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"I felt so defeated"—Mariel Loveland of Candy Hearts speaks out on alleged assault

Candy Hearts singer Mariel Loveland published an open letter on her Tumblr yesterday accusing Seaway’s tour manager of physical assault and emotional abuse while on tour.

“Ten months ago I was physically assaulted and emotionally abused by Seaway’s tour manager,” she writes on her Tumblr. “And I’m so sick of keeping quiet and watching every band I love and adore be all chummy with him, including people who know what happened.

“It happened on tour in front of a line full of people at Seaway’s merch,” she continues. “He was screaming at me, like usual, calling me names and saying I wasn’t worth anything, like usual—that kind of stuff is awful and you should never allow someone to talk to you like that, but I did. For almost a year.

“I finally decided not to take it anymore. He was our tour manager too, and I was employing him (albeit not very much, but he was the highest paid out of all of us) and he was still telling me horrible things every day. That’s when he got violent. He started throwing things at my head and pushed me, while screaming in my face. He winded me with the stuff he threw at my stomach and I screamed louder to draw attention to him, in the way you are supposed to yell really loud to scare a bear that’s about to kill you. I tried to hit him back but he is massive. I pushed him and nothing happened. I spent the rest of the tour terrified.”

Additionally, Loveland discussed the reasons why she didn’t address what happened directly after it took place. She also clarifies that sexual assault was not involved. You can read the full post here.

When reached for comment, a representative for Seaway said the band were not commenting on the situation, but confirmed that they would handle  all tour-managing duties themselves on their upcoming Canadian headline tour. We also reached out to their former tour manager for comment, and have not received a response.

Loveland spoke to AP about the incident and why she felt the need to keep it a secret for so long. See what she had to say below.

What made you feel like your reputation would be marred rather than his? Have you seen it happen to friends? What motivated you to stay quiet?
I know how hard it is to get on tour with bands that you really like and are doing really well. It's really competitive. People often write off anyone they see as annoying or a pain in the ass. It's already difficult if you're a girl because people think that, whether it's subconsciously or they're told that, there are a lot more things that are annoying about taking my band on tour. For me, it's just normal, but it's rare that I'm on a tour where something weird doesn't happen, where someone in the audience doesn't grab me in a weird way or someone in the touring package doesn't say something that's slightly uncomfortable. Obviously someone touching me bothers me, but for the most part, that's only happened like twice. But it's those sorts of things that make other artists not want to take a band on tour because they feel like they have to act differently around a girl or that she's going to be kind of annoying. At least that's the way I feel about it.

I just feel like taking a dude band is like, you know what you're gonna get. I feel like a lot of people don't understand that taking a girl-fronted band on tour is the same thing. You just gotta be chill and nice. I'm going on tour right now with my friend and he was like “I've never been on tour with a girl. When I took my girlfriend out, I had to hold my farts in for two weeks.” [Laughs.] He's like, “Are we allowed to fart in the band?” I was like, “You're insane! I'm a normal person. I hang around dudes all day.”

You know, it's stuff like that. I always feel different than the people I'm touring with. They always remind me that I'm not one of them all the time. They're much more likely to pick sides and believe their brothers [over] just some random girl.

You feel like they already had this perception of you, and you were afraid adding this to it would support that.
Yeah. All I wanna do ever is be on tour. I just don't want anything to happen that would hurt that. I don't want anyone talking about things that have happened to me. I try not to do anything severely obnoxious that would piss anyone off and would make people not want to take my band out or something. Because I just wanna work—like everyone else!

A lot of people tend to ask, “Why didn't she call the police?” You explained that you didn't want to leave your friends without someone managing them. It was you protecting them rather than yourself.
I was first really angry while it was happening. I definitely tried to fight back, but I knew it wasn't going to do anything because the dude is massive. After [the incident], I was just really scared, and the only reason I told anybody about it was because he threatened to make up all of these rumors to get me kicked off the tour, and I didn't know what to do. I was trying to weigh whether he was actually going to try and do that, or what I would lose by saying anything and being seen as a problem and someone who causes conflict on tours. I know that somebody called the cops. It wasn't me, and I don't know if they actually showed up because I had nothing to do with that. He yelled at me, saying that I'm a liar and I got the cops called on him. I literally had nothing to do with that.

