A year ago, the metal world was shocked when the Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden was interviewed by Esquire and revealed that they would use metal to interrogate potential terrorists. During the interview, the SEAL claimed that Metallica had asked them not to use their music, meanwhile Demon Hunter volunteered theirs.
It sparked a huge controversy with both Metallica and Demon Hunter clarifying the inaccurate statements. Basically, Metallica denied they ever made such a request, and Demon Hunter said that the SEAL team reached out to them because they dug the Demon Hunter logo but they never asked about using their music.
Now there is a new chapter to this story and it involves renowned industrial metal act Skinny Puppy. The band heard their music was also used to torture prisoners, so they decided to make a concept album out of it. In a new interview with the Phoenix Sun Times, frontman cEvin Key states:
We had a cool concept on the record because we heard through a reliable grapevine that our music was being used in Guantanamo Bay prison camps to musically stun or torture people. We heard that our music was used in at least four occasions. We thought it would be a good idea to make an invoice to the U.S. government for musical services, thus the concept of the record title, Weapon.
Unforutnately, they never actually sent the invoice, instead opting to make it the cover of their new album:
We never sent it. The album cover is the invoice. The original impetus of recording the album was those two concepts: the torture and the invoice.
Too bad the cover doesn't look anything like an invoice:
But their music video makes light of the situation:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qNiXrSH0t4[/youtube]