That Guy: Prison time is pure rock as long as we beat the rap

That Guy and Matt spent 12 days behind bars in a French prison. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Opinion

I assured Matt that the prison we were about to enter wouldn't be a prison in the strictest sense of the word, rather, more like a "secure" airport departure lounge, one we basically wouldn't be allowed to leave too often until we actually boarded our flight back to New Zealand.

You see, we were getting deported from France for crimes that included poor entry visas, lack of work permits, and perhaps most seriously heinous crimes against rock'n'roll.

It is all a bit of a long story but cutting that long story slightly shorter, after playing in a sleazy rock'n'roll band for three months at a French ski resort, we were officially arrested for working illegally.

This is a very condensed version of events, the entire harrowing story involves: performing illegally with Jimmy Barnes, hundreds of noise complaints, drunkenness, New Zealand's strained relationship with France as a result of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and, more specifically, driving a rusty Ford Transit van that boasted headlights that would drop out whenever we hit the brakes.

Wild Turkey were a pretty good band, well at least we thought we were. In our early-20s we felt we had the talent and charisma to take on the world.

I have since learned that we probably didn't but you would have struggled to convince us of that back then. That, I suppose, is what being young is all about.

After our arrest we spent one night in a local jail before being transferred to a prison in Lyon.

As the van turned the corner I realised how wrong I was with my comforting departure lounge analogy, because it was a proper prison all right.

In fact it was more prison-like in appearance than most prisons I had seen in prison movies, and I had seen most of them. This was a good old-fashioned prison built in the Colditz tradition. In fact, I have since learned that this prison was used by the Gestapo for torturing prisoners during World War II.

This dark, stone building with high walls covered with razor wire, search lights and machine gun posts, is where Matt and I would spend the next 12 days until, all going well, we would be officially deported back to New Zealand.

There were actually three of us in the band but for some bizarre reason Greg, our lead guitarist and my brother, was allowed to stay out of prison while he made arrangements for our confiscated equipment to be shipped home.

He had a week to do this, after which time he had to deport himself. Failing to do so would mean a decent stretch, perhaps two years behind bars.

Why the French Government didn't just allow us all to deport ourselves and save themselves a lot of time and money is beyond me, but if you have ever read the book Papillon you will know that life isn't always fair, especially when you are caught up in the French penal system.

The van stopped and one by one our eight-man armed escort exited.

We passed through a series of gates, doors and metal detectors to a processing desk, the final steel door closing ominously behind us in cliche fashion, that reverberating sound reserved normally for films like The Shawshank Redemption, Escape from Alcatraz, and worst of all, of course - and perhaps most fitting to our situation - Midnight Express. The book and movie Midnight Express was of course based on a true story and tells of a man kept prisoner indefinitely in a Turkish prison.

Matt and I were also foreigners locked up in a strange country and nobody as yet even knew where we were or what had happened to us.

This wasn't a film, it was fast becoming all too real.

And so it begins.

To be continued next week: Will the boys get out of French prison alive? (Well obviously we did, but what other challenges must we overcome, and will there be prison sex? Let's hope not.)