But I really didn't want Seaway to have to go without this tour manager because they would resent me, and I know that in the future we'll be dealing with a lot of the same people. They were letting us rent their trailer, and I didn't wanna leave them without help. It's so destructive to their band to not have that. I felt really scared that if I sent this person home, which in retrospect, I really should have made a bigger deal out of it—I probably would've been better off and not feel so bad now, if he had just gone home and that was it. But I just really didn't want anyone to know about it, and I really didn't want anything to happen to Seaway. All I wanted was him to just be away from me.

To clarify, in your post you said that the confrontation happened in front of people. Is that the same thing you're talking about here, or was it something else?
He yells at people. Anyone who's been to a show can see him yell at people in the crowd. He's a really loud person. Some people can interpret that as being nasty, I'm not really gonna say anything of it because I know how he was to me. But this incident that we're talking about is that one.

Why do you think no one else stepped up to defend you?
I don't want to throw my bandmates under the bus, but everyone's kind of really afraid of him. He's really, really big. He has no qualms about threatening people, and he has threatened people in the past and bragged about that kind of thing.

How often do you think this kind of thing happens on tours and people are too afraid to say anything?
I would imagine that this stuff happens a lot, whether it's physical abuse or emotional abuse or even just weird sexual things that boys do when they get drunk. I would imagine that happens a lot because you're spending a lot of time with people and you're tired and maybe not thinking right. And I know one person might interpret that action kind of funny and harmless, and another can interpret as really not okay and upsetting. So it's difficult, it's a really tough thing—and I think that probably happens a lot more than we think it does.

How do you think the touring world—crews, bands, everyone—can make touring more safe? What would you have liked to have had in that moment to make you feel safe,like you could say something and be heard?
That's really tough because I know the people who were in charge did everything that they could and were really, really kind and really, really helpful, and it was more me who was like, “Please don't do anything, don't call any cops, don't kick anyone off tour.” I don't know how to fix it in our scene.

To be honest, I'm still terrified. I'm afraid to go to a show that I think he would be tour managing, which is upsetting to me because a lot of my friends open for or play with bands like Seaway. That's just a rumor I heard online. I know a lot of my friends play with those bands, and I really like those bands, and I like to go see them. I feel really afraid, because obviously, I'm not gonna say he's a crazy person, but I don't know what he's going to do to me. People need to believe women and not treat them like they're a problem or crazy or obnoxious because they say something. But I don't really know how to fix that because a lot of people do it unconsciously and they don't even know they're doing it. I have no idea how to make people feel safer in the touring world, because you can go down the list and say, “You can call the police, you can get this person removed from the tour.” But like, those have repercussions for a girl, whether everyone on the tour is super-kind about it and supportive or not. It's a greater problem with our society in general.

After posting your story on Tumblr, you have been getting support and people are reaching out. Have you felt surprised by that?

I was completely shocked. I've been thinking about this since it happened, and I've been worrying about it and feeling like I’m not really part of the community that I thought I was a part of. I thought people were going to be really mean and I was going to feel even more isolated from it. To be honest, we haven't really been playing that much, and I think part of that is because I felt so bad about the scene that we're in and felt so defeated.

One of the things he said to you is that he was going to ruin your band, but you're actually talking about getting back on the road and trying to be less afraid. That's a huge step. How are you feeling now that you've let it out? How do you feel in the aftermath of telling your story?

I think that the tour I'm going on this summer is a really big step because I've always had my bandmates there with me to have my back when stuff happens. We never properly supported our acoustic record, so I'm going out and playing some acoustic shows, and that's something really scary because it's just me, you know? I'm not used to doing that sort of thing, and I thought that maybe doing something like that in smaller venues would sort of ease me back into performing.

Not that I'm nervous to perform, because I'm not nervous to play in front of people, I'm just nervous to be around those types of crowds, I guess, because I've felt so hated. And I was told so much that when we were playing with these bands I love, or I was seeing shows and hanging out, I was told by him that everyone hated me and were talking about me, so I didn't really know what to believe. And now I'm starting to try to learn how to trust my instincts again and how people actually are. 

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