The Orwells @ London Scala (Alberto Pezzali / Live4ever)
Despite strongly denying a comprehensive document of abuse allegations circulated online via Google and quickly expanded on in a Reddit post, The Orwells appear to have announced their split with much less fanfare.
While onstage antics and altercations – usually centred around frontman Mario Cuomo – have followed them around for most of their career and could not, indeed were not, rebutted by the band earlier this week, they did claim that the far more serious allegations were untrue and did not ‘take these accusations lightly and consider this matter incredibly serious’.
“We emphatically deny these baseless allegations brought as a personal attack against us,” the statement continued.
“While callow altercations and vulgar language we’ve used in the past must be recognized and owned up to, the accusations of sexual assault are completely unfounded. No member of this band has ever acted without consent or maliciously taken advantage of anyone.”
However, this didn’t stop the Chicago-based group from cancelling a scheduled gig at the city’s Metro venue this coming November, and now it seems they are over entirely, though a short Tweet simply declaring them ‘disbanded’ may not prove to be the final word on The Orwells.