Record Labels Sever Ties With Whirr Over Transphobic Tweets
Update (1:30 p.m.): Run for Cover‘s Jeff Casazza has e-mailed Pitchfork a statement about cutting ties with Whirr. Check it out below.
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Last night, the Bay Area band Whirr posted a series of negative tweets about G.L.O.S.S., a punk band whose lead singer is a transgender woman. (The tweets have since been deleted, but an archive can be found at Stereogum.) Among other things, they tweeted, “g.l.o.s.s. Is just a bunch of boys running around in panties making shitty music,” and compared G.L.O.S.S. to the Buffalo Bill character from The Silence of The Lambs.
As a result, Run for Cover Records and Graveface Records have severed ties with the band.
Following Whirr’s tweets, Run For Cover tweeted the following:
We as individuals and as a label are accepting of all people and require the same from the bands and people we work with…
— Run For Cover (@rfcrecords) October 20, 2015
We will not be working with Whirr from this point on and do not support that behavior in anyway. We will post a full statement tomorrow.
— Run For Cover (@rfcrecords) October 20, 2015
G.L.O.S.S. is awesome and crucially important and we need more bands like them.
— Run For Cover (@rfcrecords) October 20, 2015
The singer of G.L.O.S.S. also created a Twitter to reply to Whirr:
@free_whirl “boys in panties” > boys with clean flannels and backstage laminates who hate women because they know women are superior to them
— SadieSwitchblade (@trannyterrorist) October 20, 2015
This morning, after deleting last night’s tweets, Whirr’s Nick Bassett posted a statement in which he said the offending tweets were sent out by “a friend” with control of their account. “The comments made last night do not reflect any member’s personal views,” he wrote.
— Whirr (@free_whirl) October 20, 2015
Following that, Graveface tweeted the following:
Graveface supports positive action and equality. We have zero interest in working w/ hateful people. Donate here: https://t.co/IP8KBjZ4H0
— Graveface Records (@graveface_recs) October 20, 2015
Graveface also wrote on Facebook, “There are no contracts at Graveface so there’s no booting anyone off. Simply enough I will not be releasing records by anyone I know to be hateful, especially in regards to all of this. Cheers”
In the past, Bassett has been upfront about defending his band’s social media presence, which has included other offensive material. In an interview with Noisey last year, Bassett said, “we’re weeding out the pussies,” when asked “what would you say to your ex-fans?”
He also responded to the question “If you alienated every fan to the point where you couldn’t sell any records, how would you feel, and what would Whirr do next?” with “I’d be stoked that we didn’t suck anyone’s dick as a band and were just real dudes being real. If we weren’t selling records anymore, that would be a wrap for us.” And in reply to “Do you think bands take social media too seriously?”, he said, “I think people take everything around them too seriously.”
We have reached out to Graveface for further comment.
Update: Here’s Run for Cover’s statement, in response to whether Whirr’s apology changed their decision to cut ties:
Frankly, no, it doesn’t change anything. We were aware of the information in Whirr’s statement when we made the decision. Although the band is not signed to our label, and never have been, we have decided to not work with them in the future, and stop selling their releases we did have a hand in. Also, despite being at a financial net loss with Whirr and Camera Shy, we will be donating $3,000 to a TBA non profit in support of equal rights for LGBTQ.We will be posting what organization later today, we just didn’t want to jump the gun on that decision.
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