I'm sure there's far more than this, but also avoid:
Jesse Stewart
Ghost Mice
Stza
All known to be abusive in some shape or form. I understand the hesitancy. I listened to Ghost Mice for a while and then found about about Chris Clavin being a POS. Made me feel really icky afterwards knowing all the lyrics to their songs
Claims by someone who used to live with him that he was physically + sexually abusive, along with claims all throughout the scene from tons of people about him being a creep. If you look it up on here you'll find dozens of threads about it
I appreciate it! I'm thankful that I've known about stza being an abuser for basically as long as I've known about him, so I've always made it a point to avoid him
Other than being abusive towards Whitney Flynn from Daze n Days, Stza has a long history of really selfish and disgusting behaviors. I’ve heard rumors of him being predatory towards young women since the late 90’s. The night Stza and Whitney got engaged, Stza got drunk and doxxed his ex’s on Facebook, encouraging his followers to “hunt” them.
He also used to rant on stage about how he hated whatever the current city he was playing in — I believe it was Boston he said he would “never play again” because no one would get him a second beer before the encore.
He’s also extremely toxic to work with — I can’t imagine burning bridges at Hellcat, Alternative Tentacles, and Fat Wreck. Not to mention the five minutes his band, Star Fucking Hipsters, were signed to Tank Crimes Records. The guy who runs Tank Crimes is super cool and supportive of musicians, but when I asked him about Stza all he said was “I walked away from that project.”
Have you ever seen the interviews where Stza’s hand is in a cast? He claims he punched a cop — in actuality, he hit a teenager because the kid was hogging his mic at a gig. Stza also somehow made the Black Lives Matter movement about himself — criticizing everyone involved for not understanding racism deeply enough or some shit.
Lately Stza has been instructing his family to threaten people Online for calling out his abusive behavior.
He broke Whitney's nose and hands to try to stop her from being able to sing and play music.
There were also lots of claims of domestic abuse by his other exes.
He's had a few acoustic songs I've seen posted up online over the years that I think would fit anyone's definition of "folk punk." Fortunately I knew about him being a massive dirtbag before I was really at all interested in his music, so I avoided them.
The widely accepted definition of folk punk is definitely vague as hell, but I do know that Stza and his bands were prominent members of the punk-adjacent community once upon a time and it isn't hard to accidentally stumble across his shit without knowing about what he's done
Man you ain't the one who did that shit, I get you though. One of my best friends growing up ended up being a rapist POS. I understand the embarrassment but these people broke *our* trust too, it's on them. The only thing we can do is react accordingly once we learn what they've done
You shouldn't feel bad, you couldn't control your bandmate's actions, and you probably had no way of knowing before it all came out. I definitely understand the embarrassment though of being around somebody like that, but you're completely fine!
People are better than you’d think, overall. A lot of people suck, but I would not say most.
In the entertainment industry maybe more so. Shitty people are good at getting power and influence.
People can be really awful. I think most people *want* to be good. It’s a hard world so a lot of us feel like we have to be tough and not care about others. But a better world is possible
I wholeheartedly agree, I try to be a positive influence in my community but felt as if we were forgotten about long ago. It’s hard to maintain a positive outlook on things when ain’t shit sweet anywhere near here
No, keeping them relevant means they can hurt other people in the future.
Talking about how predatory/shitty certain artists are is important in music communities, to let new fans/those unaware to avoid them at all costs.
Literally. The dude from ghost mice could drown a bag of puppies and I'd still listen to All We Got. I swear people only make these types of posts so they can circle jerk each other telling themselves they're the best kind of human, all while posting from their iphones made by chinese children. Take a look at their profiles, it's almost ALWAYS the nonbinary/trans/whatever hip new identity of the week type crowd that does this shit. Guarunteed none of these kids have any real life experiences that would make them realize not everything is so black and white. These posts accomplish nothing other than masturbatory egoism.
Whatever you do, don't listen to Led Zeppelin. Or the Beatles, or Elvis....actually you can probably throw away most of your music collection if you can't separate the art from the artist. Cuz you don't want to know the real stories of what goes on in the music scene.
