On October 8, former black midi frontman Geordie Greep stood alone onstage at The Pearl in Vancouver, facing a tense, quiet audience. The show was supposed to begin two hours earlier, but had been delayed after a man in the crowd distributed flyers that read, “Geordie Greep A Rapist. You know what you did this morning Oct 8th. He thinks he can do whatever he wants because he’s gone tomorrow. Let Him Know What Vancouver Thinks of Rapists.”
In a video shared by a fan, Greep addressed the crowd, explaining, “Essentially, what happened last night, me and some of the band, we went out to some bars, we went out, we met people, and it ended up in a situation where, really late at a house party, I got the wrong end of the stick with someone who was there, and I made a move, and it didn’t come off.”
Greep assured everyone in attendance that he had “quickly apologized, and it was a complete misunderstanding on my part, and I felt extremely bad.” He said he felt “extremely sorry and extremely upset about the whole situation,” adding, “I would never rape a woman. I’m not a rapist. It’s not how that went down.” The musician then said he would perform without his backing band, as he “didn’t want to force them to still play a show in light of that happening.”
A photo of the flyer made its way to Reddit on both Greep’s subreddit and Indieheads, quickly going viral and prompting fans to speculate about what happened. After Greep’s show at The Pearl, the remaining North American dates were quietly canceled, and venues in Boulder, Boise, Denver, and Salt Lake City emailed fans to confirm refunds because the concerts were no longer taking place. In a screenshot shared on October 12 on the black midi subreddit, keyboardist Cameron Campbell told a fan he had quit Greep’s band.
Speaking exclusively with Paste, both the woman whom Greep allegedly assaulted and Campbell himself have detailed their accounts of the circumstances in question, which have been muddied by a week-long barrage of misinformation. The woman, whose alleged assault became a hot topic online after the flyers were distributed by someone close to her without her consent, has come forward to give her own account of what occurred. She has asked that this article refer to her and other witnesses under pseudonyms out of concern for their safety.
At Katherine’s home, the group split into two: Laura, Christina, and Campbell chatted at the kitchen bartop, while Greep, Katherine, and a male companion sat apart, as both Laura and Campbell explained to Paste. After a night of drinking, Laura dozed off on Katherine’s couch at around 5 a.m. The other two people in the room, Katherine and her companion, were both asleep.
When Laura woke up, “[Geordie] was kissing me,” she tells Paste. “I don’t know for how long because I was passed out, but I think I woke up fairly quickly. His lips were on my lips, trying to make out with me, and then I pushed him off.” According to Laura, Katherine and her friend both woke up after hearing Laura scream. Although Campbell was not in the room when it happened, he heard her yell at Greep to “get off” her and “immediately” ran into the room to check on her.
Campbell confirmed to Paste that he heard Laura’s reaction and went to find out what had happened. “I saw her yelling at Geordie, essentially in his face, like pointing, yelling at him, telling him to get out,” he remembers. “I said to Geordie, ‘What did you do?’ At some point, between coming back into the main room and before leaving the apartment unit, [Laura] had confirmed that he was kissing her while she was asleep on the couch. After that, they kicked Geordie out of the apartment.”
Laura recalls that, despite being told to leave, Greep returned a few minutes later “looking for his phone,” and they had to kick him out again. Campbell then went into the hallway and saw Greep still standing outside the door: “He tried to start downplaying it right there, saying that he only tried to give her a kiss on the cheek—which, again, if she’s asleep, that doesn’t really make it okay either way.” According to Campbell, this is when Christina walked out of the apartment and, upon seeing Greep still waiting, told him again to leave. “He went down in the elevator and tried to get me to come with him, but I was just like, ‘I want to stay up here and make sure everything is okay.’”
Yeah…you can’t make out with a passed out woman and have it be ok in any way, shape, or form. There’s no excuse here.
I’m really proud that his bandmates quit the band over this instead of defending Greep.
Gross, I hope he goes to jail.
