Accountability in Music • Page 988

I don’t know why people were expecting the other band members to say something, when they were fine with this creep bringing children on the tour bus every day for the band’s history.

 

Not even just the band anymore but their manager was actively involved. I mean, somehow that is a new level of disheartening for me. Someone who - at bare minimum - could have spoken up and said “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t keep bringing 15 year olds on the tour bus.”

Everyone in that band’s orbit is complicit and disgusting.

 

yep. any expectations for them to “do the right thing” is just yelling at a wall. it fucking sucks.

 

i went back and looked up the lyrics to some songs off of tdag and daisy last night. lyrics were one of the things i used to love about this band. especially as an anxious teenager with rapidly developing mental illness, stuff like degausser and at the bottom just kind of… made sense to me. it was comforting to hear someone singing about being as fucked up as i felt.

now, it just makes me sad. that he clearly had at least some semblance of awareness that what he was doing was wrong and decided to write songs about it rather than actually change his behavior in any meaningful way. and that he hoped it would just all stay quiet and he could keep operating business as usual knowing full well the harm he caused. i’ve said it before and will say it again: i really, truly, genuinely hope he has become a decent father and husband for the sake of his family. i really do. and if they stayed dead, i could look back on certain songs and memories from time to time and remember how important this band was to me and my musical development. but all of this just feels wrong. it feels blatant. i’m sorry to @aiyana91 and all other survivors who now have to yet again reckon with the fallout of jesse’s actions publicly.

 

It seems the article is getting more traction as I woke up to much higher traffic stats than when I went to bed. At this point, this is the only public forum I feel safe and comfortable engaging with, so I need to say I’m extremely grateful to @Jason Tate for being the initial person with a platform who read and chose to uplift my story (and the stories of my sisters who have also been abused).

Thank you to everyone cultivating a space of safety and support for me here, too, so I can expand upon this experience and attempt to educate others. Going public is exhausting work, and it’s difficult to ignore the urges to explain myself over and over, to defend my incredible mother, and to see my story twisted to ensure the continued comfort of others.

I physically felt my body digesting trauma last evening having the freedom to speak and the gift of finally feeling heard. This space has been truly invaluable.

 

I wonder if he’s the one who banned me last week for saying Jesse was a pedo?

 

Hits different, huh?

 

thank you for sharing. truly.

 

It's why I cannot watch any Woody Allen film these days. I applaud people who can separate the art from the artist but that's not for me when this is the transgression.

I could literally never go and sing along to those songs knowing what he was writing about.

 

If you don't mind me asking, do you think the rest of the band needs to put in work as well? They never made their own statement, ghosted the world, and hid until coming back to stand next to him again now. So I'm just curious how you feel towards them and what they could do, if anything, to bring more peace to you and everyone else?

 

I don’t have anything to really add at this point. But I just wanted to thank @aiyana91 for sharing her story. It was very brave to do in general, and even more in this particular moment. I can’t even imagine what your inboxes and notifications look like right now.

I believe you. You matter. Thank you for sharing and coming on here to share even more. I hope despite everything that you have found peace.

 

Absolutely. I’d love to know what the rest of the band, their tour manager Jamieson Shea, Kevin Devine, Andy Hull, and many others who were close to Jesse — and present on the tour bus — at that time would like to say about this.

I didn’t address this in my article because people will use any reason they can to take the heat off Lacey. For example, the internet is choosing to focus on my mother right now (who was also deeply manipulated by Lacey, and was raising her daughter pre-iphone) moreso than the actual abuser. If I made edits to my post every time someone new posed a counter-argument, it would literally be neverending.

 

I still can’t get over the optics of being a mid-late 20s musician and going out to dinner with a 16yo fan and her mom…like what the fuck kind of mental gymnastics is going on there?!

 

thanks for writing this and hope you're able to heal, I saw it on Reddit and Stereogum too so hopefully your story can help

 

29 years old. It provided more private access to me and cultivated greater trust with my family to continue allowing him closer access to me if and when he so desired. Believe me when I say, not me, my mother, nor my sister believed Jesse had any nefarious intentions at the time. I didn’t even begin to process that I had been groomed until the 2017 allegations came out. I thought I had an extremely rare experience with a person who meant a lot to me and who saw something special in me that got derailed by someone threatening to make our relationship public.

 

I posed this question to someone yesterday…

“when is enough enough?”

because they were focusing on this very point. Blaming your mother. Ignoring that he used his position to manipulate her as well.

I wish people would realize that every bit of the mystique around this band - the mercurial ways, the lack of press interactions, the time between albums - is all an extension of his manipulative and abusive tendencies. He was able to do the heinous things he did because he tricked us all.

 

@aiyana91 I shared your story with a friend of mine who was on the fence about going to see them on tour, and it has since changed her mind. Baby steps, but it shows your words have power. Thank you for the courage to share them.

 

Totally understandable why you didn't include them, but I appreciate you sharing your feelings because it should be said that there's many other men complicit.

Thanks for sharing and I truly wish the best for you!

 

Like everyone else here, I thank you for coming here and telling your story. I cannot imagine being someone in this kind of position, and I thank you for being brave enough to share your experience, especially with how hostile and contrarian the world is to victims.

 

I appreciate you for your strength and vulnerability to share your story. I don’t really have anything else to add that others haven’t already shared with you. Just…thank you for have the courage to put your story out there

 

@aiyana91 i've finally caught up with reading your story and this thread since last night, and like everyone else, i want to thank you for your bravery and honesty. it takes a lot of courage to speak out against someone in a position of privilege and power, and i'm grateful that this forum has stood by you as well and continues to not let people like this off the hook.

i'm starting to see people in the music industry i look up to get excited about this reunion, and in the midst of that disappointment, i'm glad that folks on this site have urged that Jesse be held to a higher standard - something that his peers and contemporaries have failed to insist.

 

It blows my mind that anyone would dare go after her family when these defenders and whatabouters are so obviously manipulated by JL already too - and they haven’t met him! They would be toast around a master manipulator in person.

It’s such a tragic series of events, as said by many thank you so much for sharing. It is not easy to do and I hope you know that no matter what you have all of us in your corner.

 

I do think a lot of the infighting in this thread comes from frustration over our collective ability to really do much to hold abusive artists accountable, so I'm really glad to see this thread be able to set that all aside when someone trusts us enough to share their story. Makes me feel proud to be a part of this site.

 

your story is so powerful, thank you for sharing. As a closeted gay teen boy I remember going to shows where anytimeeeeee I got attention from the artist I had that high.

not a nefarious situation but I remember Benji Madden (who I had a massive crush on) letting us into a sold out show at Showplace Theatre in Buffalo after hanging out by the bus before the show. Being so young and getting that type of attention was so intoxicating.

 

thank you @aiyana91. the news of the band’s reunion was just so infuriating, and, as you said, a slap in the face to survivors. The fact that he manipulated you and your mother shows just how insidious his actions were; winning over your mother’s trust to stay close to you. it’s just so disgusting, and he knew it was wrong to prey on girls so young and impressionable. why else would he ask for you to keep it a secret? seeing how the band and their tour manager enabled his abuse puts a pit in my stomach, too.

I’m just so sorry for what you experienced and applaud your bravery in sharing your story. You are safe here. I believe you. I’ll do whatever I can to protect you and every other survivor

my partner and I were talking about your article and it hit me that I was in the peak of my brand new fandom at 16. i was also in a dark place. he manipulated young girls in the same situation and it’s just sickening. an older man groomed me in my teens and I didn’t have the words for it until much later and I don’t talk about it. I believe you.