There are a lot of famous American rock bands running around these days, and it can be surprisingly difficult to keep some of them straight. That goes double if you’re not even from America, but because American culture is so oppressively omnipresent around the world, you’re still supposed to have a passing familiarity with stuff you don’t necessarily give a damn about. Naturally, both of those points have recently been illustrated by an incident involving the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
As reported by Consequence Of Sound, RHCP bassist Flea posted a photo on Instagram this weekend saying that he was detained by customs agents in Belarus (possibly along with the rest of the band) until he agreed to sign some Metallica posters and CDs for them. Flea tried to explain that he’s not in Metallica, but as he says in the post, the officials “had the power” so he just did what he was told.
It’s easy to think of this as the customs agents simply not realizing who Flea is—shocking as that may be—but it’s a lot funnier to think of it as some dudes in Belarus sticking it to an American rock band. After all, famous people constantly complain about how annoying it is to be asked for autographs, so what better way to insult a famous person than to use your authority to force them to sign someone else’s autograph?