The Swellers Band • Page 23

Son of a bitch. I just listened to this band for the first time yesterday and really enjoyed "Good for me". Fucking Nick

 

That's sickening. Glad the band is staying dead.

 

Like I said, I was assuming he didn't know. I stand corrected - I hadn't seen her follow up post.

 

...he wanted to be tickled by kids? Wtf man.

 

this is VERY minor compared to the stories being shared, but about 9 years ago nick recorded a few songs my friends and i wrote and we ended up staying over at his house for a couple days while tracking. we were all probably 17-18 and male-identifying, so there wasn't any inappropriate behavior, but nick just came off as a dick the whole time. he was bragging about how he had the guys from fall out boy in his phone and could call them up whenever he wanted, and how he got to tour with hot girls like hayley williams. it was weird and off-putting and made me keep a distance from the swellers afterwards. again, not on the same level as the allegations coming out, but i felt like it was relevant.

 

I was about to pull out my giant Swellers wave banner to celebrate the return.

Im just going to keep listening to Militarie Gun instead. Those guys filled the void The Swellers left me with after breaking up.

 

It’s so weird for me to square all this. I remember when The Swellers were first coming up and Nick filled in on bass for A Wilhelm Scream how highly everyone in the scene spoke of him and the band. A charitable reading based on what one of his victims and he have said in regards to how much therapy has changed his behavior would be that becoming more involved in the toxicity of the music industry as the band got bigger triggered something dark in him. Just a cesspool of male entitlement, burn it all down.

I feel awful for those who had to relive their trauma every time a repress was announced, and these past few months of reunion rumors. I hope they are able to find peace. To the extent that he has done work to be a better human and for his family’s sake I wish Nick peace as well, but not as touring musician.

 

Weird as hell how many stories mention Hayley in one way or another

 

Just batshit insane how one of most recognizable and successful women in an entire music genre can still be treated as an object by men who never even had a sliver of the cred.

 

I am completely gutted. To find out that I gave any support to these guys when they were still around and one of them was grooming people? Absolutely devastating. They were one of my favorite bands and I had such a close connection with them, and Nick was hurting people in the meantime. I am so genuinely and thoroughly disgusted.

 

I will say exactly one thing publicly about this and then I will go back to not posting here: today was not the first day they were made aware of this. Embarrassing to even pretend in the statement that that’s the case.

 

Yeah, the odds of them not knowing, especially Jono not knowing about his own brothers vices, doesn't add up.

 

Everyone in the band always plays dumb when these things come out. But I feel like one of them or most of them probably knew the stuff he was into since they were in a band together for so long. They were a van band, so they were extremely close to each other. Even his brother was drumming for them. Like two brothers in a band come on! Plus in all the years since the band broke up, the brothers were still together recording other bands. It’s all fucked up and I feel so bad for everyone that Nick hurt. Truly would’ve never saw this coming since I know people that know their brothers personally and had their bands recorded with them. But also, it’s weird that if they never announced the reunion show, none of this would’ve ever came to light and most of us would’ve been left in the dark the rest of our lives.

 

I know this a judging the book by the cover view, but they are one of the last bands I would expect to include someone like that. Horrible.

Not going to speculate on the other members ' knowledge, but assuming innocence I always think about how these persons' life work/legacy is effectively destroyed by the proclivities of another member. Not at all to compare to the suffering of the victims obviously.

 

Thoroughly headless Nick.

The "other guys in the band" conjecture is interesting as I remember similar being pondered during and after the Lostprophets situation came to light. If I'm not mistaken, it turned out that the other members of the band were oblivious to Watkins' vile behavior. Moreover, weren't they allowed to continue as No Devotion with Geoff Rickly as front-man?

Thoughts are with the victims as ever.

 

They were not oblivious and it was a part of a private conversation the last time they considered reunion shows. I feel obligated to clarify that for Jen’s sake.

 

We don’t have to cape for the other band members right now. No one is equating their (in)actions as being the same as the abuse itself, but there is culpability there. They have their own personal relationships as support systems to reckon with things.

Attributing lack of knowledge is us trying to work through the news and make ourselves feel better. It’s an understandable reaction but probably not helpful. Hell I’m guilty of doing it a few posts back trying to reconcile how Nick could do the things he did with the parasocial image I had of him. End of the day this shit sucks. All of us who are still into this music will have to continue learning how to be the best allies we can be as we wrestle with our internal grief.

 

this is true but tickling from kids and assaulting/raping infants is a completely different thing.

 

They're on different ends of a "spectrum" that shouldn't exist imo. But each to their own.

I've never been a victim at either end of the scale, so can't guarantee this, but isn't the psychological damage involved relative?

 

don't know if this is necessarily a valuable route to go down

 

True. Apologies.

 

Essentially fuck all people who take advantage of other people and abuse them with their power.

 

Damn I live under a rock. I was never into this band but did recently buy that NFG and Anberlin pedal. In fact, I talked to this dude today because for some reason the post office sent the pedal back without even trying to deliver it. Guess he can keep it. Sucks to hear about all the damage shitty people cause.

 

Been reading this thread since the news dropped - this band felt safe from this kind of behavior..

is anyone of meaningful admiration a good person?

why does it always feel like it ends like this?

 

I’m incredibly disappointed by this news but sadly I’m not surprised.

My brother in law and I were recently talking about how much we were looking forward to a reunion of some kind, but they can rot in obscurity now. My thoughts are with any victims and I’m proud some were able to speak out.