KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 19 — Australian metalcore band “I Killed The Prom Queen” who were detained in Malaysia last week have claimed they were forced to play a song for their guards upon their release.

In an interview with Australian music news site Blunt Mag published today, the band’s frontman and guitarist Jona Weinhofen recounted the group’s experience for two days sharing a crowded cell in a foreign country where “people don’t really speak great English”, after being allegedly wrongly held for not having a working visa while on a tour here.

“Probably the most offensive thing that occurred was when we were finally released and we were in the offices upstairs with the people from the embassy, and a couple of guards approached us and said that they had a rehearsal room within the office with band equipment, and they insisted that we perform a song for them.

“So we had just spent two nights sleeping on cold, piss-soaked tiles, in amongst 35 other prisoners being treated like garbage, and then we got brought upstairs and told that we had to play a song for the people who had just incarcerated us. And we did. The only reason we did, and we didn’t refuse, was because we were essentially still in their care, and we didn’t want to risk anything else bad happening to us,” Weinhofen was quoted saying.

The I Killed The Prom Queen guitarist elaborated on the band’s initial reaction upon being arrested by immigration officials dressed in plain clothes whom he said put them on their guard.

“There were a few things which raised the alarm bells with me. Obviously, being in a foreign country with people that don’t speak really great English, I couldn’t be 100 per cent sure that they were even legitimate officers.

“Like, only one of them showed us a badge, they were all wearing plain clothes, we got escorted to a regular white van with no kind of signage or lights or anything on it,” he said in the interview.

Weinhofen also reiterated that they were not deported from Malaysia but instead “released with no action” against them after receiving an apology from Immigration Department director-general Datuk Mustafa Ibrahim.

“I guess very quickly, some of the people high up in the immigration department were made aware of the situation, and that we had been detained when maybe we didn’t need to be — especially in those conditions — and it ended with the Director General of Malaysian Immigration coming down from his office and apologising, saying, ‘I’m going to make sure you guys are on a flight today, and make sure this all gets squared away, because it’s not your fault’,” he recounted to the magazine.

The five-man band was arrested by immigration officials after their performance in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday and spent two nights in detention before being released on November 17 after the Australian High Commission here intervened.

In a report by the Malay Mail newspaper on Monday, an Immigration Department source was quoted confirming that the band was detained for performing without a valid professional visit pass although the organisers were given instructions by the department to obtain one.

He also said that concert organisers would be investigated and appropriate action will be taken if necessary, which may include a RM25,000 fine.

Foreign musical acts deemed to offend Islamic sensibilities have run into difficulties in Muslim-majority Malaysia, French news agency AFP has reported.