. Ebert’s departure — embraced a more expansive sound that includes classic pop-punk, pop-soul and thrash metal. In February, the band collected Grammy Awards for best rock album, for “Never Enough,” and metal performance for one of its songs, “Birds.”
Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
The post Former Turnstile Guitarist Charged With Attempted Murder of Bandmate’s Father appeared first on New York Times.
