Anti-Flag Members Release Statements in Wake of Rape Accusations Against Lead Singer Justin Sane
Anti-Flag Members Release Statements in Wake of Rape Accusations Against Lead Singer Justin Sane
”We have been shocked, confused, saddened and absolutely heartbroken from the moment we heard these allegations,” say the other members of the band, while Justin calls the allegations ”categorically false.”
Apparently Anti-Flag broke up last week (missed that news somehow) after allegations of rape were made against an unnamed lead singer of a political punk band on the enough podcast. Based on details in the victim's story, people quickly pointed at Anti-Flag's Justin Sane as the culprit.
Not helping his image was the fact that he nuked all of his and Anti-Flag's social media and announced the band's breakup on Patreon shortly after the podcast episode dropped.
A good breakdown from a Reddit comment by /u/chawth:
Circumstantially, her story seem to point to with Justin Sane.
Rapist in question was the singer in an active political punk band she saw in Brooklyn. She's young, so was recent or relatively recent She met the singer in question after the show and they shared numbers because he would be "in her area for a film festival about political activism by musicians"
There was a 2010 documentary called Sounds Like a Revolution that Justin Sane was featured in, including other punk luminaries like Jello Biafra, Fat Mike and Henry Rollins. I don't think any of these other punk vocalists would qualify as being in an active political punk band at that time The website for this documentary shows that it was a selection at the Woodstock Film Festival, which is one town over from where this woman lives and/or works (quick google search, no creepiness involved) She claimed the singer is straight edge (or was, as drinks feature in the story)
The rapist's angle was to get her alone by saying he just made a recording with Billy Bragg. I haven't paid attention to Anti-Flag in over 20 yrs, so I don't know if this corroborates anything, or if it was even just a ruse to get her alone.
She also said this happened with she was 21 or 22 (I think). Her LinkedIn points to her graduating college in 2010, which lines up age-wise with the release of the documentary above.
In addition, Anti-Flag played Brooklyn in Sept 2010. Woodstock Film Festival was held shortly after, Justin attended because of the film, and he was on a talk panel and did a performance.
Additional info on the Billy Bragg bit from /u/chinsedentist:
Anti-Flag played the Harvest of Hope Fest 3/13/2010 with Billy Bragg and performed at least two songs on stage together including covers Police On My Back and Should I Stay Or Should I Go. The accused may have been talking about footage or a board recording of that performance and not necessarily an unreleased studio recording. Video here: https://youtu.be/ZGBsU0TNfy8 and https://youtu.be/JBkYXpNoZrI
This at least establishes some form of collaboration between Bragg and Justin Sane that year. If it was a studio recording, I wonder if it was the songs Sane released solo as the Gas Land Terror 7" in 2011. There are no credits listed on the art for that so who knows if Bragg helped in some way. Or it could also be something unreleased or not yet identified.
Link to the podcast episode (I don't have a timestamp, sorry)