02/19 Houston, TX, Warehouse Live
02/20 El Paso, TX, House Of Rock
02/21 Tempe, AZ, Clubhouse
02/22 West Hollywood, CA, The Whisky
02/23 Santa Cruz, CA, The Atrium
02/24 Portland, OR, Branx
02/25 Seattle, WA, Studio Seven
02/27 Salt Lake City, UT, In The Venue
02/28 Colorado Springs, CO, Black Sheep
02/29 Kansas City, MO, The Beaumont Club
03/01 St. Paul, MN, Station 4
03/02 Des Moines, IA, House Of Bricks
03/03 Chicago, IL, Reggie’s Rock Club

Guitarist Paul McGuire and Kyle Rutherford were out celebrating in Brooklyn with the rest of their band when they decided to get a late-night snack in the wee small hours before their flight home. McGuire entered a local pharmacy with its lights on and doors unlocked. When the building’s alarm went off, he and Rutherford fled the scene. A few minutes later, they were accosted by the NYPD.

“We didn’t think much of [futureusgallerythe alarm going off],” McGuire says . “Then a couple of minutes later, an NYPD car came down the street, and the cops basically abducted us off the street without reading us our rights, asking us any questions, anything. Next thing we know, we’re being shoved in a jail cell.” Not only were the metalheads being arrested for a crime they knew nothing about, but, McGuire says, they were processed in a less-than-civil fashion. “When they came on us, they went way over the top. We were thrown up against the wall, had guns pointed at us. While we were being handcuffed, we kept asking why we were being arrested, and in response we got thrown in the back of a police car pretty violently. The minute they closed the door, the cop in the driver’s seat floored it, put the sirens on. I was just rolling around the backseat of the car, just me and our bassist. We had no contact with anyone and had to miss our flight home.”

They spent the next 36 hours in a squalid Brooklyn jail cell. “It was two days of Hell,” says McGuire. “There was no contact with anyone. We went in there for two days, and the whole time it was crackheads, gangbangers, people in for drunken and violent assault. The jail cell was way overpacked. The toilet didn’t work. Guys had to piss in the corner. People had to use their shoes as a pillow. You’d stretch out next to somebody, and suddenly they’re in your face.”

Finally, when the band members were brought before a judge, who charged them with Burglary, Breaking & Entering, and Posession of Stolen Goods. “They claimed that I had broken into the pharmacy, but the lights were on, the doors were open,” says McGuire. “We had a suggested bail of $10,000, had our passports taken from us, and were told to return in a week for trial. We spent the next week bumming around New York with almost no money and nowhere to stay. Thankfully, after a week, we went back before the judge and had all charges dropped. Two days later, we got new passports.”

Still, the death metal axman doesn’t blame the city that never sleeps for his mistreatment: “We can’t hold it against New York. Since we started this band, I knew we had to play New York. I thought, ‘That’s where we want to play.’” Still, the issues facing the band were more than simple police mistreatment, as McGuire explains: “We’re in the system as being arrested as part of an ongoing investigation. We could leave the country, but if we were to re-enter, we would be immediately arrested.”

Cerebral Bore’s story is a reminder to all bands that, no matter where you tour, shit can get heavy quickly. “I mean, we’ve played shows in some intense places,” laughs McGuire. “Russia, Israel, Mexico—and then this happens in Brooklyn, last night we’re in the country. It was insane!”

Watch a video of Cerebral Bore guitarist Paul McGuire telling his side of the story below: