The idea of “selling one’s soul to the devil” has been part of music industry folklore for a long time, but according to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, it’s not so far-fetched. He’s recently claimed that musicians and actors have to “reject Jesus Christ” and “pledge” to Lucifer upon signing record deals, and R.E.M. co-founder Mike Mills jokingly confirmed it.
Jones discussed the matter during a segment on the His Glory biblical news channel, and a clip was uploaded to Twitter.
“It happened to Mark Dice, it happened to me, it happened to a bunch of other people I’ve talked to — before you’re offered a national TV show, before you’re offered a major record deal — they get you in a room and they say, ‘Listen, we want you to reject Jesus Christ and pledge yourself to Lucifer,'” Jones said in the video.
According to Jones, he has had this “off-the-record conversation” with television executives two separate times, and it happened to Dice with a massive reality television show production company. He named several other contemporaries that have supposedly been in this situation as well.
“You’re sitting there in the meeting in a high rise building around an office table, and you’re like, ‘Are you kidding?’ And they’re like, ‘No, we’re very serious,'” he continued. “I tell viewers that story, you know, 20 years ago, and they go, ‘No, that’s insane.’ No, that really happened.”
Mills, who co-founded R.E.M. and played bass for the band from its formation in 1980 until its dissolution in 2011, shared the video of Jones telling the story in his own tweet, writing, “Can confirm.” Based on the humorous replies, it’s clear that he was just making a joke.
See the clip below.