When your heavy metal band’s gimmick centers around barbarian, mutant warmongers from outer space splattering blood and slime on the front row of the audience like a more disturbing version of watermelon-smashing comedian Gallagher, you’re bound to raise more than a few eyebrows. Add a sexual element that involves simulating the rape of infants - regardless of the satirical intent - and you’ve put a might large bullseye on your back.

So it was surprising to no one in the band GWAR, who anticipate getting arrested all the time, that lead singer Dave Brockie (known to fans under the alias Oderus Urungus) found himself in jail after a North Carolina performance in 1990. He was charged with disseminating obscenities, which is a felony.

Brockie was taken into custody in the backstage dressing area, where a Charlotte police officer took a polaroid of the semi-nude singer wearing a fake rubber penis, which was later used as evidence in the court case. According to Brockie, the official charges listed in court were “simulating the eating of feces” and “simulating anal sex with a priest.” Reports after the show also mentioned “mock ejaculation” and the subsequent “spewing forth of what appeared to be bodily fluids” as an inciting incident.

Brockie, a Canadian citizen, was worried about being deported for the felony charge and entered a plea bargain, agreeing to a total ban from the state for a full year.