Friends Of STAR

We had planned to chill at the hotel lobby. 6 people (5 smokers + 1 straight edge) in 1 room and no windows = Claustrophobic + Bad ventilation. Fiaz (Asilent's bassist) came down to our room coz we had planned to chill with the Asilent boys as well. Suddenly, someone opened our door (Guess they have the hotel's master card key) and asked "Are you married?!" The minute Fit heard that question, he laughed and said "No", the bunch of people behind that person, started taking pictures of us!!! Talk about paparazzi... No they weren't paparazzi.. They are from the JAIS - Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Selangor Islamic Religious Department). We were so shocked and lost for words coz we don't think that we were doing anything wrong.

<p style="text-align: justify;">After several questions and telling us that it is wrong for unmarried Muslim men and women to be in one room, they took our passports and we were taken to the police station to give our statements and call someone to bail us. Now.. now.. don't blame the religion. Some people are just extremists and this Islamic rules only applied in Selangor and Kelantan. And of course only to the Muslim people. Please don't stop visiting Malaysia because of this issue coz seriously it has a very good and dedicated Metal scene. Plus everything is cheap and you can find delicious food everywhere.

Back to the main story... Only 5 of us were taken into custody. Arif, Rasyid, Fit, his girlfriend who is Arif's little sister and myself. Rasyid's girlfriend was not taken into custody coz she's not Muslim and Fiaz was from another room. When we got out of the hotel to be escorted into the police lorry which already has some couples who were caught earlier than us, around 30 - 40 more people from JAIS, passerby and maybe some people from the media took pictures of us as though they had busted the most biggest crime for the night.</em> We were taken to the Taman Muda Police Station and had to sit on the floor to wait for the organizer, Emi, to come and bail us out. Emi arrived at 4am and he had talked to one of the JAIS staff. At around 4.15am, we were taken to another police station as there was no high ranking officer to do up the reports. Again everyone had to be escorted into the lorry to be driven to Pandan Indah Police Station. However, when we arrived there, we were still held in the lorry as the high ranking staff from JAIS have not arrived. At around 5am, when they finally arrived, we thought that we will be taken into the police station for our statements. But... in the end... we were let off with just a warning. We were nearly fined $3000 MYR ($950 USD) per person if Emi did not call his lawyer up and we being Singaporeans. Plus we weren't doing any sexual intercourse when they entered our room.

By the time Emi sent us back to our hotel, it was already 5.30am. We were beyond exhausted as we had been awake since 5am the day before, performing and then the hotel drama... Damn son! What a way to celebrate 2012!!

Please do not think badly of the religion. Every religion is peaceful. Like I've said before, in every religion, there's always some people who are extremists. Don't condemn the religion just because of these jokers. Multi racial, multi culture with the same interest - Music. :)

We would like to thank Emi, Tiong, Dyn and all our friends who had given us the best hospitality anyone could ever asked for. And all the grinders who came down for the show to support all the bands. This is the best New Year celebration for us! - from Wormrot official site

Wormrot from Wikipedia:

Wormrot is a Singaporean grindcore band formed in 2007, immediately after the founding members completed their mandatory two years of National Service.

The band was discovered in late December 2009 by Digby Pearson, the owner of record label Earache, in a mixtape posted on the Invisible Oranges blog.

After hearing Wormrot's "Born Stupid" on the compilation, Pearson searched out and downloaded Wormrot's full-length debut, Abuse, from file-sharing site MediaFire.

Pearson was impressed with the album's quality and the band's "ambition, hard work ethic, and willingness to put [its home country] and Asian grindcore in the global map."

Pearson approached the band on their MySpace page, asking if they were interested in joining Earache's roster.

The band investigated the label's credentials on a music forum and after receiving positive responses from others users, they signed a recording contract with Earache in late January 2010.

Earache reissued Abuse in Europe on 13 April 2010 and in the United States on 8 June 2010. To promote the album's reissue, Wormrot toured Europe between late April and June 2010.

Their second album, Dirge, was released in 2011 to high acclaim from the blogosphere.

They relesed a new EP, Noise, in summer 2011.