Hello friends - time for some serious talk.
CW/TW: Sexual abuse and assault.
You may have seen our announcement on Facebook regarding our departure from Mighty Speck Records. This was not something that was done lightly, however it was something that we all agreed needed to be done without hesitation in order to make it very clear where we stand on the issues of sexual abuse, exploitation, and coercive control of women by men.
On August 9th, allegations were published on the Instagram page Survivor Stories Project regarding the head of Mighty Speck, James Kasper. Without getting into details, the allegations detailed a series of grooming activities leading to the sexual assault of a minor. You can read it for yourself, but it's pretty damning. A second allegation has since been published on the page.
Needless to say, when we first were made aware of this, we were pretty shocked. For the record, none of us had ever been witness to anything that would have suggested this kind of behaviour, nor had anyone made us aware of anything like this before we got involved with MSR. What I have discovered since then, however, has made me question whether we could have done more to inform ourselves before deciding to do so.
Since the allegations came out and Signal Static announced it was cutting ties with MSR multiple women have come forward with similar stories regarding the same person, including one very courageous woman who contacted us, personally about her own experience, and has since gone on to file her own charges against Mr. Kasper.
As time has gone on it has become apparent that there has been a large group of women who have been aware of on-going and repeated behaviour by Mr. Kasper. I have lost count of the number of women I have heard from who either had experiences of their own or had been warned by somebody else who has had experiences like this with him.
And yet, all of our fellow Mighty Speck artists, it seems, were completely blindsided by this information. Why?
What is apparent to me is that we all need to do a much better job of listening to and supporting victims of sexual assault and abuse by "powerful" individuals. As we have seen with recent high-profile cases similar to this in the media, a reputation often exists but is kept quiet because women are legitimately afraid to come forward and tell their stories.
They are afraid because of what they are almost certain to be put through in order to simply be believed, and because even when they do come forward the chances of receiving any kind of meaningful justice is vanishingly small. Quite frankly, I'd be afraid, too.
We're here to say that we believe you, and we will do our best to know who we are getting involved with in the future.
If you are experiencing abuse or need help with something related to abuse, here are some links to a few of the support organizations in Victoria that you can contact:
http://www.bfws.ca/ https://vsac.ca/ https://www.transitionhouse.net/our-pr…/counselling-support/ http://south-island.fetchbc.ca/service.html?i=772 https://www.gvpvs.org/
If you have any questions for us, please don't hesitate to send us a message on the Signal Static Facebook page or by email at signalstaticband@gmail.com
Much love,
--Ryan