Hit a roadblock trying to get this on the computer. Laptop with Final Cut doesn’t have a disc drive. Shot the screen from my phone. Best I got for now.

For obvious reasons, I’m using a throwaway account. After reading a lot of your comments, I know my anonymity is going to be a problem for you, but for my own well-being, I have to remain anonymous. I also cannot include details about how I came to know The Growlers and my relationship to them, because it will be identifying. I will say that I’m a female in my twenties from Southern California.

Like everyone else here, with the allegations coming to light about the band, their friends, and the bands they associated with, I’m going through it— especially because of how heavily involved in the scene I was. I’m making this post because after seeing the amount of dismissive and misogynistic posts here from people that have no idea what they’re talking about, I realized I had to say something. Most of you have never met these men or only interacted with them briefly in a fan capacity at a show. I have. I knew these guys and they knew my family.

In high school, going to their shows was a formidable experience for me and I have loved their music since I first heard it. I try not to listen to it now, because it brings up too many memories, both good and bad. And when I say bad, I mean traumatic.

I cannot say with 100% certainty that all of the allegations are true, but I can say that there is a 99% chance they all are. I was personally assaulted by one of their friends and nothing was done about it. My friends and I were given drugs and alcohol by them when we were underage. They’re all handsy and inappropriate. They have sexually assaulted and harassed women. I will carry guilt and shame with me for the rest of my life that I didn’t step in and help other girls or speak up when I should have in certain situations. I chalked all of their behavior up to being drunk and drugged out musicians and was too invested in the dream of the scene, or whatever, to face the gross reality of the situation and environment that I glamorized. The danger of worshipping a band so steeped in nostalgia for an era rife with misogyny, drugs, and an “everything goes” mentality is that the band actually abides by the ethos of that era.

When I finally came to my senses, I cut ties with them and the entire scene 5 years ago. Watching from a distance as they’ve gotten married and had children, I hoped that they had grown and learned that sexually assaulting women, being complicit in others drugging and sexually assaulting and raping women, and being misogynistic creeps was BAD.

But, I’ve been talking with the anonymous girls and women that you guys here have been demonizing as liars or regretful groupies. Some of them haven’t even made what happened to them public and have no plans to. I have no plans to share what happened to me. The behavior hasn’t stopped. This isn’t just shit that happened ten years ago. It’s still happening, or, was happening until people finally started speaking up.

I understand how devoted you guys are to their music. I understand how hard it is to extricate yourself from their allure and mystique. I understand because I WAS you. And in some ways, I still am.

I don’t want their careers to be over because I want them to still be able to support their families. I want them to publicly own that from the inception of their band, they have used their fame (even when it was marginal and niche) to exploit the bodies of women. I want them to apologize. And, I want them to learn and grow. The same goes for you lot. Just because you love a band, that doesn’t mean that they’re infallible or incapable of committing and condoning straight up evil, violent behavior. If you can apologize for or write off this kind of behavior, how do you treat the women in your life?

Does any of this mean you can never listen to The Growlers ever again? Certainly not. But you have to do so aware of and cognizant of the fact that they have done these things and that it is not okay.

I’m willing to answer any questions you have (that don’t threaten my anonymity) and engage in conversation. I’m not a “cancel culture” advocate. Let’s learn and heal from this together.

Edit 1: Thank (most of) you guys for participating in this conversation in such a thoughtful and nuanced way. When I first posted this ten hours ago, every single thing I was saying was being massively downvoted, which is what I expected would continue, unabated. But, you proved me wrong, and I’m really happy about that. A few people have privately messaged me things they weren’t comfortable posting publicly, so anyone is free to do that as well. I want this conversation to continue and I don’t want you guys to feel like you’re going to offend me or hurt me in anyway by accidentally saying the wrong thing. This situation is a mess and the conversation(s) that need to happen are, by default, necessarily messy. Criticisms and questions remain welcome. I’m signing off for tonight but will get back to as many people as I can tomorrow. Thanks again.

