Modest Mouse has sidelined guitarist Simon O’Connor amid allegations he’d sent a sexually explicit, racially overtoned image to a teen, though he insisted it was all a big misunderstanding, while admitting a mistake.
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“Simon O’Connor will not be joining us on the upcoming tour,” the Pacific Northwest indie rock band announced Friday on social media after a young female fan publicized racy DMs she said she’d received on the verge of her 17th birthday.
“SIMON calls your bluff,” O’Connor wrote, followed by a photo meme of a naked, dark-skinned male body builder whose private parts were hidden behind a smiley face sticker, then added, “Sorry.”
The teen replied, “it’s all good,” assuming he’d been hacked and complimenting his music, but O’Connor said no, that her bikini photos and a “party night” were the culprits. She advised him to “get some sleep,” and O’Connor replied with a salute — then apparently attempted to have the last word.
“But you did blindside me with a gaggle of likes and then very little intro besides bikini pics, so we are both to blame,” he wrote. In the next screenshot, that had disappeared and been replaced with, “I did it again.”
O’Connor, 42, on Monday tried to explain that he thought he was dealing with a longtime prankster who had dogged him “throughout my adult life” but had realized his mistake a few minutes later, unsent the messages and cut off communication. He apologized to the fan and copped to exercising “poor judgment.”
Modest Mouse replaced him with Seth Jabour of Les Savy Fav, labeling the move a “tour update” without giving a reason. It was not clear Monday whether O’Connor, who joined the band in 2021 and played on its latest album “An Eraser and a Maze,” was permanently out.
The Modest Mouse tour kicks off in Ojai, California, on Tuesday and runs through Jan. 18 of next year. The band will play New York City’s The Rooftop at Pier 17 on Oct. 8.
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“We look forward to being out there with you all,” Modest Mouse said.
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