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In the wake of Best Coast singer Bethany Cosentino’s public demand for Casey Wasserman to step down as CEO of his powerful Wasserman agency over his association with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, more of the agency’s artists have begun calling for accountability.
Over the past few days, a handful of prominent indie acts, including Water From Your Eyes, Wednesday, Beach Bunny and Dropkick Murphys, have followed Cosentino’s lead in speaking out against Wasserman in various ways, including by calling on him to resign — with some threatening to depart the agency if he doesn’t do so first, and at least one act noting that they already have. (Notably, as of Monday evening, Feb. 9, Wasserman had scrubbed its client list from its website.)
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Cosentino’s post arrived after a tranche of more than 3 million files related to the Epstein investigation was released by the Department of Justice on Jan. 30. In those files, Wasserman, who launched his agency in 1998, was found to have exchanged dozens of friendly, flirtatious and occasionally sexually-charged emails with Maxwell, now serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking, in 2003. Previously known were Wasserman’s ties to Epstein himself: More than two decades ago, several years before Epstein’s crimes were known to the public, New York reported that Wasserman and his then-wife, Laura Ziffren, flew on Epstein’s plane on an AIDS fact-finding mission to Africa in 2002 — a trip that also included such luminaries as President Bill Clinton and actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey.
“I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” Wasserman, who is also chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, said in a statement on Thursday (Feb. 5). “I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”
Wasserman’s apology has apparently rung hollow for several of the agency’s artists. Over the weekend, long-running Irish-American rockers Dropkick Murphys (Ken Casey, Matt Kelly, James Lynch, Tim Brennan, Jeff DaRosa, Kevin Rheault and Al Barr) announced via a now-inactive Instagram Stories post (confirmed to be legitimate by a spokesperson for the band) that the group had already “parted ways with” the Wasserman agency over the issue. “It saddens us to part ways with [our agents], but the namesake of the agency is in the Epstein files so…we GONE,” the band wrote in the post, for which screengrabs are available online.
On Monday (Feb. 9), more artists followed. Rachel Brown, vocalist of indie pop duo Water From Your Eyes (which also includes Nate Amos), stated on Instagram that Wasserman’s “‘deepest regrets’ and PR apologies mean nothing in the wake of violence against women and children caused by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their accomplices. There must be accountability for the atrocities committed by the ruling class. We cannot live in a world that allows for this injustice to occur with no consequence.
“Nate, myself and our manager Nik have no interest in being affiliated with Casey Wasserman and have absolutely zero intention of condoning his actions by silently remaining under his namesake banner,” Brown continued. “We trust our booking agents and are waiting to understand what our options are.”
Also on Monday, rock band Wednesday made a point of acknowledging the “decent and trustworthy people” they work with at the agency, “with whom we’ve worked for several years dating back to a time prior to their connection with Wasserman,” before noting that the band intends “to begin the process of extracting ourselves from” the agency. “Continuing to be represented by a company led by and named after Casey Wasserman goes against our values and cannot continue,” the band continued in the Instagram post. “For the sake of his staff we hope that he steps down from the company and it is rebranded, but until that happens or we find a new home at a new agency we will not continue to be associated with Wasserman.”
In its own Instagram post on Monday, Chicago rock band Beach Bunny — composed of Lili Trifilio, Jon Alvarado and Anthony Vaccaro — wrote that the group is “hugely disappointed and disgusted” to learn of Wasserman’s association with Maxwell, adding that his “actions are abhorrent and disturbing on every level” and that he must “remove himself and his name from the agency.”
A lengthier and more nuanced take on the situation came from Alexis Kruass of the Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells, who argued that the band’s “ability to make a living in this industry is dependent on our engagement with” companies including Wasserman, Spotify and Live Nation — and that cutting ties with them would only hurt the group financially without moving the needle.
“Would I love to just leave Wasserman Music? Yes I would. Can we? No because I love and respect our agent and I trust him to make the decision that is best for himself, his family and his artists,” Krauss wrote. “The agents at Wasserman are not the villains.”
“Call me spineless but this my truth,” Krauss continued. “This is the hypocrisy of our realities as we try to do the least harm in an unscrupulous system. Could I do more to hold these individuals and corporations accountable? Absolutely. Do I have the capacity to? No I don’t.”
“In my opinion it’s not the responsibility of the artists, especially those struggling to make a living, to fix these broken systems,” Krauss added. “I’m not saying we’re powerless, but without systemic change and accountability for those at the highest levels of power, no meaningful change is going to occur. … None of these corporations are going to bat an eye if Sleigh Bells bails on them. It’ll just leave us losing more money on tour and making less streaming income than we do now. It’s a s–tty place to be but it’s the truth. What we need is greater regulation and accountability at the highest levels of the industry.”
A Wasserman representative did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
