"To keep it brief, we were put in jail Sat-Monday due to our promoter's negligence"
Beleaguered Aussie heavyweights I Killed The Prom Queen have elaborated on their time in Malaysian prison following an ordeal in Kuala Lumpur that saw the band locked up over visa issues from Saturday through Monday, and thus miss their scheduled performance at the Rock In Solo festival on Sunday.
Band guitarist Kevin Cameron took to Facebook earlier today to clarify several aspects of the band's ordeal, taking a sly dig at the media before offering an apology to their fans for their (not-exactly-voluntary) no-show.
"No doubt most of you have been made aware in some form of IKTPQ's drama over the apst weekend," Cameron wrote "on behalf of a very relieved" band. "Various media have made ill-informed statements of the events so we wanted to both clarify from our side, and also apologies to the many Indonesian fans let down by our forced disappearance from the amazing Rock In Solo festival. As a culmination to an otherwise fantastic SEA tour, we're just as disappointed as you all for failure to perform this date.
Cameron goes on to accuse the band's international tour promoter of "negligence in securing us the appropriate permissions to perform in Malaysia", despite having previously received an immigration warning (which he failed to mention to the band, despite being "explicitly asked multiple times") and "all the while being aware of our upcoming consequence" of being put in jail.
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"And by jail we mean, yes, standard, third-world-condition Malaysian prison," Cameron elaborated, "huddled on a wet tile floor of a 5x10 cell with 35 other inmates."
"It was reported we were posted up in some cushy airport hotel but this couldn't be further from the truth," he wrote.
Cameron explained that I Killed The Prom Queen has spent much of the past decade operating internationally without incident, and have been left "shocked and disappointed" at being "flat out lied to and having our lives put in such a predicament".
While Cameron used the post to justifiably bring attention to the band's circumstances during their incarceration, he also took the opportunity to shift attention away from their plight — "However abominable we found the conditions and treatment, such nuances pale in comparison to not only the heartbreaking worldwide events of this week and the millions of individuals living in these horror conditions for much longer," he wrote — as well as acknowledging the efforts of those who ensured the members wouldn't languish to "turn into a forgotten statistic" as they had feared.
"We are just grateful to be back home with our friends and family, and eternally grateful to M. Anderson and the Australian Embassy for the quick diligence in securing our release in record time," Cameron wrote.
"A big apology/thank you/second apology of course has to go to our drum bro Adrian Horsman from In Trenches for filling in on these shows for us and living through the 'events'."
Read his full post below.
-ROCK IN SOLO PERFORMANCE CANCELLATION-No doubt most of you have been made aware in some form of IKTPQs drama over the...
Posted by I KILLED THE PROM QUEEN on Tuesday, November 17, 2015