Well, it seems the Black Lips had themselves quite the wild weekend. According to several reports, they were forced to call off their India tour and flee the country, all because Black Lips' Cole Alexander thought it was a good idea to get completely naked, jump into a crowd of Indians and then get back onstage and make out with his band members - well that, and because the whole experience was a self-described "cultural clashing shit storm."
The band relayed their recent trials and tribulations via a MySpace letter posted Saturday, which goes on to explain that India's Campus Rock Idol showcase booted them off the bill, pressed charges against the Black Lips and led Indian police to nearly throw the band in prison, which was supposedly teeming with "tuberculosis, violence and live maggots."
The Black Lips' message explains all:
Unfortunately, we have had to flee the country of India due to having our whole tour canceled and having to escape being held by police for indecent exposure during our most rawkus set in Chennai at the Campus Rock Idol showcase.
After the fiasco, which the kids seemed to like, the financial backers of the event were furious and threw us off the tour. They tried to get security to restrain us until the Tamil police arrived. We locked the door while they were kicking and banging on it. Meanwhile, we slipped out the other emergency exit.
When we got to the hotel our tour guide informed us that the that the Campus Rock Idols sponsors were pressing charges and that the police would make their arrest. At that point our tour driver informed us we would have to drive six hours to get to the next town and cross state lines where we would be out of the Tamil authorities jurisdiction, because apparently the jail in Chennai is no joke. Word on the street said that it was teeming with tuberculosis, violence and live maggots so instead of risking going there we fled the scene. The drive ended up taking 10 hours because of a horrific accident on the road. We were also informed that all of the shows on our tour had been canceled effectively fucking all funds for the trip. This was a cultural clashing shit storm.
When we got to the next hotel a mysterious man and someone who worked for our Indian booking agency tried to run off with our passports they got to the car when we caught them. That's when our VBS.tv documentarian Rob went postal on them. We surrounded them until they gave back our passports. After that we booked the first flight to Berlin to instead work with another Indian, King Khan, on an upcoming EP. We are flying out as soon as sunrise hits this far away land and we have to have the US embassy's phone number on hand in case any more troubleshit starts popping at the airport or something. We would like to thank the four Hindi speaking tour guides, and Rana Ghose for helping us get through these enormous trials and tribulations, and for future reference we really enjoyed the people of India and we hope western rock bands will be able to tour there in the future.
Needless to say, it seems the only way the Black Lips will return to India is on LP, the latest of which, 200 Million Thousand, is due out February 24 courtesy of Vice Records.
Black Lips "Bad Kids" (live in Pune, India)
The band relayed their recent trials and tribulations via a MySpace letter posted Saturday, which goes on to explain that India's Campus Rock Idol showcase booted them off the bill, pressed charges against the Black Lips and led Indian police to nearly throw the band in prison, which was supposedly teeming with "tuberculosis, violence and live maggots."
The Black Lips' message explains all:
Unfortunately, we have had to flee the country of India due to having our whole tour canceled and having to escape being held by police for indecent exposure during our most rawkus set in Chennai at the Campus Rock Idol showcase.
After the fiasco, which the kids seemed to like, the financial backers of the event were furious and threw us off the tour. They tried to get security to restrain us until the Tamil police arrived. We locked the door while they were kicking and banging on it. Meanwhile, we slipped out the other emergency exit.
When we got to the hotel our tour guide informed us that the that the Campus Rock Idols sponsors were pressing charges and that the police would make their arrest. At that point our tour driver informed us we would have to drive six hours to get to the next town and cross state lines where we would be out of the Tamil authorities jurisdiction, because apparently the jail in Chennai is no joke. Word on the street said that it was teeming with tuberculosis, violence and live maggots so instead of risking going there we fled the scene. The drive ended up taking 10 hours because of a horrific accident on the road. We were also informed that all of the shows on our tour had been canceled effectively fucking all funds for the trip. This was a cultural clashing shit storm.
When we got to the next hotel a mysterious man and someone who worked for our Indian booking agency tried to run off with our passports they got to the car when we caught them. That's when our VBS.tv documentarian Rob went postal on them. We surrounded them until they gave back our passports. After that we booked the first flight to Berlin to instead work with another Indian, King Khan, on an upcoming EP. We are flying out as soon as sunrise hits this far away land and we have to have the US embassy's phone number on hand in case any more troubleshit starts popping at the airport or something. We would like to thank the four Hindi speaking tour guides, and Rana Ghose for helping us get through these enormous trials and tribulations, and for future reference we really enjoyed the people of India and we hope western rock bands will be able to tour there in the future.
Needless to say, it seems the only way the Black Lips will return to India is on LP, the latest of which, 200 Million Thousand, is due out February 24 courtesy of Vice Records.
Black Lips "Bad Kids" (live in Pune, India)
