I have to thank all my musician friends that reached out to make sure Ryan wasn’t someone they had played with, and to make sure he isn’t someone they would play with in the future. Thanks to everyone who reached out to make sure he wasn’t on your friends’ list, but thanks especially to my musician friends.
One of his bands confronted him and fired him immediately, though I didn't know it for the first week after it happened. I can't thank them enough for their swift action and support. This is what Banding Together looks like. This is how consequences are experienced and communities heal. Thank you. They are absolute heroes and I hope more bands follow suit when confronted with a predator in their ranks.
I need to reach out to are a couple of other bands and people he's know to play with and I can only hope the same kind of action is taken instead of enabling Ryan to go on refusing to take accountability.
Again, I can't help wonder if anybody else confronted him about it, especially the boys on stage that night. If so, did he try to walk his confession back, because I legit want to know who in their right mind would ever admit to such acts in public if they never happened? Moreso, who in their right mind would swallow a walk back like that?
A local business owner who has sponsored various local musical events in the past flat out wanted to know what bands would want Ryan in them and what venues would want to book him. Good questions, I say!
I have to ask all my musician friends, if this happened at one of your shows what would you do? And to my show going friends? And my venue managing friends? What if the assailant was someone you admired, whose music moved you? What if you thought of him as a friend, someone you've shared laughs and late nights with? Would your sense of justice remain so clear? What happens when the lines blur? This is your scene, your people. Do you owe him protection or do do you owe your friends, fans and potential female band mates protection from him?
Imagine Ryan is your band mate and you've never seen the woman who spoke up before. You guys have been through it all, right? Dodgy gigs, triumphant sets. He's family, in a weird, musical way. Now, this accusation hangs in the air. Your gut reaction might be, "Nah, not Ryan." And BAM! There it is, cognitive dissonance dancing with denial. Sticky little wicket, innit? That loyalty, that shared history - it creates a kind of blindness. It’s like your empathy has built walls around your crew, and anyone outside that circle - their story just doesn’t land with the same weight. It’s called parochial empathy (which can operate in a similar manner to relative morality) and it is something that needs to be acknowledged and challenged for justice to completely be served. It's like our hearts have these little hometown borders, and it’s easier to feel for the folks inside, but what about the people outside those lines? Justice has nothing to do with who we like or dislike.
Now flip it. You've never seen the band before but the woman who spoke up that night is someone you have a shared history with, whether it's simply from seeing each other at events or something deeper. Maybe she is a friend, possibly another musician or artist you respect. Suddenly, the story hits a little differently. You feel that knot in your stomach, that immediate surge of protectiveness.
What if Ryan just joined the band a few weeks ago. You know the band, you love their music, but this new guy? He’s just there so far. You don't know the woman who spoke up either in this case. Maybe it feels easier to stay neutral, to wait and see what happens next, but is neutrality really an option when someone has been hurt? Does our lack of personal connection excuse our inaction?
What if this situation happened in the tightest of tight-knit scenes? You've all been making music and going to each other's shows for decades. You've seen each other through breakups and breakdowns, celebrated births and mourned losses. You know both the survivor and the assailant. They're both part of your extended family. This is where it gets truly complicated. Cognitive dissonance might hit even harder making action feel impossible.That desire to keep the peace, to not rock the boat in your little world can be a powerful force. It whispers things like "It's between the two of them. It'll blow over. Maybe it's a misunderstanding. I'm afraid of picking the wrong side." This is parochial empathy again, coming at you from a different angle.
That desire for harmony not only comes at a terrible cost to the person who was harmed, it can destroy the whole scene. The silence becomes deafening because it allows predators to continue their attacks without ever having to answer for their actions. True empathy doesn't care who you know or how long you've known them. True empathy sees the fundamental value and suffering of every human being without considering their social status. Parochial empathy, on the other hand, is like a club membership – you only feel it for the people who have the right card and it is rife in the world of music and fandom, not only in small local scenes but all the way up. That club mentality? It's a breeding ground for injustice, just a tiny bit cultish, no? It lets the people we know and the people we like off the hook a little too easily. It makes it harder to hold them accountable, even when the evidence is staring us in the face. It is exactly that lack of accountability that allows predatory behavior to fester. When there are no consequences within the community, when silence and loyalty trump truth and justice, what message does that send? It tells survivors they won't be believed, that their pain doesn't matter as much as the comfort of the group. And it tells perpetrators that they can get away with it, that their friends will protect them, even if it means turning a blind eye to the harm they've caused.
