Leeches Apologise For Going Public About Dead Kennedys Incident

The members of Perth punk outfit Leeches have apologised to local and national promoters for any offence caused or damage arising from a misguided attempt at light-heartedness, over a fee dispute, that went awry.

"We fully apologise … [and] one thing I would really like to make clear, which is kinda what I tried to do before, but the promoters have done absolutely nothing wrong, and we weren’t directing any of this at them," vocalist/guitarist Ben Ward said. "To be honest, what we should have done was go straight to the main promotions company, who the local promoter is dealing with, and said, ‘Hey, listen, we’re not happy that we’re not getting our hundred dollars, we want to argue the matter,’ but instead we just went straight to social media, thinking it would be kind of funny. And we didn’t realise that they wouldn’t find it funny, for starters, and plus, they’re kinda like, ‘You know, you guys are really immature and unprofessional by not approaching us first with all the issues; instead you’ve just blown it out there in the open.’"

"I think it was a total heat of the moment thing and being the style of band we are, and the issue, we just thought it would be a good idea, but it probably wasn’t, in hindsight," he continued.

"But all I can say is that we’ve apologised, we never meant to offend anyone in the first place, and yeah, I’m kind of not sure where to go from here, you know what I mean? I just feel really sick about it, and you know that thing when you’ve done something wrong, and you just feel that horrible, horrible feeling in your stomach and you’d just do anything for it to go away? That’s how I’m feeling right now. I’d do anything to turn back the clock and not have even put the picture up.

"I was genuine about the fact that I never really wanted anyone to be pissed off about it, but I guess they’re never really gonna read that and be happy about it, are they? And I didn’t really think about that at the time. But certainly we don’t hold anyone in particular responsible; we just thought that the email was kind of funny and that our friends and fans would find it funny, but… it’s not now."