Aussie band’s Malaysia jail hell: ‘there were cockroaches everywhere’

AN AUSTRALIAN band who were invited to play a gig and ended up locked in a crowded cell for two days have told of their jail hell.

Adelaide band I Killed the Prom Queen image - supplied by Warne Music. photo credit Tom Barnes

AN invitation to play a gig in Malaysia ended with one Australian band being locked up in a crowded cell with 30 inmates where they were forced to drink water from a plastic bag and sleep next to a toilet.

Adelaide metalcore band I Killed The Prom Queen was detained and locked-up in a cockroach-infested Malaysian detention centre for two days earlier this month after they performed in the country without a permit.

Lead guitarist Jona Weinhofen described the ordeal as hell.

“We got put into a cell which was about probably 10x15 feet squared, including the toilet area, and there was approximately 30 prisoners in there,” Weinhofen said.

“We slept on tiles for two nights in a row ... given the s***tiest rations, there were cockroaches everywhere ... the toilet was just a hole in the floor.”

The band had just played a gig at the Kuala Lumpur venue Farenheit88 when they were arrested and detained on Saturday, November 14 by a Malaysian immigration officer.

Weinhofen said the band’s Malaysian promoter, DYS Booking Agency, repeatedly told the band they didn’t need a work visa.

“We just kept getting the same answers `no, no permits needed. We’ve toured bands here a million times in the past seven, eight years and we’ve never gotten permits. You don’t need it’,” he said.

Before being placed in a cell Weinhofen contacted his family and let fans know, via Twitter, that the band had been detained.

Weinhofen and his band mates were left in the cell for two days while waiting for the Australian High Commission, which is closed on the weekends, to open.

They were then questioned the following Monday morning.

“Around about 11am a couple of guards came and pulled us out of the cell. We were all handcuffed together and we were told we’d be taken upstairs for questioning,” Weinhofen said.

“We were upstairs in the office again in handcuffs for about an hour ... that’s when Michelle Anderson from the High Commission in Kuala Lumpur turned up with an interpreter.”

Once the Australia High Commission intervened the handcuffs were removed, guards were cleared out of the room and the band members were fed a proper meal.

“They basically said it doesn’t sound like we were treated appropriately,” Weinhofen said.

Soon after Weinhofen said Malaysia’s Immigration Department Director General Mustafa Ibrahim and a photographer met with the band to apologise for the band’s treatment.

“He said `I’m so sorry you were treated this way, this shouldn’t have happened. The fault lay with the promoter completely and they will be the ones that will be prosecuted’,” the 32-year-old performer said.

Despite the ordeal, Weinhofen said the band wouldn’t be taking action against the promoter and instead will treat it as a learning experience.

“We had a pretty bad ordeal but I like to think that we as people, and Australians, take this kind of stuff in our stride,” he said.

“It’s in the past now. I’m back home, we just ate a really good meal and I’m back to normal life.”

As for whether I Killed The Prom Queen would ever return to Malaysia, Weinhofen said he wouldn’t rule it out.

“I did post a tweet saying we wouldn’t be back in a hurry but to be honest the show itself was fantastic ... the fans in Malaysia are fantastic,” he said.

“We probably wouldn’t go there on a holiday, but if we get an offer to play there again, and we go through the correct channels with Immigration, I wouldn’t see there being a problem with us returning.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade could not comment due to privacy obligations.

The Malaysian Immigration Department and DYS Booking Agency did not respond to requests for comment.

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Originally published as Aussie band’s Malaysia jail hell: ‘there were cockroaches everywhere’