LEECHES!

West Australian punk mainstays Leeches! have apologised, and explained the reasoning, for making off with a handful of beers (and a quarter-bottle of Jamieson) from the rider belonging to international scene godfathers the Dead Kennedys at a Perth gig last month.

The band highlighted their plight with a post on Facebook, detailing an email sent to them by a local promoter explaining that they would not be receiving their agreed-upon fee for the show after the Dead Kennedys' tour manager claimed to have caught, and taken footage, of the band pilfering the hard-earned cold ones towards the end of the night.

According to vocalist/guitarist Benny J Ward, Leeches! aren't looking to get anyone in trouble, or step any harder on toes they've already inadvertently trodden on — they just feel that it's all a bit of a mountain of a molehill, especially considering that the amount being withheld runs to a miserly $100. Yes, you read that right.

"It's the principle of the thing, you know?" Ward told theMusic.com.au today. "The fee is kind of insignificant. We got the email last night from our friend here in Perth, who's the Perth promoter. We don't want to name anyone's name, but the only reason we put it up was to show what show it was involved with and everything … but we basically want what we think we deserve, and we've apologised for pinching the beers."

As Ward goes into detail about the incident, the unintentional nature of the band's perceived trespass comes through clearly. "So what happened is, the show was all over, the crowd was dissipating, and we went in to say hello to the Dead Kennedys 'coz we're all fans," Ward explained. "We'd met the tour manager earlier in the night, and he was really cool with us, and we're really surprised that this is anything to do with him, potentially — we don't know that for a fact."

Upon finding the DKs' dressing room empty, Leeches! "assumed they had gone to the airport, so we went in there and there were a few light beers — Cascade, from memory, 1.7 per cent — and [a little bit of] Jamieson, and we thought, 'This is going to waste,' so we grabbed a couple of them and went back into our band room and thought nothing of it," Ward said.

But yesterday — more than a month after the October 11 gig, it should be noted — the promoter "wrote back, 'Look, I've forwarded on the invoice to the major promoter, and they're not willing to pay, because apparently the tour manager has footage of us stealing from the Dead Kennedys' rider'," Ward explained. "We'd love to see footage of this, and we're trying to hunt it down now, and we haven't commented back yet to the promoter, because we're just trying to find out a few more facts before we go any further."

While admitting to feeling "a little bit victimised" by the whole thing, and expressing that he and his bandmates "just want to make this right" with the DKs camp, Ward remains adamant that it's all a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill; that bands, at every level, get a bit loose with unattended riders from time to time.

"I went to the Frenzal Rhomb and NOFX show the other night, and I'm friends with those guys — we weren't even playing — but they were just handing us beers from their rider," Ward said.

"What we're planning on doing is working out exactly how many beers we stole, and what they're worth, and we're going to get the total quantity that a bottle of Jamieson holds and divide that by the quarter of the bottle we stole, and say we're fully willing to take it out of our fee."

Crucially, in publicising their fiscal plight, Ward says that Leeches! mean no disrespect to the Dead Kennedys, or anyone in their camp, but that they felt they had to say something in a public forum in order to have any kind of power to change the outcome that has befallen them.

"I'm sure a lot of this isn't coming from the band, because we didn't get an email saying, 'We want our beers back or we're not paying you'," he said. "We're pretty sure it's all coming from the promoter. We don't want to get them in hot water — they haven't approached us directly; they haven't given us the chance to defend ourselves … we just got an email back saying, 'No, we're not paying it,' and we feel like we have no say in it. - The Music