At some point during your guitar-playing journey, chances are you've annoyed your neighbors with some obnoxiously loud shredding. But have you ever brought your amp out onto your driveway – while wearing nothing but underwear – and cranked it so loud that the police were called?
Adelaide's Savas Caruso – who calls himself Subblet Hammer, probably after what a landlord would want to smash through his amp if he were to ever engage in the act of subletting – can certainly knock this one off the bucket list.
Caruso is actually known throughout the city's northern suburbs for his weekly sets from his Salisbury Downs driveway, in which he offers up 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated – and original – gain-heavy riffage.
But his performance schedule came to a screeching halt last month when he was arrested by South Australia Police for violating an environment protection order, which was issued the day prior and instructed him not to perform for 72 hours.
Video footage of the arrest can be seen below, showing officers handcuffing the rocker and pulling the plug on his high-octane set. Following the arrest, Caruso was held in custody for three days.
After his release, the guitarist set up a Change.org petition under the name SUBB'S WORLD in order to “seek justice”.
The page says that the police have “no grounds on which to enforce this order [and have] no authority to come onto [Caruso's] property while [he's] playing his music and disconnect the power”.
It also calls the arrest a “shocking physical bombardment of an innocent musician practicing his art”.
According the the page, Antonio Caruso – Savas's brother – handed officers a non-consent form and notice of liability which stated “if the police follow through with the arrest and trespass on private property without a warrant, they will [be] made liable for damages”.
Thus far, the petition has garnered almost 1,300 signatures of its 1,500 target.
