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Artist News
The Posies spilt following sexual assault allegations against frontman
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 27 October 2021
The Posies have split in the wake of sexual assault accusations made against frontman Ken Stringfellow.
The allegations against Stringfellow – who has also played with REM and Big Star – are detailed in a new article published by Seattle radio station KUOW, in which three women accuse him of physical and emotional abuse. In its research, the station says it spoke to 20 people, including Stringfellow himself, as well as reviewing medical records, communications with doctors, and emails and texts from the time the alleged incidents took place.
One of the women, Kristine Chambers, who had previously been in a relationship with Stringfellow, said that he pushed her into a toilet at a party in 2015 and had sex with her, even after she told him that she was unable to after recent surgery. Responding, Stringfellow says that this encounter was consensual.
Elsewhere in the article, Stringfellow denies all of the accusations made against him, saying that he “would never want to harm anyone with whom I have a relationship”, and adding: “Consent has been the foundation of every sexual relationship I’ve had, and violence has never been a part of any of those relationships. It simply is not who I am as a person who respects women”.
However, the band’s co-founder, Jon Auer, says that – after speaking to Chambers himself – he “left The Posies very quickly”, adding: “I confronted Ken about it on a phone call on 4 Aug 2021, and cancelled our upcoming shows, and flat-out told him that I wouldn’t be working with him anymore”.
Meanwhile, drummer Frankie Siragusa said that he had also left the group and no longer wished to have any association with Stringfellow. A longtime fan of The Posies prior to joining the band, he tells KUOW: “I had a ton of tour posters hung up and framed on my walls, and lots of Posies stuff from tours on display in my house. I took them all down”.
A recently completed new album will also be shelved, according to Auer.
