M83 Respond To Local Band’s Attack: ‘They Just Crossed The Line’

Last week we reported that local Melbourne band Teenage Mothers were furious with M83 after the French electro outfit kicked them off their Laneway sideshow tour.

The band were unceremoniously dumped as the support band after accidently lighting the stage on fire, and because according to M83 frontman Anthony Gonzalez their lead singer James ‘JK’ Kennedy ‘looked like a junkie’ after inhaling nitrous oxide onstage.

Teenage Mothers guitarist Raph Brous hit back at M83 in an interview with Mess+Noise, saying ‘I told them about our lead singer’s unusual behaviour, including his fondness for soda bulbs. They made no comment. M83’s tour manager claimed that we were ‘disrespectful’, because our lead singer inhaled a soda bulb onstage. So apparently M83 is a fundamentalist cult that requires abstinence from fun?’

“Anthony Gonzalez is a hypocrite,” he continued. “He asked our singer to find him illegal drugs, then he kicked us off because he thinks that our singer ‘looks like a junkie’.”

Now responding to the stinging attack, Gonzalez spoke with The Doctor on triple j about the incident and defended the decision to kick the band off the tour. “It’s hard for me to talk about it,” he told listeners.

“I didn’t like the way they behaved to my audience, offering whippets on stage and almost setting the stage on fire. You don’t do that when you open for bands. I have tonnes of respect for all the bands I was opening for. I just wish the band that opens for me have the same amount of respect.”

Denying accusations he is “against punk or rock’n’roll”, Gonzalez said the onstage use soda bulbs threatened to damage the reputation of M83. “This is my career that we’re talking about,” he said. “And I want to make sure things are under control – and it wasn’t.”

“[They] just crossed the line on this gig. I’m not the only one who makes the decision. My crew was against having them for the next gig. It’s just not professional.”