Once, at a show, I ran into a famous DJ I’d met before. I was working as a music writer at the time and had recently interviewed him for a story, an encounter I found pleasant enough. This time, though, things were different.
He spent the evening groping me the moment other people left the room or trying to kiss me when we were alone, advances I tried to laugh off by jovially removing his hand from my breast or putting my fingers between our mouths as he leaned in. I was not interested in him but I accepted his offer to go out to dinner with a group of bigger, even more famous musicians, because his endorsement granted me access to a room I wanted to be in.
By the end of the night, when it became clear I was not going to leave with him, he turned on me. Intoxicated and aggressive, he leaned into my face and whispered “Nobody wants you here, so why are you here? Just leave,” then walked away and erupted into a physical tantrum, kicking hedges and flailing his arms, until friends put him in a cab back to his hotel. I hoped he had liked me and respected my work but in this moment it was obvious I would only be allowed to stay if I was willing to fuck him.
This week The New York Times published an extensive report about the musician Ryan Adams. In it, it’s alleged that Adams acted in a way I found sadly familiar towards at least seven different women, including his ex-wife Mandy Moore and folk artist Phoebe Bridgers, who was 20 years his junior during their brief relationship.
The NYT report that Adams used his position as a successful, high-profile musician to manoeuvre his way into sexual relationships with women under the guise of collaboration or jump-starting their careers. It’s alleged he dangled big opportunities in front of them and took them away if they didn’t play along; he reportedly told them his attention was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” then belittled their abilities or harassed them when scorned. Adams has disputed some details of the story, but the NYT has seen texts suggesting he struck up a sexually explicit online relationship with a 14-year-old fan, herself a musician, after she messaged him excitedly on Twitter. As reported, these are the actions of someone who knew they were in a position of privilege and exploited it.
Much has been made of how the Me Too movement, which has swept Hollywood, hasn’t managed to take hold in the music industry. Part of it, perhaps, is to do with the fact that women are still trapped in multi-album deals with their abusers — like the one Kesha fought so valiantly to try and get out of. But I think much of the way men in music wield their power is subtler than it was with Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey, instead based on with-strings-attached offers of help like those allegedly used by Ryan Adams. To see how stock standard the idea of an older male musician “mentoring” and then entering into a sexual relationship with a younger female is, you only need look at the fact that A Star Is Born has been remade four times now.
These sorts of relationships are rife in the music industry but their predatory nature can be hard to define, and that ambiguity leads to silence. Music is a hierarchical industry built on relationships. At the top sit successful artists like Adams, and being vouched for by one of these gatekeepers can grant women a way into the boys’ club. Appeasing powerful men without missing out on the opportunities they’re promising is a delicate balancing act — give just enough and you‘ll be rewarded, push back too hard and you risk hurting your career, give too much and you’re branded a whore.
Shame leads to silence, too. In her book My Thoughts Exactly, Lily Allen describes a sexual encounter she had with music industry professional when she was 20, before the release of her debut album:
It was consensual, sure. It’s just that he had all the power and I had none. It’s just that I was young and he wasn’t. It’s just that I was looking for help and he acted as if he was doing me a favour.
Years later, she was at a table with friends including Florence + The Machine’s Florence Welch, who discussed how the man Allen had slept with all those years ago was known to be a creep. Embarrassed, she didn’t tell anyone what had happened between them. After all, how do you explain the way sex that is technically consensual can still feel exploitative?
I worked in the music industry for close to a decade and have spent a lot of time navigating those unspoken power dynamics. The truth is I needed that DJ who chucked the tantrum on my side — I couldn’t do my job without his good graces. I had messed up by rejecting him too overtly and it got me evicted from the room I so desperately wanted to be in. But to call him out would be to lock myself out forever.
I knew then my currency was youth and perceived availability, and I was willing to trade a bit of it to be around artists I admired. Men like Ryan Adams know their currency is power, and they have been cashing it in for decades.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.
Dangerous territory, I know, but I just can’t help wondering how many opportunities have been stolen from highly talented people who were fat, acned and unlovely, by beautiful young mediocrities who now complain that they were exploited.
You’re hardly the first to ask this question reverend and not just in this context.
I don’t approve at all what happened to you Katie and does anyone with an nth of taste care about Adams? The story is big because it’s about money rather than artistic success or cred.
To you the music business is about hierarchical relationships which reads to me something a wannabe insider would say. To most of we plebs the music business is about the writing, playing and recording of music. Unsurprisingly it has its fair share of creeps and a disproportionate amount of success to artistic nobodies. A good story about why this is so would make a great read.
Thanks for this article Katie.
