Posted under mtv
Last year, Kevin “Skwerl” Cogill came across a few tracks from Guns N’ Roses decade-in-development album Chinese Democracy. He posted them on the music site he helps write and design. The post was quickly scrubbed, but the damage had been done: Cogill had angered the wrong people, and a few months later he found himself being shaken awake by the FBI so he could be arrested for piracy.
Yesterday, his legal woes finally ended, as he was sentenced to a year of probation (including two months of modified house arrest). Throughout the fiasco (and the subsequent release of Chinese Democracy), Axl Rose never weighed in on Cogill, but amazingly, Slash (who does not play on the album and by all accounts does not get along with Rose) did voice his opinion. That bothered Cogill. “An old friend of mine conducted the interview with him last year in which he called me a thief and wished that I ‘rot in jail.’ I found that surprisingly crass, considering the guy has made no bones about shoplifting cassette tapes with the same rationale as today’s downloaders,” he said. “But then he took it even further, stealing things he didn’t even need, just because he could. For example, the top hat. So if he wants to see me in jail, I’ll see him in the cafeteria.”