It’s a long time since the UK Subs were considered edgy in any meaningful sense of the word. But the first-generation punk band (or at least three of its members) now find themselves in a truly unlikely position - bathing in the notoriety of being the first group to be banned from entering the US under the Trump 2.0 regime.
The Subs – first formed in 1976 – had been booked to play LA Punk Invasion 2025. But bassist Alvin Gibbs, guitarist Marc Carrey and drummer Stefan Hablein were all detained at LAX Airport on Wednesday and denied entry to the US. Only frontman Charlie Harper got through. The show went on regardless – 80-year-old Harper played the gig with some hired hands.
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Gibbs explained all in a lengthy Facebook post put online on Friday. Travelling with his partner Roz, it seems immigration officials suggested that he lacked the proper visa. However, Gibbs added that there was another undisclosed ‘issue’ that officials did not inform him of.
“I’m now wondering if my regular and less than flattering public pronouncements regarding their president and his administration were a factor; or maybe that’s just me succumbing to paranoia,” the bassist wrote.
After questioning, Gibbs was taken to a “very cold holding pen where I discovered Stefan and Marc in situ along with some Columbian, Chinese and Mexican detainees.” His luggage, phone and passport were all taken from him, and at 4am – after having landed at 7pm – he took part in a second interview.
“Although not being something I’d want to replicate, it was actually an educational experience,” Gibbs concluded. “I’m kind of proud of myself for being thrown out of America at the age of 67, now knowing that my relationship with that country is over for the foreseeable future.”
Of course, the idea of a band of punk pensioners (and having celebrated his 80th last year, Harper is surely the oldest punk of them all) being banned from the US is risible. But this really is no laughing matter.
Earlier this month, a French researcher was denied entry into the US because his phone contained texts expressing his “personal opinion” about the Trump administration’s science policy.
If this policy is extended to anyone who has expressed a derogatory opinion about Trump and his MAGA movement on social media over the last decade, it poses serious questions going forward for any British musician wishing to tour the States, especially those - like the Subs - without the backing of a major record label.
