In a recent interview with Allison Hagendorf, Spiritbox singer Courtney LaPlante revealed the one thing she did to avoid sexual assault on stage: Cupping her microphone.
“Whenever my friends were like, ‘Oh I wish there wasn’t a barricade,’ I’m like, ‘That must be so cool for you because you’re not getting sexually assaulted while you’re trying to do your job,'” she recalled, adding, “Don’t get me wrong I don’t like the barricade either, but it’s really cool to be able to put my arms down by their sides.”
The singer then shared how it’s different now than their earlier days. “It’s different now. We’re going to a show, it’s our show and our fans are coming and they understand us and they respect us. We brought people that empathize and resonate with us come to our shows, they paid money to be there. But that’s not how things are when you’re starting out or you’re in a band that plays bars. There’s dudes there are just going to the bar that night and paid $8 to go smoke cigarettes in the bar and watch a bunch of random ass bands. It’s a hostile environment.”
She continued: “Anyone that complains about mic cupping, they didn’t play a sh*tty show with one-floor monitor. You have to do that so you can hear yeah yourself. It took me years to not hold my microphone like this.”
LaPlante added, saying getting assaulted has been ‘normalized’: “It’s one of those things that’s so normalized that I never even thought about like, ‘Oh yeah I’m like getting sexually assaulted on stage right now.’ The guys are all just like, ‘Yeah,’ or catcalled or whatever. Now I’d have the empowerment to be like, ‘Get that guy out of the show.'”
This isn’t the first time the singer addressed this issue. She earlier responded to a post about women of metal getting assaulted on stage and shared her words on it. “Currently listening to Amber and Sarah, two of the talented ladies working for us, exchange story after story of venue security not believing they are part of the tour crew (despite wearing crew shirts and showing laminates) and it’s some sexist bullshit that needs to change asap,” Silent Planet frontman Garrett Russell wrote on X.
LaPlante replied by sharing a similar incident. “In my old band, a few times I had security stop me, as the intro music played, while I was walking out on stage at some clubs and festivals! We all have these stories, not just in the music world but any male dominated industry! I’ve noticed more women on staff though which rules.”
She added in another post: “And don’t even get me started on what would happen when I actually got ON the stage! Anytime my peers would complain about there being a barricade up, and then the venue took it down, I was like ‘Whelp…looks like I’m getting sexually assaulted tonight.'”
Spiritbox’s upcoming tour, set to kick off on February 13 at the Alexandra Palace in London, is nearly sold out. The band will perform five shows in Germany, with stops in France and the Netherlands, before wrapping up the tour on February 23 in Hamburg.
