We have been trying very hard to find the right way to bring the controversy surrounding the artist known as Front Porch Step and his role in Vans Warped Tour to our blog, but so far our best attempts have been scrapped long before making it to this page. Suffice to say, if you don’t know anything about this situation yet, you will need to do some research in order to understand everything that will follow. We suggest using this link to get started.
What you’re about to read was written by the incredibly talented Kelly Doherty for Absolutepunk. If you like it, visit the original post and speak with Kelly about her work. Also, tell all your friends to read and share her thoughts.
This time last year, there were so many of us challenging structures like the Warped Tour on their refusal to accurately represent female artists on their bills. We talked about the way it acts as a barrier to women who wish to get involved in alternative music and the message it sends to female fans that their place is solely in audiences, looking up to male artists and being treated only as groupies, “fangirls” or, if they’re lucky, backstage staff. We called upon Kevin Lyman and his peers to buy into the concept that they have a certain social responsibility to the people that they make their money from.
Today, Front Porch Step is playing the Warped Tour and may possibly play the rest of its run. This comes in the aftermath of Lyman denying (here and here) that he would be playing. This year, rather than simply refuse to represent women accurately and passively engage in systematic patriarchal oppression, Lyman has opted to support an artist who has manipulated the blind trust of his underage female fans for his own sexual gratification. He has given this artist the seal of approval and is willing to attach his name to the actions of Jake McElfresh. By allowing him to play today, Lyman is saying that, on balance, the more important aspect of McElfresh’s character is his ability to play shitty three minute songs as opposed to the active harms he has caused against others. Much like a football team who is still willing to field a player who has been engaging in domestic abuse, Lyman is sending out a message that McElfresh’s actions aren’t really that important and that all the fuss has been about nothing. Considering how many young boys in their early teens are present at Warped Tour each year, it’s particularly damaging that they’re being told that it is okay to treat girls the way that McElfresh did. Lyman is, with this move, telling them it was just a mistake and it doesn’t matter. This is telling young girls that if something like this occurs to you, it’s not really a big issue and, by hell, there’s no point in speaking out against it because nothing will happen.
Furthermore, this is a message from Lyman that he does not care about your behaviour, no matter how morally reprehensible it may be – you can still get on his stage, he will still look after you. Given the past 12 months and the constant awful behaviour we’ve seen, with multiple figures from the scene either being involved in sexual assault claims or engaging in victim-blaming, this serves to show that if young bands act that way, Lyman will still back them. Warped Tour still has a big enough audience that a stint on the festival can make a band. This decision means there is little long term backlash for an artist who’s sexually assaulted an underage girl, if they can still fund their career from the youngsters who attend Warped. It makes the scene into even more of a skinny-jeaned freemasons – boys will be boys and it doesn’t matter what they do because Grandpa Kevin will still help them out.
The darkest thing about McElfresh playing Warped, however, isn’t just message based. His actions involved young female fans that he established contact with through shows and festivals: festivals like Warped Tour. Lyman is placing McElfresh straight back into a position where he has access to young girls and could easily start the cycle once again. Whether or not he does, I find it both disgusting and dangerous hat Kevin Lyman is willing to put the young people who fund his festival, and his life, at risk when he knows fully what he is doing. Lyman is giving FPS a platform to be looked up to and admired by young girls. Lyman’s actions are those of someone who simply doesn’t care. We’ve gone beyond the point of asking him to volunteer and engage in his social responsibility, to the point where we are asking him not to actively put young girls in danger for the sake of a few bucks and that’s so twisted.
Beyond everything else, what’s particularly weird about Lyman opting to include Front Porch Step on Warped today is that he seems to gain very little from it. For once, Warped Tour can’t mask itself behind a cloak of ‘we’re doing it for the money’. Chances are, the inclusion of Front Porch Step against the will of the thousands of fans who signed petitions, shared tweets, and called for action will put fans off attending Warped. It’s likely that McElfresh is to walk out on stage to no more than a handful of people who are there to boo him, because he wasn’t a particularly interesting or good musician in the first place. It makes no negative impact on the sales of Warped Tour to not include him. No one ever said “aww, I was going to pay a load of dollars to go to Warped, but Front Porch Step isn’t on the line up so I guess I’ll play Xbox instead.” In fact, the tickets for this date were already sold at the point of announcing the act, so there is literally no benefit. Inclusion of Front Porch Step feels like a giant “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me". It feels like a pathetic act of rebellion from a man who’s been coming under fire because his festival is the anti-thesis of what it once was, and that makes breaking away from Warped and everything it stands for all that easier.
It’s time that we stand up and say a resounding ‘fuck you’ to the Warped Tour and all that goes with it. Our mistakes last year came from trying to engage with and ask the likes of Kevin Lyman to change their actions and become fairer and more accepting. That’s never going to happen. Scene culture that goes hand-in-hand with Warped Tour 2015 is never going to change. It has no interest in changing because that would mean those in control would have to loosen their grip. It’s time that we make like bands such as Touché Amore and say we don’t need institutions like Warped. We will create a fairer scene on our own terms. We’ll start festivals and host shows that promote inclusion and safety. We’ll promote bands like Mitski, Speedy Ortiz, Joanna Gruesome, Perfect Pussy and so many more acts that give a fuck and care about their fans. Not only do we need to breakaway from the norm, we need to counteract its harms. We need to build counter-narratives, writing articles and promoting music that engages young audiences and make them realise the importance of equality, acceptance, inclusivity and responsibility. We don’t need the establishment, that’s not what punk rock was meant to be about in the first place. Let Warped Tour’s actions today be the moment that radicalizes a whole new generation of people who live for punk rock, and don’t want it to be killed by the very people we turned to punk rock because of in the first place.
#BoycottWarpedTour
