“I was in a shootout in Detroit”: Embrace frontman Danny McNamara shares terrifying near-death experience

Embrace frontman Danny McNamara has opened up about a terrifying near-death encounter in America during a candid appearance on The Leona Graham Podcast. Reflecting on a chaotic night on tour in Michigan, the indie rock vocalist detailed a harrowing sequence of events that nearly saw him caught in the crosshairs of an escalating street riot.

“I was in a shootout in Detroit and almost a victim of a carjacking,” McNamara revealed while discussing the wilder moments of his 30-year career. The incident unfolded after an Embrace concert, when the band’s tour bus was forced to park directly outside the venue. As the night progressed, the location transitioned into a packed nightclub, and the atmosphere outside rapidly deteriorated into violence.

McNamara, who had left the venue to use a day room at a nearby hotel, found himself cut off from his bandmates upon his return. “The bus is in the middle of about 1,000 people. And the bus is being rocked a little bit, and I’m in a taxi trying to get through these thousand people to get on the bus,” he explained. As local police swarmed the area to contain the crowd, the danger escalated instantly. “This shooting’s happening… they were drawing their guns trying to control the crowd.”

The situation turned critical when an unidentified man targeted his vehicle. “This taxi driver who’s driving me towards the bus says, ‘Lock your door.’ And so I locked my door. Just as I locked my door, this big guy grabbed the door and then looked at me and pointed at me as much as if to say, ‘You nearly got it, lad’ and then carried on walking.”

In a desperate bid to get the singer to safety, the quick-thinking driver resorted to a dangerous bluff. “The taxi driver put his fingers into his jacket to make it look like he had a gun and then got out of the car to escort me through this crowd onto the bus.”

Upon successfully boarding, McNamara found his bandmates cowering in the dark. “All the lights were off, and everybody in the back was cowering in the corner… like, ‘don’t sit near the windows because they’ve got guns.'”

Remarkably, the singer remained unfazed during the adrenaline-fueled escape, even attempting to pay his fare amid the chaos. “I said to the taxi driver—I was so cocky—I said, ‘How much do I owe you for the fare?’ He went, ‘Mate, I’m just glad you’re alive. Get on the bus.'” Looking back on the ordeal, McNamara admitted his reaction was altered by the adrenaline: “Thinking about it now, I should’ve been a lot more phased by it.”