A Kentucky man has been arrested after posting song lyrics from California metal band Exodus onto his personal Facebook page, NBC News 14 reports. On the bright side, it’s definitely a much cooler reason than those guys who were detained for mentioning Nickelback.

On August 24th, James Evans, 31, posted a few lines from Exodus’ 2010 single “Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)”, specifically, “Student bodies lying dead in the halls, a blood splattered treatise of hate. Class dismissed is my hypothesis, gun fire ends in debate.” While Evans’ family told NBC that he regularly posts lyrics from his other favorite metal acts, this specific post garnered several calls of concern from local parents to the Muhlenberg County school district. Evans was arrested on August 27th for “terroristic threatening” before being released on bail this past Wednesday (September 3rd).



“It’s nonsense,” Evans told NBC following his release. “I feel like my civil rights have been violated. You know, first amendment, freedom of speech, [that all went] out the window. Even all the guys I was in the cell with they thought it was nonsense themselves. I had several officials tell me it was nonsense [and] that there was no reason why I should have even been [there].”

In response to the incident, Exodus’ manager released a statement, explaining that while the “band does not promote or condone terrorists, threats or bullying,” they are “somewhat baffled by the fact that this man being charged for what seems against his first amendment rights of Freedom Of Speech.”

In a separate statement, guitarist Gary Holt explained that the song “was written as a view through the eyes of a madman and in no way endorses that kind of fucked up behavior. It was the Virginia Tech massacre perpetrated by Seung-Hui Cho that was the subject and inspiration to write the song, one in which we put the brakes on playing it live after the Sandy Hook shooting, as we did not want to seem insensitive.”

Holt added, “As some of us in Exodus are parents, of course these things hit close to home; it’s every parent’s worst fear. These moments are the stuff of nightmares, and life, as well as music, isn’t always pretty. But when we start to overreact to things like lyrics by any band, including Exodus, and start arresting people, we are caving in to paranoia and are well on our way to becoming an Orwellian society.”

Evans’ case has been deferred six months and he will have to undergo mental evaluation by Muhlenberg County. Below, check out the song that started it all.