In early January it was reported that the lead singer for an up-and-coming local band was booked into the King County Jail on suspicion of rape. While the police report was shocking in its brutality (the woman's hips and pelvic region were bruised and scratched, and she had been penetrated vaginally and anally), I wish I could say that I was shocked by the news. I'd been reading the singer's online journal for weeks and he came across like someone spinning out of control. On more than one occasion I struggled with the urge to contact him and offer help, but backed away because I figured a young singer would be less than receptive to emotional analysis from a 37-year-old music journalist. Or maybe I've just been broken down by Seattle's propensity for sweeping scandal under the rug.
Not many folks in the local scene had much good to say about the singer when I asked around about him prior to his arrest. After his arrest, I began asking folks whether they thought he really could have raped someone. I got angry proclamations of his innocence from some people, and angry questions about why I would even want to talk about the subject from others. That a sexual predator might be freely entering and exiting clubs is, seemingly, of little importance. Nor is it important that a member of the local music community may have been unjustly accused of rape (no charges were ever filed), and may be in danger (if any of the numerous death threats he's received are carried out).
What I keep coming back to, though, when I think about this incident, are his friends. I can't be the only person who knew this singer was in dire need of help. I never even met this kid; I'd only read his journal online. As an interloper, I was aware that he physically fought with his bandmates regularly, and that he was lonely and depressed. In his journal, he wrote that he was contemplating suicide. He was clearly headed for trouble.
The Seattle music community likes to call itself a family, and whenever someone writes something critical of a band's performance--their music, their record sales--the writer gets slammed for not being "supportive." The music community, we're told again and again, is about support and caring for each other. The music community is a family. Well, if the music community is a family, it's a WASPish, dysfunctional family, full of people who focus on the little things--the injustice of being singled out for poor record sales, the embarrassment caused by having it drawn out publicly that a band sold a song to McDonald's--and ignores the big, stinking, obvious cries for help: blood-spattered, needle-strewn apartments, missing-in-action singers, another accusation of rape that also drew no charges.
When these things are going down, I know that people don't want us to report on them--that would be cruel, it wouldn't be supportive, it wouldn't be good for the music community. Then why don't people do something about these things? Why doesn't anyone reach out and try to help? Why is it so easy to look the other way when one of our family members is in serious, albeit unsightly, trouble?
After the singer accused of rape was released from jail and a mention of his detainment was reported in a local publication (the report named the singer, and speculated that he was probably guilty), I e-mailed him. I'd been reading his online journal, I told him, and I was saddened when I heard that he was arrested for rape. I told him that I knew how an accusation like rape affects a person in a way that will follow him for a long time. However, there are two sides to every story, and so far I'd only read the police report and spoken with someone who called saying she is friends with the woman who accused him. Another paper told readers he had probably done it. The Stranger made a similar bad call on a rape accusation several years ago. Instead of rushing something into the paper this time, I wanted to wait until we could get the singer's side of the story. He wrote back, pledged his innocence, and said it was weird that I'd read his journal (which he was posting online). He wouldn't agree to be interviewed about the incident.
One entry in the singer's online journal, written by a friend while the singer was still locked up, relayed this message from the singer: "All my friends are behind me, [a local band signed to a major label] and my parents are getting me a lawyer." I wish the same friends who are behind him now had reached out to him before someone accused him of rape. That's what family would do, right?
