Guitarist was accused of sending inappropriate messages to teenage fan on social media; Les Savy Fav’s Seth Jabour enlisted to take O’Connor’s place
Modest Mouse announced Friday that guitarist Simon O’Connor would not join the band for the upcoming tour after he was accused of sending inappropriate messages to a minor on social media.
“Simon O’Conner will not be joining us on the upcoming tour,” the band said in a statement. “The good news is that Seth Jabour of Les Savy Fav will be jumping in to play guitar.”
O’Connor — whose tenure with Modest Mouse began in 2021 and who plays on the group’s recently released album An Eraser and a Maze — was recently accused by a 17-year-old Reddit user of sending them “an erotic image” and commenting on their “bikini pics”; the user was 16 years old when the photos were taken, they claimed.
The guitarist later responded to the allegations in the Reddit post, apologizing for his actions and claiming that he mistakenly believed the Reddit user in question was an online troll he had interacted with before.
“There has been a person who has popped up from time to time with the intention of, for lack of a better term, messing with me. This person creates multiple social media accounts and deletes them… but always posts similar photos that I often recognize from previous accounts,” O’Connor wrote.
“I assumed that this was the same person I had dealt with before and, with poor judgement, I decided to reach out with a tasteless meme, a sticker that read ‘Simon calls your bluff,’ and an attempt to indicate that I recognized the ‘barrage of likes’ and similar photo content from the previous profiles…. Almost a ‘gotcha.’ After a few minutes, I realized that I had made a mistake and this was not the person who I had dealt with before. I unsent the messages and immediately ceased communication.”
However, despite O’Connor’s explanation, Modest Mouse opted to not bring the guitarist along for the tour. It’s unclear if O’Connor’s absence is permanent; a rep for the band referred Rolling Stone to the band’s Instagram post and declined to comment further.
“We look forward to being out there with you all,” the band added in their statement. Modest Mouse’s tour kicks off August 4 in Ojai, California and concludes October 23 in Sacramento.