Re: the comments above: okay yes women, being people, have made the most of situations to get ahead, like everyone does – and doubtless being normatively attractive can be a boon. And women have also acknowledged that complex dynamic. But what does that change? The problem still lies in men exploiting their power for sexual favours from women. It’s not like men in power are lining up to elevate the “fat, acned and unlovely” women but all these hot young mediocre things are getting in the way of their plain sisters. If men in power in the music industry treated women like people instead of objects then wouldn’t it follow that “fat, acned and unlovely” talented women would get more opportunities?
Also this is neither here nor there but it’s just not true that people “with taste” don’t like Ryan Adams – he’s really talented and widely respected (professionally, not so much personally) by musicians and if you’re trying to run that line you have probably not engaged with his career or his music.
The “fat and acned” problem does appear, even to a limited observer to dominate the music business. For example, Casey Donovan is a very good singer – but not particularly “photogenic”, so after winning whatever talent show she won, she disappeared from view. By contrast, any time I see a photo of a US female country music artist, most are young, at least passably attractive and many are downright beautiful. Since it can’t be that only attractive young women are good country music singers or songwriters, it follows that talent alone is far from enough. In one sense, we are absolutely all to blame, because we are captivated by youth and beauty – pictures of scantily clad and attractive young women still appear routinely in marketing, often with no connection at all to the product being marketed. It happens with male artists as well, to a much lesser extent, but I am recall being told of one band who fell from the favour of an important (gay) music-industry figure (many years ago now) because a male member of the band rejected his proposition. Music videos in particular sexualise young women and, sadly, their participation provides both a ready source of new targets for the predators and affirms the power those depraved individuals have over a steady stream of women who can “benefit” from their connections to these people. Films and music are a bit unique in that there are millions who think they have talent, but somehow they have to fight to navigate their way through the business to achieve even a modicum of success and that creates a pool of the vulnerable and desperate.
It is digraceful, but highlights how many who gain power and celebrity are at risk of becoming intoxicated by and “really turned on by themselves” and then misuse their power. I have seen this over an over again in the business world. A different environment yes and the harrassment is mostly (as far as I could tell) usually just sleazebags trying it on with women in their workplace, but it is a daily occurrence in some workplaces. Some just target one woman, but some are more needy and target any woman who looks like she might succumb to their advances – who then quickly gets dumped as the sleazebag finds another target. Women abuse power as well, but tend to get ower less than men and tend to abuse their power in a different, more surreptitiously nasty and malicious way. With men it tends to be sexualised when directed towards women and physically aggressive when directed towards other men.
But music does tend to attract more than its fair share of fruitcakes who want power and celebrity – gone are the days of people like Rick Hall (Muscle Shoals), Berry Gordy (Motown), Gerry Bron (Bronze) and Chris Blackwell (Island) who wanted to make money sure, but mostly had a passion for music. I’m not suggesting any of them were saints, but there have long been “suits” for whom the music was secondary to celebrity and money. Mind you, in addition to the abuse of women, these “suits” have also ripped off artists to the tune of what must be billions of dollars in royalties over the decades – much from artists who lacked the resources to fight the suits through court and pay a fortune to the “suits” in the legal profession.
I don’t give a shit about this guy and his excuses. Appeasing men in power … no more.
The everyday workplace is about hierarchical relationships, so don’t go thinking its different for famous people.
It is clear that some people in the arts industry have continued to have the ‘casting couch’ ‘choice’.
I understand that there is no choice.
Leave… say NO … be brave. Do not allow anyone to overcome you.
“Music is a hierarchical industry built on relationships.” Flipping this sentiment to the women in music now rising in power for the right reasons : healthy relationships; respectful communication. ; collaborative approaches and inclusive practices. What a bright future we COULD have …. food for thought.
Katie,
Your style of writing tells about the person. It tells about the writer.
This article is written in a laid-back nonchalant way. Are you sure it happened? It should be written more in a sharp repulsive way of panic. It is not. Why laugh off an attack when no one is in the room to hear the laugh?
“He spent the evening groping me the moment other people left the room or trying to kiss me when we were alone, advances I tried to laugh off by jovially removing his hand from my breast or putting my fingers between our mouths as he leaned in.”
Then in the first par before that is this about a previous encounter ” … an encounter I found pleasant enough.” Why write about a pleasant encounter BEFORE a repulsive encounter. To be repulsed a writer would write about the repulsive encounter first as that is what is loud in the writer’s mind
This article to me lacks credibility.
You also say you were not interested in him but you accepted his invitation to go out to dinner. So you were interested in him as you were giving him the signal that you were interested in him and to give the signal you were interested in him means you were interesting in him.