Chicago based Pop Punk band Sleep On It have announced they are breaking up.
The band have released a statement which follows from a previous post after online allegations of sexual misconduct around Neverkept’s Dorian Cooke which involved the band and how they reacted when the allegations were bright to their attention.
You can read the full statement below.
And the new statement can be read in full below.
“First and foremost, we want to acknowledge that we alone accept full responsibility for our decisions. We are sickened by our own mistake. The information the four of us received at the time led us to believe that Dorian Cooke was not a threat to the community.
However, our inability to communicate with each other and parties involved doesn’t absolve us of not taking responsibility for the consequences of those actions. It was our responsibility to create the safe spaced we speak of, and we failed you. We are disgusted by Dorian’s actions, and we disappointed in ourselves for giving him a platform and giving him access to the women on the tour and in our community.
We have reached out to Fran personally to apologise and take responsibility for our actions.
We would like to acknowledge that our initial response was inadequate, and our intent to show public support for Fran and survivors overshadowed our ability to listen and reflect, and for that we are truly sorry for the pain we have caused.
Second, we acknowledge our failure to hold ourselves accountable for our own treatment of the women in our personal lives and community. We read through all the statements posted by friends and former partners, and the actions that happened behind closed doors are inexcusable. We made decisions and took actions that have hurt women and shielded men, including ourselves, of being held accountable. We should have done better and held each other responsible for those actions. We are sorry for the pain we caused to these people.
After discussing amongst ourselves, we have decided it is best for us and the community to end Sleep On It. We will be taking this time to put in the work to better ourselves, and each other, and do everything we can to heal the pain we have caused. Part of that helping process is listening.
These are the steps that we will be taking to begin that process.
– We’re reaching out to several organisations dedicated to reducing violence against women to learn more about bystander intervention, sexual violence in the music scene, how to unlearn our own harmful thoughts and actions and overall be better allies to women in our community.
– Zach and Luka have already put in a few months of therapy, acknowledging these issues, and will continue treatment to learn how to grow from this and better themselves.
We apologise to anyone else who has been affected by our actions, our inactions and for betraying the trust you had in us. We understand that for some of you, this situation may alter your view of us as individuals, but we hope that you don’t discount any comfort or community you may have found through our music when you needed it. We all find what we need at different time, and right now we need to work on ourselves. Thank you to everyone who ever came to a show, bought merchandise or a record, or supported us in anyway. Our time together has meant the world to us. We hope that our music gave as much joy and relief to you as it gave to us to create it.
Sincerely,
Sleep On It”
Almost Anything Music 