Accountability in Music • Page 224

@personalmaps saying it best.

 

From what I gathered in the explanation, Luke apologized not long after the situation, and he’s just summarizing in the recent post, here’s the direct quote:

This whole situation, alongside the compounding anxiety of playing music full-time while trying to find new permanent band members, just made it seem like it wasn’t worth it anymore. In a snap decision, and in fear of sending our friend home alone in a destructive mental state, we released a statement that we’d be dropping the tour and would be taking an indefinite hiatus.

The alleged abuser was a long time friend of the band, and it was literally the last thing we’d ever expect him to be involved in. Regardless, this is not a valid justification to defend anyone of such accusations, and doing so was a big mistake on our behalf. Looking back, we should have approached the situation in a more objective manner and disregarded our personal relationship with him. We’ve since personally apologized to the victim.

 

Rt

 

He literally says "alleged abuser" even in that statement. That explanation is basically "this was our friend and that mattered more than the victim."

Their apology means absolutely nothing, you should stop defending them cause it's not a good look.

 

Again, I obviously can’t make any of you support or respect the band, Luke’s response seems genuine the way I see it and that’s just my take on it.

 

It's not genuine though. There's nothing genuine about this. It's all completely disingenuous because it's been three years and also in the same breath they're asking you to buy/stream their new record. It's 100% cynical.

 

Even if his response is genuine, he still has not actually gone through any accountability with the people he’s now trying to reengage and have buy his music. Accountability doesn’t mean just being “actually sorry” and thinking that’s the end and the next day you get your platform and fans and everything back. Covering up abuse is bad. There’s a lot of steps to regain that trust needed before a letter and new music are good enough.

 

I guess I’d just rather see someone admit that they were wrong and try to move on from it than just try to cover it up and pretend it never happened like so many others in this scene

 

It's not enough for them to apologize for the initial statement which invalidated the victim and supported the abuser, especially when the new apology includes phrases like "alleged abuser" which is just another way to invalidate what the victim said.

They don't get to waltz back in and act like nothing happened. They have made no efforts to rehabilitate themselves vis a vis their actions or prove that they even tried to give the victim a platform to validate their claims.

You're once again ignoring the point. Their apology means nothing, except to people who want to see a reason to still support them.

 

You don’t get to “admit you were wrong” while also saying “alleged abuser” in the same statement.

 

That should be the start of the process. Not the end.

 

My favorite thing about the Better Off situation was just how easy it should have been to avoid all of this. The guy couldn't just kick his friend off the tour and been done with it. He could've easily gotten away with just doing that bare minimum and not even making a statement about it out of care for his friend or whatever excuse he could've gave. Still would've been side eye-worthy but still way better than what he did. Instead, he actively attacked the victim and perpetuated the toxic culture of assault apologism that allows people like his friend to get away with what they do. That was a choice he made (a pretty astoundingly evil choice, when you think about it), and he is now trying to avoid any consequences for it by putting out a conveniently-timed statement about how now all of a sudden he realizes he was wrong on the same day he's ready to drop a new record. Nah.

 

I would much rather hear from Kayla Phillips on this than any of these guys. Anyone can type “we apologized” on Facebook but what does that mean? Was there an actual mediation process? Did he learn anything? Or did he just shoot her a lazy Facebook message like this and pop out a new single? I’ll tell you which one my money’s on.

 

I guess I’m just willing to give more of the benefit of the doubt for him wrongly defending his friend than if he was actually the one that did it. I wouldn’t be supporting the band at all if David was still involved, but I’m willing to be a bit more forgiving since I’ve been in Luke’s place in the past, I’ve had old friends do scummy things that I was in denial of at first and waited longer than I should have to cut them off. So I get it, he seems genuine to me and that’s how I see it.

 

Forgiveness isn’t yours to give and again the victim has said nothing.

 

I understand the frustration with “alleged” abuser but I feel like they have no choice otherwise they would get sued.
It’s frustrating that all public conversations of abuse have to walk the same line for fear of legal retaliation. You can’t call a spade a spade because the spade will sue you.

 

love to issue an apology 3 years later only after I've tested the comeback waters

 

Honestly just sounds like you’re siding with Luke because you’ve done something similar and want to make yourself feel better. Sorry :/

 

This post seems very unself-aware. You’re literally doing what you said you’ve done in the past, again. What Luke did, is scummy af.

 

RE: the Tiny Moving Parts thing. I've been reading the response to that story and man, the scene's hypocrisy is showing. A lot of people who crucified Capsize last week and are shitting on that unknown pop-punk band (not that they are wrong to do so) are praising the TMP dude for his statement... The heat is going to die down and nothing will come out of this. Fucking ridiculous how this isn't a big deal when it's one of their favorite bands assaulting people.

 

That's called being an apologist.

"It seems genuine to me because otherwise I'd have to look in the mirror at what I've done."

 

Not trying to derail this conversation about Better Off since I also do not like that whole situation at all, so please continue on and feel free to reply to this message later.


Just got finished to reading a lot of the FB replies to Dylan's post in TMP. Wondering people's thoughts about his post: is it an appropriate response, is what he is saying that he's planning on doing enough? I'm still trying to figure out how to feel about it myself. If it's not enough, what more can he have said and plan to do? For his specific situation, what could he have said that could've been better?

 

I don't think I've ever even heard of that band until not, but I'm in agreement with the others saying why didn't they just remove themselves from this dude (especially with him just being a fill-in). I remember when NFG's guitarist was doing some creepy shit they just removed him from the band, which imo gave the message of 'fuck that, we don't tolerate that creepy shit'. Idk I'm rambling but this shit confuses me just as much as it educates me

 

I think it’s an appropriate response. I think some frustration comes from him continuing to be able to do what he does for a living with no repercussions. It’s hard to acknowledge someone doing the right thing after doing a very wrong thing, making a statement, and then continuing on in the scene.

 

It's no better than any other statement I've read. We do not know the full story yet, but that didn't stop the pitchforks the hundreds of other times this happened. People are giving him a pass because he smiles a lot, seems like a sweet guy on stage, and because this band is the woke scenester's go-to emo band.