Metal Anarchy

As previously reported, Jed Gordon, Parkway Drive’s former merch guy and the brother of drummer Ben Gordon, recently pleaded guilty after being charged with having sex with an underage girl. The incident occurred when he was 21 and the minor was “14 or over and under 16.” The band previously voiced support for the victim and frontman Winston McCall has continued to do so in a new video statement.

McCall said the following:

“Hey guys, I’m here to speak on the current situation regarding Jed Gordon, our ex-merch guy and Ben’s brother, pleading guilty to underage sex in 2002, and about the Byron Bay hardcore scene on the whole. Real straight with you guys, this is a really big topic, it’s really important. I’ve got a bunch of stuff written down, so if you see me like glancing off to the side, that’s because I’m making sure I don’t miss anything. Thank you for listening to me, I’m going to jump straight in on this. Number 1, we support the victim.

The victim. We support the victim 100%. She deserves justice. She deserves her space. She deserves her time.

She deserves to be heard. We 100% support that. 20 years of trauma, I cannot imagine what that is like to bear. Number 2, we condemn this. We condemn this without hesitation.

If there was anything in our initial response that left people wondering about that. I want to make this crystal clear for everyone: this is fucked. This is fucked, and this is Jed’s reckoning to answer for. It’s his reckoning, and he will answer for it. Um, we employed him for a long time, and we put him in a position where he had contact with a lot of people, and, um, it’s our moral responsibility to to carry.

That’s our moral responsibility to carry. We see it, we see it and we hold it.

We always have tried to see the best in people and sometimes it means you, you’re blind to the worst. Anyone that’s had bad interactions with Jed while employed with us, we’re so sorry. Yeah, we’re so sorry. We knew he could be, he could be He could be bad with people, and our inaction on just that level is— yeah, there’s no excuse for that, and we apologize. But we did not know the extent of his behavior.

We did not know. We’ve been completely blindsided by this. We found out about this, the band found out about this through screenshots of court dates, um, from documents that were already online circulating. Um, we were still finding out new information through Sydney Morning Herald article that we were part of yesterday. Um, yeah, completely fucking blindsided.

Um, if our initial response came across as cold, uh, I also want to say that was never the intent. We take this situation really, really seriously, and we also recognize our position as in this band. Like, we’re a big band, and we also have a connection, a family connection, and we did not want to do anything to jeopardize the justice system, and we wanted to make sure we didn’t impede that. But we can definitely understand if people felt Yeah, felt that there was a coldness to our communication, and if that hurt someone, uh, we see that, we’re sorry for that. And this is us putting the human connection to it.

Um, this whole story is heartbreaking. The whole story is heartbreaking. Like, the, the Byron hardcore scene grew out of an already toxic Byron culture. Um, We grew up in a town which had the highest unemployment rate in the country. It was drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence.

It was everywhere. It was in the surf culture, the sporting clubs, the streets, the pubs, the homes. Like, it’s a generational cultural issue.

We tried with the hardcore scene to create a space, a sanctuary for people to escape from that, for young people. Our town never provided it at the time. It was a tourist town. Wanted the tourist dollars.

So that’s what we tried to provide, but it was a sanctuary for a lot of people, but for some people it didn’t end up a sanctuary. And those problems, like the power imbalances, the consent issues, the bullying, like it all crept back in and we see that as unacceptable.

Yeah, to the women, women deserve to be safe, women deserve to be heard, women deserve to be seen, and women deserve to be respected.

Every person watching this now knows a sexual assault survivor. You might not know it, but you do. Every woman in your life has been sexually harassed. It’s unacceptable. If it’s heartbreaking, it should be.

It should be heartbreaking. And this is a society and cultural issue. We need to change it. We need to change it. We as men need to do better.

We need to stand up and we need to be better. And I’m not trying to say all men are bad, all men are horrible. This isn’t just like a— I’m not trying to tar everyone with the same brush. I’m just saying like, this is a community. This is a community and communities look inside in these moments and they take responsibility and they act and that’s how things get better.

We’ve got to take account. That’s the thing. We’ve got to take account. To the women in this scene, to the women in this scene, you are so valued. You are so valued and so important.

You’re so welcome and you’re so essential. You’re so essential. To the men, to the men in this scene, don’t stand for bullshit. Don’t stand for bullshit. I know it can be hard to speak up.

I know it can be hard. I find it hard to speak up and I’ve got a microphone in front of everyone.

But we gotta do it. You gotta look at your mates, you gotta look at your friends, you gotta look at your peers, and you gotta ask the hard question and you’ve gotta speak out. That’s how change happens. This music has always been about more than just the sound to me. Like, that’s the thing.

It’s about the community. It’s about the community. And communities are responsible and they take accountability. So this is it. Like, this is what this band stands for.

It stands for a community. It always has and it always will. So that’s what we’ve got to do. Thank you so much for watching this.”

[via Lambgoat]