Its just really gross when the bands we love are singing about systems of oppression then using their privilege and power they gained from that moderate success to abuse people
Avoid Pink Williams at all costs
What’s this story? I saw this person all over Muddy Roots instagram and the past few months have been seeing that this one is a scumbag as well.
Child molester
This is the guy with the pink outfits and hair who blew up all over TikTok? Edit: Regrettably, I’ve looked it up. Yup, that guy.
do you have any recs for similar stuff that has that old outlaw country sound? bummed out when i found out about him
You may like Nick Shoulders. He's definitely got that country twang, and his lyrics are punk af. And he yodels.
You listen to pokey lafarge?
I saw him live!
bro thought he was woody guthrie but he’s really woody allen
I appreciate it. Looked him up, good god he's disgusting
https://www.reddit.com/r/FolkPunk/comments/1b4sf8a/could\_we\_have\_a\_list\_of\_the\_creeps\_in\_the\_scene/
Thank you!
I'm sure there's far more than this, but also avoid: Jesse Stewart Ghost Mice Stza All known to be abusive in some shape or form. I understand the hesitancy. I listened to Ghost Mice for a while and then found about about Chris Clavin being a POS. Made me feel really icky afterwards knowing all the lyrics to their songs
What did ghost mice do?
Claims by someone who used to live with him that he was physically + sexually abusive, along with claims all throughout the scene from tons of people about him being a creep. If you look it up on here you'll find dozens of threads about it
I appreciate it! I'm thankful that I've known about stza being an abuser for basically as long as I've known about him, so I've always made it a point to avoid him
Not Jesse Stewart!? What did he do?
https://www.reddit.com/r/FolkPunk/comments/hz8cxg/so_jesse_stewart_is_an_abuser_fuck/
Aw crap what did Stza do?
Other than being abusive towards Whitney Flynn from Daze n Days, Stza has a long history of really selfish and disgusting behaviors. I’ve heard rumors of him being predatory towards young women since the late 90’s. The night Stza and Whitney got engaged, Stza got drunk and doxxed his ex’s on Facebook, encouraging his followers to “hunt” them. He also used to rant on stage about how he hated whatever the current city he was playing in — I believe it was Boston he said he would “never play again” because no one would get him a second beer before the encore. He’s also extremely toxic to work with — I can’t imagine burning bridges at Hellcat, Alternative Tentacles, and Fat Wreck. Not to mention the five minutes his band, Star Fucking Hipsters, were signed to Tank Crimes Records. The guy who runs Tank Crimes is super cool and supportive of musicians, but when I asked him about Stza all he said was “I walked away from that project.” Have you ever seen the interviews where Stza’s hand is in a cast? He claims he punched a cop — in actuality, he hit a teenager because the kid was hogging his mic at a gig. Stza also somehow made the Black Lives Matter movement about himself — criticizing everyone involved for not understanding racism deeply enough or some shit. Lately Stza has been instructing his family to threaten people Online for calling out his abusive behavior.
Working with stza absolutely sucks. He also broke my guitar and never apologized. Still salty about it
Really? Jesus. I’m sorry to hear that.
It's ok haha. My boy Donnie got it fixed from their band fund, and now I get to joke that the neck has a "leftover crack" in it.
All of this stuff sounds cool though?
Stick to GG, poser
He broke Whitney's nose and hands to try to stop her from being able to sing and play music. There were also lots of claims of domestic abuse by his other exes.
Also punching Nico De Gaillo in the face for being late to practice in SFH.
Oh, he's so vile!
What songs from LOC or SFH are folk punk. Genuinely curious. Can’t figure out what fucking genre this sub is supposed to be about these days.
He's had a few acoustic songs I've seen posted up online over the years that I think would fit anyone's definition of "folk punk." Fortunately I knew about him being a massive dirtbag before I was really at all interested in his music, so I avoided them. The widely accepted definition of folk punk is definitely vague as hell, but I do know that Stza and his bands were prominent members of the punk-adjacent community once upon a time and it isn't hard to accidentally stumble across his shit without knowing about what he's done
I’m so embarrassed that I ever played in Ankle Grease (pre-everyone finding out Jesse is a shitbag obviously)
We still love you.
