This is Richard Burgon. He is the Shadow Justice Secretary, who is a MP (member of Parliament) and works with UK’s Secretary of State for Justice. Richard just so happens to also be a heavy metal fan, something readers of this site can naturally sympathize with.
Last week, Richard announced he would be providing some guest vocals to his friends' band, Dream Troll:
Somehow, this led to British tabloids The Sun and Daily Mail accusing the Shadow Justice Secretary of performing with a band that promotes Nazi imagery.
The Sun writes:
“The group uses the name of Hitler’s infamous SS security unit as lettering in its promotion posters.
It also spells its name in German military font, complete with an umlaut over the letter ‘o’’, and has the motto; ‘We Sold our Soul for Rock n’ Troll’.”
The Daily Mall even got a Conservative MP, Tory MP Charlie Elphicke to comment:
It shows terrible misjudgement for Richard Burgon to associate himself with anyone who appears to enjoy Nazi iconography like this.
Here's the cover in question:
Anybody with a basic knowledge of metal knows that these is nothing nazi to see here. This is very clearly a tribute to the iconic Black Sabbath album cover, a point Richard himself points out:
Beyond this one image, there is no other evidence to suggest Dream Troll are nazis. In a statement, Burgon says while he never saw the art before, it's a ridiculous leap to say Dream Troll are nazis and this amounts to nothing more than a witch hunt:
The Sun bases its accusations on an image I hadn't seen before – a mock-up record cover the band made that says "Dream Troll – We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Troll". According to The Sun, the fonts used in the image show this is a group of people that "delights in Nazi symbols". The real story is, they made a spoof / parody of the cover of a famous Black Sabbath record from the 1970s ("Black Sabbath – We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'N' Roll"). I've added the Leeds band's parody / spoof cover and the original Black Sabbath cover to this Facebook post too so you can have a look and compare the two. They are fans of Black Sabbath not neo-nazis. Before The Sun went to print, they were sent a copy of the Black Sabbath record cover, but they responded by dismissing its relevance to their 'story'. In other articles, The Sun has praised Black Sabbath as "legends" and an "iconic rock band" – a rare occasion of decent reporting from The Sun.
When The Sun hates you and what you stand for, they'll come at you. That's not right, but it's what The Sun does to people like me who have different views and principles to those of Rupert Murdoch, Kelvin MacKenzie and the rest of them.
The false reports have led to Richard being harassed by locals.
The kind of emails that follow from @MailOnline smears. I got these today. Mail journalists should reflect upon consequences of their work. pic.twitter.com/K3vC2VFJ9P
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) April 17, 2017
Here's Richard's full statement:
[via MetalSucks]
