Have you ever listened to Skinny Puppy? I hadn’t before yesterday, I just got curious about music that can be used as soundtrack for torture, and so I listened a bit to their industrial electronic noisy and very dark music. It’s certainly not my cup of tea, although the new stuff seems a bit different. But the Canadian band is in the news for a weird reason: they are suing the US government for $666,000 because their music was used at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility as an instrument of torture. The band learnt their music was used during the interrogation process of detainees at the prison, which was set up in 2002, after the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001. It obviously didn’t sit well with them.
Keyboardist Cevin Key declared to CTV News: ‘We sent them an invoice for our musical services considering they had gone ahead and used our music without our knowledge and used it as an actual weapon against somebody’… ‘I am not only against the fact they’re using our music to inflict damage on somebody else, but they are doing it without anybody’s permission’
How the hell did they learn about it? A fan who served in the military as a guard at the prison camp, and who was offended by the detention practices, simply told them! It was effectively reported that the military was blasting some loud music while waterboarding prisoners. In consequence, the band is outraged and has filed a claim for $666,000:
‘We’re not making a point looking for financial gain,’ explained Key to the Phoenix New Times, ‘We thought this would end up happening, in a weird way, because we make unsettling music, we can see it being used in a weird way. But it doesn’t sit right with us.’
In this case Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Eminem and Queen (and curiously David Gray) should join them, because their music was also used during torture,… Lars Ulrich, the drummer for the band has in fact commented on this:
‘If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you’re forgetting about all the music that’s to the left of us. I can name, you know, thirty Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon & Garfunkel.’ He has a point but there isn’t any talk of lawsuit after Metallica’s music was said to have become the military’s band of choice ‘to soften up’ suspects before an interrogation.
While described the practice of blasting loud music, a US Army general said it would ‘create fear, disorient… and prolong capture shock’, according to the Associated Press. I am simply surprised that Trent Reznor, Tom Morello or Zach de la Rocha haven’t reacted to this scandal!