The Slatest

Rock Band Sends Pentagon Royalties Bill for Using Music Against Guantanamo Prisoners

Camp X-Ray, the first detention facility to hold ‘enemy combatants’ at the U.S. Naval Station on June 27, 2013 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

If you’re a rock band, here’s a review of your music that you never want to read: “Canadian electro-industrial music genre pioneers, Skinny Puppy, recently found out their music was used to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay.” Needless to say, the band wasn’t happy about the news. “I am not only against the fact that they’re using our music to inflict damage on somebody else, but they are also doing it without anybody’s permission,” Cevin Key, the band’s keyboardist, said in an interview with Canada’s CTV News.

To rectify the alleged unauthorized use, Key says the band sent the Pentagon a bill for some $666,000. A military spokesman, however, told the BBC the invoice had not been received. Skinny Puppy may have a tough time proving that their music was used on the secretive base. They got word that their music was being used by a former guard who said “inmates were exposed to bootleg recordings of the band’s music, at incredibly high volumes, for up to 12 hours at a time,” according to the CBC.