The Growlers respond to sexual misconduct allegations
UPDATE: Keyboardist Adam Wolcott Smith left the band.
UPDATE 2: Starcrawler’s Arrow De Wilde has accused The Growlers of sexual misconduct.
UPDATE 3: The Growlers issue an apology, and co-founder Matt Taylor is temporarily leaving the band.
Burger Records responded on Monday night (7/20) to a series of anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct and grooming made against bands associated with the label and employees. One of the bands that had allegations made against them was The Growlers, and lead singer and co-founder Brooks Nielsen has now made a statement on Instagram responding to them. In it, he denies the allegations, and points to lineup changes in the band over its 15 year history. He also says the band will be looking further into the allegations, “in as thorough, professional and unbiased manner as we are able,” and making “responsible decisions” based on their findings. Read his statement in full below:
I am Brooks Nielsen, the lead singer of The Growlers and co-founder of the band. There have been a number of claims made on social media these past few days about the band, and I feel it’s necessary for me to address them. All the claims were made on social media and all were anonymous. Despite that, we take them seriously and want to get to the bottom of them. Let me provide some historical perspective on the band: The Growlers have been around for almost fifteen years, and in that time, we have had a number of members come and go. There have been eleven ex-band members in total. Some we dismissed from the group years ago for not aligning with the kind of band we strive to be. one of the recent claims is that I touched a female journalist on her breast during an interview that happened ten years ago. I absolutely deny this ever happened, period. An additional claim was made against Matt Taylor, our lead guitarist and co-founder of the band, which he denies. To our female fans in particular, Know that we are committed to conducting ourselves in a way that our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters would be proud of. We ask for your patience while we look into these allegations in as thorough, professional and unbiased manner as we are able, and make responsible decisions based on what we find out. We thank you for your patience, support and love during this time and always. Brooks.
The Frights, The Buttertones, and SWMRS were among the acts named in the allegations, and Burger also wrote in the replies of a since-deleted Instagram that they were referring to Part Time and Love Cop with their first statement, where they said, “we want to remind all of our artists, and inform the Burger community at large that we have a long-standing zero-tolerance policy for this sort of behavior. Zero-tolerance means complete removal from all Burger platforms, destruction of physical media, and an end to our dealings with you, no questions asked, and no exceptions given.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CC4lJ8fJ_s5/
UPDATE: Keyboardist Adam Wolcott Smith left the band.
UPDATE 2: Starcrawler’s Arrow De Wilde has accused The Growlers of sexual misconduct.
UPDATE 3: The Growlers issue an apology, and co-founder Matt Taylor is temporarily leaving the band.
