Mark Kozelek, vocalist of early ’00s folk-rock outfit Sun Kil Moon, has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women. In a recent exposé published by Pitchfork, three women have come forward and shared eerily similar stories of harassment and assault by Kozelek spanning from 2014 to 2017.
Sarah Catherine Golden first came forward about her experiences with Kozelek after reading the lyrics to the singer’s 2018 track “Soap For Joyful Hands,” in which he essentially describes an encounter with her in Portugal in 2017. Golden found the lyrics weren’t quite faithful to her experience with him, as it left out the part where they’d gone back to his hotel room after the show. Golden was under the impression his bandmates would join them, but they ended up alone. Kozelek removed his pants and Golden asked him to call a cab. After doing so, Kozelek grabbed her body, tried to kiss her, and forcibly moved her hand to touch him. “He totally just pulled a Louis C.K. on me,” she later recalled to a friend, referring to the comedian’s admitted pattern of harassment and assault.
Golden’s story lines up with another allegation against Kozelek by a musician who chose not to be named in the report. The musician said Kozelek had invited her and another woman back to his hotel room in 2014 where he inappropriately acted in very similar ways.
Another account of assault is by a woman who has opted to go by Andrea. In 2014, Andrea attended Hopscotch Festival Raleigh, North Carolina when she was fresh out of high school. Andrea was an aspiring film major and a fan of Kozelek’s music so when they met at the event and the singer asked for her number, Andrea was excited about the prospect of a high-profile professional connection. “She was on the verge of going to college and majoring in film and television, and he had some film background too,” Andrea’s mom told Pitchfork. “So, I think she viewed it as, this was exciting. This was somebody she admired. And she was going into this field where having contacts and those kinds of things was going to be helpful. That she could gain knowledge, things like that.”
After the festival, Kozelek invited Andrea to his hotel room. Andrea, who was just 19 at the time, obliged because she assumed it was an after-party of sorts. But upon arrival, Kozelek was alone in his room and Andrea said he “pretty much just pounced on me,” and began to rape her. “I was just really afraid to say no,” Andrea had said to a friend the next day. “He focused on my age a lot…He kept asking me to say how old i was (literally one of the worst things i’ve had to go through) and he called himself ‘daddy.’ I’m kind of afraid of him i mean we’re in the same hotel and stuff.” Andrea felt pressured into having intercourse with Kozelek several times following the first incident and while some of the encounters were consensual, she said there were other instances where “the lines [were] really blurred.”
Read Pitchfork’s full story here.