Bloodshot Records co-founder ‘steps away’ from label after Lydia Loveless accuses her partner of misconduct
* photo of Lydia Loveless via Bloodshot Records
Alt-country singer-songwriter Lydia Loveless shared a statement on Instagram accusing Mark Panick, the domestic partner of Nan Warshaw, co-founder of Lydia’s longtime label Bloodshot Records, of sexual misconduct. “I began my relationship with Bloodshot Records when I was 19,” Lydia writes. “They are a fun and creative group of mostly good people – in fact many of them I consider to be friends more than business colleagues. However, Nan Warshaw’s domestic partner Mark Panick has long been a source of strife for me.”
Here’s her full statement (spread across multiple pages of an Instagram gallery):
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt9YalTgNMp/
Bloodshot Records co-founder and co-owner Rob Miller made a statement in response on Twitter, disavowing Panick and emphasizing that he has never been employed by the label. “While I disagree with certain characterizations contained in the content of her recent social media posts,” he writes, “the story is essentially, and sadly, true.”
Here is Rob’s full statement:
Three-part statement from Co-Owner/Co-Founder Rob Miller pic.twitter.com/EzCB6JqvHS
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 18, 2019
Some — including Bloodshot-signed artist Sarah Shook — quicky questioned Nan Warshaw’s silence on the matter, but hours later Nan released a statement as well, saying she’d be stepping away from the label “for the moment.” “For more than 3 years this has been a weight on my heart,” she writes. “I’ve been struggling to address something I couldn’t talk about, because I respected Lydia’s privacy and her right to talk on her own terms, if at all. I am relieved Lydia is talking about it now.”
Here is Nan’s full statement:
Statement from Co-Owner/Founder Nan Warshaw. pic.twitter.com/XiZP90Hx0J
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 18, 2019
Mark Panick also shared a response to the allegations on Twitter, writing, “I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings by defending myself from these accusations. I have never set out to make anyone uncomfortable. I sincerely apologize if anything I did made anyone feel unsafe and or uncomfortable.”
This all comes shortly after the news about Ryan Adams, and it is not unrelated. Bloodshot Records also worked with Ryan Adams, releasing his 2000 album Heartbreaker. Following the allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct against him made by several women, but before she came forward with her own more specific allegation against Mark on Instagram, she wrote the following on Twitter:
A lot of people are confiding in me that they are gutted and hurt by the Ryan Adams news. Please know the people who should be gutted and hurt are his victims, not people who are going to miss his overrated songs
— Lydia Loveless (@lydia_loveless) February 15, 2019
I’m gutted and hurt by an industry that claims to be creative and here for us and that only proves more and more every day to be just like everything fucking else
— Lydia Loveless (@lydia_loveless) February 15, 2019
Not really at all surprising that a label who allowed a man to grope, paw at and mentally disturb me for over five years still touts Ryan Adams as a fucking genius
— Lydia Loveless (@lydia_loveless) February 15, 2019
Bloodshot followed the next day with their own tweets on the subject:
The Ryan Adams we met in the late nineties was a sweet, manic, disheveled whirlwind of a talent. After the release of ‘Heartbreaker’ on our label in 2000, he signed a major label deal and thereafter our paths rarely crossed.
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 16, 2019
The Ryan Adams we have been hearing about over the past few days bears no resemblance to the one we knew back then. To be emphatically clear, we never saw or heard a hint of the appalling behavior now coming to light. We are as shocked and disappointed as every one else.
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 16, 2019
And we resolutely stand by his accusers in their search for vindication and resolution. There is absolutely no room in the entertainment world for this behavior.
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 16, 2019
That it would happen in our corner of it—the underground, independent music scene—a place where many of us turn to as a refuge, makes it profoundly disheartening.
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 16, 2019
We like to think of it as a space of inclusion and respect, and thus when “one among us” defiles it, the hurt is especially keen.
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 16, 2019
We hope that Ryan quickly and fully atones for his actions and that the voices and experiences of those he has traumatized are heard and respected. And that we all move towards eradicating such unacceptable actions in our creative community. –Bloodshot
— Bloodshot Records (@BSHQ) February 16, 2019