Niall Carson / PA Wire Niall Carson / PA Wire / PA Wire

HEAVY METAL LOVERS have started a petition to get Joan Burton to apologise for making ‘disparaging and clueless’ remarks about fans of the genre.

The Tánaiste made the offending comments while speaking about the Garth Brooks debacle in an interview with the Irish Sun, published on Friday.

In it, she said Garth Brooks fans were not like Metallica fans, who “would be causing problems for the neighbours”.

Metal fans were not happy.

Now Keith Caffrey of the Irish metal band Black Svan is calling on hard rock fans to sign a petition, asking Burton to apologise for the ‘clueless’ comments.

He wrote:

…she took a swipe at all Metallica/metal fans by generalising us as troublemakers, showing that she is completely clueless and out of touch with a huge section of Irish and worldwide metal population.

James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett of Metallica perform at Glastonbury. See, they're really happy and smiley. Yui Mok / PA Wire/Press Association Images Yui Mok / PA Wire/Press Association Images / PA Wire/Press Association Images

As of this morning, 357 rockers have signed the petition, giving their various reasons for speaking out:

Sweeping generalisations of cultural or musical groups is not OK. It would be like suggesting that all country fans are weeping crybabies in the wake of the Garth Brooks debacle.

I have gone to many metal gigs and never caused trouble. She knows nothing about metal.

Not a Metallica fan. Just passionate about stopping people being shitebags.

And one has made an excellent point that the Tánaiste may just want to consider…

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