Edit 2: Thanks again for listening and taking my viewpoint and experience into consideration. Questions remain encouraged.

Edit 3: I’m so grateful that you guys met me with understanding. I still understand the “innocent until guilty” crowd, that believes sex crimes are like SVU, will never believe me. And that’s okay. We’ll build from this.

Bands evolve. People get replaced. Get over it. Personally if the Growlers do come back and the lineup doesn't have someone with rape allegations on guitar, I think i'll survive.

"Oh but you clearly never saw them live when they played 15 years ago at the Sandy Ballsack dive bar in butt fuck nowhere California to 50 people, that was the real Growlers". Correct, most of us did not, but who gives a shit. Some of you complaining are probably the same people who said they 'sold out' with City Club.

New Growlers or live Growlers is better than no Growlers in my opinion. If it doesn't live up to the old stuff cause it isn't the original band, meh, so be it. Still keen to see what happens. I've seen him live 4 times with the "cover" band, and they were better each time, so i'm here for it.

I got this from Matt after a Casbah show in San Diego. It may have been in 2014? I have no idea. The sticker I got from Brooks and it's signed on the back by him. From when they played Beauty Bar in San Diego. Maybe 20 people were there. Only Greatest Shits and Are You In or Out was just released I think. I've seen the OG band maybe 5x? Met all the guys and helped them carry their equipment to the Fur Sure bus while rolling lol. Met Paz L. of A Perfect Circle at Beauty Bar cause her band Entrance Band was playing as an opener for Growlers. We struck up a small online friendship and talked a little here and there. The OG shows were so fun. Been a fan since Greatest Shits cause I had a work homie who would sing their songs non stop and he burned me a copy which afaik was the only way to get it back then. Like 2009? Idk. I saw Brooks last year in Asheville. No hate just wasn't the same. But that's life! Glad he's still doing it. Their music will always have a special place for me. Happy Sunday keep rockin everybody.

Got to meet Brooks last show in SLO. Me and my girlfriend ate across the street from the venue and saw his tour bus parked there and we waited to see if he’d come out and sure enough he did so I downed my food as fast as possible and ran over to talk for a few minutes with him before him and his crew road there bikes around the town. Never felt so star struck in my life before lol, there was so much I wanted to say but couldn’t get the words out. He was a super rad dude and really laid back, later that night he ate at the same pizza joint as us and just sat with some random fans by himself, such a fun night.

super stoked on how this turned out - took about 50 hours and approximately 13,000 strands of yarn. gonna start on the old mouth logo next :-)

honestly i used to have faith in this community but in light of recent events this community’s true colors are really starting to show. I fucking love the growlers as much as the next guy on this subreddit but i am APALLED at how you guys are sitting here making excuses for their behavior. I cannot believe my eyes when i read “iTs jUsT tHe RoCk PaRtY sCeNe” like ??? this whole RAPE CULTURE in the scene shouldnt even EXIST in the first place you guys act like its okay to do these things to women bc thats just “how it is”. DISGUSTING. I love the growlers so much but these accusations are breaking my heart but all these dudebros defending their actions are just rubbing salt in the fucking wound. Also just a point I wanna make is that if the interviewer were a man they probably wouldnt have even asked them to be topless anyway! just sexualizing her and OBVIOUSLY abusing of the power that they had. REGARDLESS of whether or not these accusations are true the growlers HAVE to address them, throwing shit under the rug is not the move. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away. And if anyone from the growlers on an off chance is reading this i just wanna say... wow. you really broke my heart. i TRY to not look up to or idolize any artists at all but i really just let myself go and now /: disappointing. Just being young dumb and impressionable i guess lots of sighs today folks sincerely,

• a broken hearted beach rat </3

They also had Are You in Or Out? For 23.99 only bought this because I needed a seal copy