Report: Heavy Metal Band Says Police Are Angered By Song Lyrics And Album Cover

October 6, 2007

The Naples Daily News reports that the members of the Naples, Florida-based heavy metal band A DANK SEASON (MySpace page) claim the cops want to shut them down.

The two-year-old project of five 20-somethings, including former Gulf Coast High students, A DANK SEASON named their latest album after a criminal charge: "Battery on a L.E.O", or law enforcement officer. They wrote a song to go with it, which they say is about police officers abusing power ("The badge doesn't give you strength/She corrupts your mind,") and the album’s cover depicts a photoshopped drawing of an officer with a bloody head wound.

Ever since a May concert in Fort Myers, the band says they've been targeted by local law enforcement agencies.

At best, the band claims, local cops are harrassing them, and intimidating the venues that hire them to play. At worst, they say they're being censored.

"The fact is it's art, and it's your art, and you get to express it any way you want," lead singer Mike Keiper, 26, said Tuesday, a couple hours before launching a set at Lucky's@951, in Naples. Later that night, a friend of the band says a Collier County Sheriff's deputy stopped him in the parking lot to bad-mouth A DANK SEASON.

The Fort Myers Police Department says it has no reports documenting the May 5 concert, at which the band claims they were ordered outside Sundown's Sports Grill and Night Club. One of their friends had tried to give an officer a copy of the CD, they said, which apparently sparked a confrontation with the band.

"We're all thrown up against police cars," Chris Bock, the 21-year-old bass player, said. "My guitar player, Mark, who has a little (criminal) history, was told he was going to have his eyes ripped out."

Mark Good, whose nickname in school was Marktallica, was arrested four years ago in Lee County on a marijuana possession charge. He was given six months on county probation, court records show.

Read the entire article at www.naplesnews.com.

Watch a three-minute Naples Daily News report on the A DANK SEASON alleged "censorship" at this location.

A DANK SEASON performing the song "Bottled Up":

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