WATCH: Eagles of Death Metal recall Bataclan carnage

WASHINGTON — Jesse Hughes, the Eagles of Death Metal singer who was performing at the Bataclan theater in Paris when gunmen attacked November 13, said many spectators died attempting to protect their friends.

“A great reason why so many were killed is because so many people wouldn’t leave their friends. So many people put themselves in front of people,” he said in an excerpted interview with Vice.com.

Several people tried to escape by hiding in the band’s dressing room, to little avail, he said.

“The killers were able to get in and killed every one of them except for a kid who was hiding under my leather jacket,” Hughes said, choking back sobs.

Josh Homme, the group’s co-founder who was not at the concert, listened sadly as Hughes recalled the events to Vice founder Shane Smith. The interview is scheduled to be aired in its entirety next week.

Gunmen attacked nearly simultaneously at several points across Paris, killing 130 people, 89 of them at the Bataclan music hall.