Mark Kozelek Challenges the War on Drugs to Let Him Join Them Onstage

Photo by Tonje Thilesen

Earlier this month, Sun Kil Moon‘s Mark Kozelek told a “fucking hillbilly” audience in North Carolina to “shut the fuck up.”  A few weeks later, he called the War on Drugs “beer commercial lead guitar shit” and introduced a song by saying “This next song is called ‘The War on Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Dick” after their sound bled into his during simultaneous sets at a festival.

He followed up with what appeared to be an apology to the War on Drugs, posted on the Sun Kil Moon website. “I hope to catch your set someday when it’s not drowning out my own,” he wrote. “The schedule wasn’t your fault—I get it.”

Today, Kozelek posted a new letter on the Sun Kil Moon site. It’s headlined, “I DID NOT APOLOGIZE TO WAR ON DRUGS AND I CHALLENGE THEM TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR OCTOBER 6TH AT THE FILLMORE”. It reads:

To Pitchfork, Stereogum, and anyone reading this: I did not apologize to “War On Drugs.” I gave them an explanation of the events that lead to my comments. I do not, and will not, apologize for stage banter. I was just letting WOD know that it wasn’t personal.

There is an epidemic of people being ‘offended’ by things as some kind of hobby. Anyone offended by the “H” word needs to be glad their country isn’t being invaded by missiles. Rock-A-Billy is still a genre of music so spare me your whining about “Hillbilly” being offensive.

War On Drugs. Due to all of the fuss, I checked out your live track on Pitchfork, and I called it right. You sound like Don Henley meets John Cougar meets Dire Straits meets “Born In The USA” era Bruce Springsteen. It’s not a criticism, it’s an observation.

I challenge War On Drugs to let me join them onstage and play a hilarious song I’ve written called: “War On Drugs: Suck My Cock/Sun Kil Moon: Go Fuck Yourself” at the Fillmore, October 6th, provided they let me handle the beer commercial lead guitar.

I don’t have Twitter or Facebook ( I make albums) so if you’re interested in having a laugh with me onstage, contact my publicist Robert Vickers.

-Mark Kozelek

Now this is something we would very, very much like to see.

Read our interview with Kozelek from earlier this year and read our recent feature on War on Drugs here. Watch Sun Kil Moon perform “Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes” at Pitchfork Music Festival:

Watch War on Drugs perform “Red Eyes” at Primavera earlier this year:

Comments are closed.