It took me 2 days after the second confrontation to tell Esteemed Son - the last person I told, and finally post on my socials. I knew I couldn’t start posting until I told him. The last thing I would want is for him to find out online.
Why was Esteemed Son the last person I told, you might wonder. Why did it take me so long to tell Mr. HItchy? It’s because I knew the news would devastate them. Sexual assault doesn’t just affect the victim. In order to get the support and justice they need, the whole family is affected. There is a healing process everyone in the family has to go through. I had to get to a certain place in my own processing before I could share. I had to have a plan of action before I could tell Mr. Hitchy because I thought it would help him accept it. Poor Son is sorting through it all now, and he is processing in many of the ways I did in the beginning. Both my guys are supportive of me seeking justice in the way that is most restorative for me, despite both of them expressing their preferred forms of justice.
What happened on the 334th day after the attack that finally leveled me up in the healing process? A friend of mine sent me a 20 minute video of a Buffalo Band’s Music is Art performance because she thought I would really like them and she wanted me to go to an upcoming show with her. I DID really like the band and was totally psyched to go see them live when suddenly, at the end of their set, Ryan walked in front of the camera and I immediately threw up. Many things clicked in that moment, including the fact I was still prioritizing his mental health over mine, but there he was, clearly living his best life while I was having trouble sleeping, eating, working and socializing. I had spent so much time knowing I had to take actions toward holding him accountable, and worrying about how to do it without him potentially self-harming in an unrecoverable way and I was done being hostaged by his manufactured exigencies. I called crisis services and my doctor that very day and told Mr. Hitchy the next. The truth is, up until that moment all I really wanted was for the jackhat to acknowledge what he had done, apologize for it and tell me he had gotten help. Blah! Never happened.
This isn’t just about my experience with Ryan. It’s about the rampant predatory behavior present in the music scene. When you look at the numbers, even the lowball figures suggest that out of a hundred guys in the music scene - say, twenty bands of five - you're probably looking at ten who've sexually assaulted someone in some way. And if you go with the higher estimates, that number jumps to a staggering twenty-five. That's a yuck number of creeps, and honestly, in this industry, chances are those numbers are even higher. Let's be real, the whole "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" thing? It's not just a cliché. "Sex" is right up front for a reason. That kind of environment, where boundaries can get blurred and access is often easy, can unfortunately create fertile ground for predatory behavior. That's where the whole concept of "grooming" and "groupies" ( if you want to use that loaded term) gets tangled up. You've got often young, impressionable fans who idolize these performers. Seeing them play feels magical. There's an inherent power imbalance. The performer is up on a stage, literally elevated, bathed in light, creating this emotional connection with the audience. For a fan that can feel like a deep, almost personal connection.
The artists are put on pedestals, granted a level of trust because of this seemingly personal connection and the vulnerability in their music. Of course the relationship is parasocial and it can tragically be exploited. Grooming, in this context, can look like a performer singling out a fan, offering special attention, making them feel seen and valued - all while subtly manipulating the dynamic for their own predatory ends. Grooming can also look like offering opportunities or mentorship to aspiring artists. It is the pattern of behavior that reveals the danger. That initial admiration and trust, that feeling of being special, can be insidious tools in a predator's playbook, making it even harder for a victim to recognize the danger they're in, and even harder to speak out later. It's a messed-up cycle, and those numbers we were just talking about? They're a stark reminder of how deeply ingrained this can be.
Mr. Hitchy had a band with a predator in it once. In the end it destroyed the band due to their division about whether or not to confront the predator. The predator was accused of multiple things, including, you guessed it, touching sleeping ladies. What the actual duck is wrong with you guys???? The predator was witnessed doing and saying MANY womanizing things. Every once in a while a man fan or friend would confirm to me they had witnessed or heard the abusive behavior, but they never confronted him. Every once in a while a lady fan would admit they felt so uncomfortable around the predator they couldn't be around the band anymore, but they never confronted him. It was so gross, I don’t know how it went on for so long. Some of that is happening in some of your bands right now.
* It is important to note here that while there has been a lot of cis normative language in this writing, it is in no way, shape or form meant to diminish the reality that sexual assault and rape are both experienced and perpetrated by all genders, though to be super, duper, extra fair, cis males do seem to be at top of the perpetrator list by a large percentage.
** The above has been edited for clarity.