BLACK SABBATH Bassist GEEZER BUTLER Joins PETA's KFC Boycott

What do Geezer Butler, the longtime bassist of heavy metal pioneers BLACK SABBATH, and Bobby Ingram, the frontman of the venerable Southern rock band MOLLY HATCHET, have in common besides making legendary music? Both rockers have joined PETA's boycott of KFC until the company ends the worst abuses of chickens raised and killed to fill its buckets. Geezer and Bobby have prominently displayed links on their respective web sites (GeezerButler.com and MollyHatchet.com) to PETA's KentuckyFriedCruelty.com site, where visitors can learn how KFC torments the more than 850 million chickens raised and killed for the company each year.

Why are Bobby and Geezer fed up with KFC? Chickens are excluded from the only federal law that protects farmed animals, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. This means that the more than 850 million chickens killed each year for KFC can legally be tortured in ways that would result in felony cruelty-to-animals charges if other animals were the victims. They are drugged and bred to grow so large that many become crippled from the weight of their massive upper bodies, their throats are slit, and they are burned to death in scalding tanks — all while they are still conscious. An undercover investigation at a KFC "Supplier of the Year" slaughterhouse in Moorefield, W.Va., revealed that workers were stomping on live birds, tearing their heads off, spitting tobacco into their eyes, and spray-painting their faces. KFC ignored recommendations of its own animal welfare board, five of whom have since resigned after being ignored for years. Former KFC advisor Adele Douglass told the Chicago Tribune that KFC "never had any meetings. They never asked any advice, and then they touted to the press that they had this animal-welfare advisory committee. I felt like I was being used."

Bobby and Geezer join fellow musicians Emmylou Harris, Paul McCartney, and Chrissie Hynde in supporting PETA's "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" Campaign. PETA has had additional high-profile support from Nobel Peace Prize winner His Holiness the Dalai Lama, comedian Richard Pryor, actors Pamela Anderson and Bea Arthur civil rights leaders The Rev. Al Sharpton, Alice Walker, Kweisi Mfume, Dick Gregory, and Dr. Cornel West, and even KFC ex-pitchman Jason Alexander.

"KFC stands for cruelty in our book," says PETA Vegan Campaign Director Bruce Friedrich. "If KFC executives treated cats or dogs the way they treat chickens, they could go to prison on felony cruelty-to-animals charges."

For more information, please visit KentuckyFriedCruelty.com.