NEWCASTLE, England (CelebrityAccess) Sticky Fingers has been removed as the headliner of Newcastle, England’s This That festival after a week-long criticism of the behavior of the Australian band’s frontman.
Troubles began in 2016 when lead singer Dylan Frost may have abused and threatened artist Thelma Plum, an Indigenous person. The troubles escalated this May when Frost was ejected from a Sydney pub after a verbal altercation with transgender model and writer Alexandra V. Tanygina during which Frost allegedly said he hated transgender feminists.
The fallout from the incidents (and a few in between) led to This That originally stating it was apologizing if its initial lineup offended anyone and offered refunds. They said the decision to drop Sticky Fingers came after “long discussions.”
“Sticky Fingers agreed with This That from the start that if their inclusion began to impact negatively on the other artists performing and our Newcastle and wider communities, that it would be best if they refrain from performing. That’s the decision we have both taken today.”
As for the recent incident, Tangina claims she was having a drink with friends at a pub called Kelly’s on King when she noticed Frost was nearby and “a million percent intoxicated, he was absolutely wasted,” she told The Australian. She said she asked him to be quiet and he called her “crazy” which led to her saying “least i’m not a racist and my career isn’t over.” At some point Frost said he couldn’t be sexist because his mother is a feminist and he couldn’t be racist because he is of Māori decent.
A representative for Sticky Fingers disputed the account.
“Dylan was in the pokies room after spending some time with a friend. As he was leaving he was approached and verbally attacked by a stranger and called a racist,” the representative said. “Dylan said it was bullshit and to leave him alone. She continued to harass him, and her friend then joined in and threatened him and Dylan told him to fuck off. The manager noticed there was tension and asked them to leave, which Dylan did.”
The accusations of racism may have been inspired by a recent radio interview where Frost addressed those allegations (racism toward Indigenous people) and apparently did a very bad job in doing so, by his own admission. The interview also delved into altercations at a Dispossessed concert in 2016 that involved this controversy and another incident that he called “a verbal mouth off with a friend and his girlfriend” in December 2016.
In 2016, Plum had posted on Facebook her recollection of an incident with Frost (“Dylan acted like a violent prick and scared the fuck out of me, even our uber driver was terrified when he chased the car at full speed with his arm and fist as if he was going to smash the windscreen”).
The band took an “indefinite hiatus” a few days later but said in a statement that the post was not the impetus for the break. Instead, Frost said in a statement that he had been diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia and took a break to address “alcohol addiction and mental health issues.”
