The veteran Elephant 6 performer Julian Koster refuse accusations of violence, claiming he is the target of a campaign of “intimidation, manipulation, and abuse”.
In an Instagram post on July 9, singer Anna Nesey Gallons, who has been a part of the Elephant 6 collective in Athens, Georgia, since the 2000s, accused bassist Julian Koster of grooming and sexually abusing her when she was a teenager.
At the age of fifteen, I started having regular phone conversations and email correspondence with Julian Koster in the early years of the new millennium.
Each communication grew increasingly personal, although though Gallons wrote in an innocent manner.
He extended an invitation for me to come see him in New York, was fine with me using pot, and allowed me to look dreamily into his eyes.
That relationship progressed to a sexual one less than a year later, in April 2001, just six weeks before my seventeenth birthday. By all accepted definitions, this is what is meant by “grooming.”
She claimed further that Julian Koster attacked her two times in the summer of 2005.
Koster acknowledged some basic elements of their previous connection, which he described as consensual, in an Instagram posting on July 11.
However, he denied that any assault had taken place. This hurts and scares me, Koster wrote. Nesey Gallons has been abusing, manipulating, and intimidating me for a long time.
Nesey’s recent remarks are a part of a campaign of intimidation against me, as evidenced by thousands of obsessive, nasty and upsetting texts.
Julian Koster went on, saying, “In 2001, Nesey and I started a consensual relationship that lasted until 2008.” I was 28 years old and Nesey was 16 -just shy of turning 17 – when we started dating.
Even though this made her older than Georgia’s legal consenting age when our relationship started, I’ve apologized to Nesey numerous times for allowing the relationship to start in the first place.
I refuse all of her other charges, but I should have been more cautious regarding the age difference. Gallons stated in her early articles that she supported Julian Koster’s profession and kept the alleged assaults a secret, but that in late 2008, Koster grew distant from her.
“Until 2020, when the first words of this story escaped my broken lips in any capacity that named names and was quickly silenced once I was approached with the possibility of reconciliation, and then erased by his eager PR team,” Gallons wrote.
“I felt compelled to protect my friends in the (Elephant 6) community and our fans,” she continued.
She went on to say that she did receive some assistance from the Elephant 6 community, one of which being Neutral Milk Hotel, one of its main performers.
In the article, she also questioned Jeff Mangum, the front man of Neutral Milk Hotel, about his silence.
To find peace and move on is the goal here, according to Gallons. “I’m ready to start living, and I’m so done with this nonsense.”
In his statement, Koster offered a radically different account of the recent occurrences, characterizing Gallons and her spouse’s actions as part of an abusive and manipulative routine.
Julian Koster’s attempts “to listen to (Gallons) and acknowledge the pain that she feels,” he said, were unsuccessful. have caused Nesey and [her spouse] to exhibit “increasingly disturbing behavior,” including thousands of threatening and deceptive communications intended to punish me for defying their wishes.
They have requested in these communications that I move in with them away from my friends and family, be married to Nesey, support their living expenses, and give them complete control over my emotions, body, and sex.
They’ve threatened to hurt me and themselves numerous times if I don’t “obey” them. I can no longer stand to be mistreated and in charge since I have lived in dread for years.
Not long after Juian Koster released his statement, Gallons commented on Instagram, saying, “Sigh.” Before I can possible say anything about that disappointing crap, I need a gallon of coffee.
Mangum, whose 1996 debut, On Avery Island, was included in the first wave of Elephant 6 recordings, started Neutral Milk Hotel as a solo endeavor.
Koster joined the group for the release of 1998’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, where he performed on tour as a bassist and played instruments such as the banjo and singing saw.
The album developed into a cult classic that surpassed anything else in the Elephant 6 world. Other indie-rock artists frequently credited it as an inspiration, and it finally made it onto Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Following the album’s release and Mangum’s sudden exit from the public eye, Koster carried on producing music for additional Elephant 6 projects. He went on tour with Mangum, Scott Spillane, and Jeremy Barnes, his bandmates from the Aeroplane era, when Neutral Milk Hotel got back together in 2013.
Robert Schneider, a founding member of Elephant 6 and the producer of both of Neutral Milk Hotel’s albums, expressed his disbelief at Nesey’s story in a statement.
Since we didn’t meet until later and Elephant 6 had already disbanded when the events occurred, I am not personally aware of the specifics of her testimony. Abuse has no place in the community of Elephant 6.
Gallons agreed with a poster who stated that Julian Koster’s music inspired them in a comment. She wrote, “Despite some of his actions, there is no denying he has a beautiful mind, soul and creates beautiful inspiring art.
My love for Julian Koster has simultaneously been saving my life and killing me.” “Though the dark aspects add to the complexity, nothing can alter the fact that he is genuinely brilliant. I have loved him more than anyone else has ever loved him, and I still do.