"If you don’t like the band name don’t show up. Don’t fuck with people’s business. If you are offended go cry somewhere else."

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On November 26, the band BLACK PUSSY from Portland, Oregon arrived in Austin, Texas for a show. They had agreed upon this tour stop almost 5 months prior. The band was excited to do their set in Austin, as it has been a fan favorite on their tour stops. But on this day, five hours before the show was to start, the band was informed that they would not be able to perform. The following day the band made a stop at the Hellcat Café and I sat down with Dustin Hill after the show to get an explanation of what had happened.

KNAC.COM: First thing I want to ask, what happened in Austin?

HILL: I guess the show got cancelled. I don’t know what to say about these people.

KNAC.COM: So what, they called the day of the show?

HILL: Yeah, day of, man. Day of! I mean it would have been nice to have gotten a phone call way in advance of it. We could have rerouted the tour and not wasted our Saturday night. That is what really hurt. It was a Saturday show and we could have booked this show almost anywhere had we been given enough time. But you can’t do much in five hours.

KNAC.COM: Who was responsible for not letting you play?

HILL: Well, it wasn’t the promoter of the place. The promoter is cool. He’s an actual bro of ours. And I don’t know if it was the actual owner, or one of the partial owners. But one of the owners decided to puss out because they got a little pressure from “somebody”. And I don’t know…the pressure might have come from another of the local bands, at least that’s what my drummer heard. And we talked to some of the local bands and they all felt bad that it happened. I don’t know who was responsible but this is dumb. This has got to stop happening. If you don’t like the band name don’t show up. Don’t fuck with people’s business. It’s bad. And businesses, if you’re in the business of Rock n Roll, you should not be caving in to any of this nonsense. I mean what the fuck is wrong with people. If you are offended go cry somewhere else. There is nothing to be offended about. I mean, go learn to use a dictionary. I’m so over this.

KNAC.COM: But this has happened to you guys before. Specifically, you just had a series of shows canceled in Pennsylvania.

HILL: Yeah, but now we’re finding new places to play in Pennsylvania. And you know I wish I could get really deep into this. And you can put this together how you want. The inner cities, and it’s sad because I’m watching it happen like in San Antonio, Austin, and Portland, these places are starting to get very hip. You get hipsters there and you get yuppies there. You get yuppies and they want to start controlling things. They’re very Fascist. They’re like, “Oh it’s so cool what these artists have done to this place.” They move in and then they start calling the cops on you. And guess what, all the rock n rollers are starting to move out of these places, so all these other markets are starting to pop up, which is cool. So they’re just like shooting themselves in the foot, because what’s happening is that “all” the artists are leaving these places and they’re turning these cool inner city places into the suburbs. That’s all they’re doing. And then they’re going to follow the artists and ruin everything. So if people don’t tell these people to stop doing what they’re doing, stop telling others what to do, we are all going to be in trouble. You can’t agree with everything from everyone all the time, or like every piece of art all the time. Movies! Movies are a great example. I mean I just don’t go see them. You know, maybe I have grown up enough to not let words offend me or pieces of art offend me. What offends me is murder! What’s offensive to me is the Middle East, killing homosexuals or how they treat women. That offends me. And our politicians, working with those people, that’s offensive. That’s what should offend you. Words are not offensive because you can take any word and just pick it apart. They’re just sounds made by how you move your mouth.

KNAC.COM: And it seems that a lot of these protesters you get haven’t really heard or taken the time to listen to your music.

HILL: Right, exactly! It’s a very strange thing. I kind of liken it to the ‘50’s when the “Christians” were out protesting rock n roll. I mean these politicians and preachers had people convinced that the music was the work of the devil. And so many artists were black-balled or protested and singled out for what they did. But we had good people that did not give in to the silliness and kept the flames of the music going. That is what needs to happen now. When you get these people that want to single out any artist, not just my band but any artist, then people have to reject this negativity and they need to stand up to the rights of that artist. Getting back to film, you know when that movie came out, The Human Centipede, I saw the trailers. I saw what that was going to be about. I didn’t spend my money on that film because, in all honesty, parts of that film made me think of the Nazi Holocaust, the experiments they did to human beings. That was enough to keep me away from that movie. But at no time did I say, “I need to stop this movie from going out.” I never said, “You know this artist needs to be stopped and this film needs to be banned.” I mean if that is his vision who am I to stop his artist interpretation. And that to me is the same with the band. BLACK PUSSY is not going anywhere. I will take that name to the grave with me and it will not change. So people out there: it’s only rock n roll.