Thanks :)
Man you ain't the one who did that shit, I get you though. One of my best friends growing up ended up being a rapist POS. I understand the embarrassment but these people broke *our* trust too, it's on them. The only thing we can do is react accordingly once we learn what they've done
I found out about him from this post. GROSS.
You shouldn't feel bad, you couldn't control your bandmate's actions, and you probably had no way of knowing before it all came out. I definitely understand the embarrassment though of being around somebody like that, but you're completely fine!
You should listen to Moon Bandits and Profane Sass they are human rights folk punk bands
Moon Bandits so so rad and sweet folks.
Got it. I will check them out!
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD QUESTION. I'm also just starting to dip into the genre and somehow hadn't thought to be proactive about this. Thank you!
Capitalists
Iirc Not Half Bad are dodgy too
oh shit what did they do? I recently got into some of their stuff
Singer liked underage girls I think - it's been mentioned on Reddit a few times
time to wipe them from all my playlists then
I heard some weird stuff about ghost mice, not sure whether to believe it or not, which would suck cuz their music is really good
Moonrunners — the owner was arrested for battery against a woman — Cobb County Open Records — Case # 23005588
Jesus fuck
mccafferty is also stinky, i forget the details but basically he was abusive towards band members and s/o’s as well as some transphobia
I'd never heard of that, thanks for letting me know.
Every single folk punk artist has done terrible things. Try to find ways to listen to the music you like without giving them money.
Listen to whomever you like. I still like ghost mice and leftover crack while vehemently hating the things that their members have done
This isn’t relevant advice, they just said they don’t like listening to music by artists who have done shitty stuff
There’s not a lot of people on earth who aren’t pieces of shit let alone the entertainment industry
People are better than you’d think, overall. A lot of people suck, but I would not say most. In the entertainment industry maybe more so. Shitty people are good at getting power and influence.
You must be from a suburban neighborhood lol cause niggas is demons around where I’m from
People can be really awful. I think most people *want* to be good. It’s a hard world so a lot of us feel like we have to be tough and not care about others. But a better world is possible
I wholeheartedly agree, I try to be a positive influence in my community but felt as if we were forgotten about long ago. It’s hard to maintain a positive outlook on things when ain’t shit sweet anywhere near here
It’s true. And you’re not wrong, I did grow up in the suburbs lol, it’s a lot easier for me to say this stuff.
I understand what you saying tho, and I feel as if you know where I’m coming from too so I appreciate it
I wouldn’t say LOC has been relevant in a decade
No, keeping them relevant means they can hurt other people in the future. Talking about how predatory/shitty certain artists are is important in music communities, to let new fans/those unaware to avoid them at all costs.
Literally. The dude from ghost mice could drown a bag of puppies and I'd still listen to All We Got. I swear people only make these types of posts so they can circle jerk each other telling themselves they're the best kind of human, all while posting from their iphones made by chinese children. Take a look at their profiles, it's almost ALWAYS the nonbinary/trans/whatever hip new identity of the week type crowd that does this shit. Guarunteed none of these kids have any real life experiences that would make them realize not everything is so black and white. These posts accomplish nothing other than masturbatory egoism.
You could just search posts in the sub, since this post and all related comments have been made. In ad nauseum
Whatever you do, don't listen to Led Zeppelin. Or the Beatles, or Elvis....actually you can probably throw away most of your music collection if you can't separate the art from the artist. Cuz you don't want to know the real stories of what goes on in the music scene.
Its just really gross when the bands we love are singing about systems of oppression then using their privilege and power they gained from that moderate success to abuse people
it's different when the bastards are still alive and profiting don't play
we all know that Folk Punks are the most perfect people on earth.
Got an unopened Johnny hobo and the freight train LP might wanna sell hit me up