The 1975‘s Matty Healy has hit out at The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas‘ comments about their LGBTQ+ stance in Malaysia.
It comes after the 1975 were banned from Malaysia after their set was cut short during day one of the Good Vibes Festival on July 21, when Healy criticised the Malaysian government for anti-LGBTQ laws during their headlining set.
Healy also kissed bandmate and bassist Ross MacDonald on the lips onstage before their set was cut short.
The cancellation resulted in The Strokes’ set being pulled from Good Vibes and led to Casablancas sharing his own thoughts on Instagram.
He wrote at the time: “it def helped the white outsider awareness yes, for sure… i felt the same. had no idea. but when you look into it, it likely will change little to nothing in Malaysia. it’s like saying you helped awareness of injustices in n korea … not one of those situations where twitter pressure’s gonna work, they don’t care, govt is intense there.”
In another comment, Casablancas went into more depth about his thoughts, acknowledging that he thinks Healy meant “a positive thing”, initially agreeing it was “good to raise awareness”. But he said one should “be knowledgeable and respectful toward the culture you’re not familiar with”.
In a lengthy speech regarding the band’s recent ban from Malaysia in Texas earlier this week, Healy called out Casablancas.
He said: “Other people, other apparent liberal people, contended that the kiss itself was a form of colonialism. That The 1975 in the rich tradition of evil white men past, was forcing its Western beliefs on the Eastern world.”
The frontman went on to say that calling,”The 1975’s performance colonialism was a complete inversion of the word’s meaning” and that “performers like Julian Casablancas who took to Twitter to criticise us, this bizarre mangling of colonial identity politics, merely served as an expedient way to express their own disappointment with the festival’s cancellation because it would be in poor taste, surely, to lament a loss of performance”.
The Strokes frontman is yet to respond to Healy’s comments.
The 1975‘s lawyers have been working on resolving the band’s ongoing dispute with Malaysian festival organiser Future Sound Asia (FSA) in recent months.
Meanwhile, last week, Healy issued an apology to those that he has “hurt” while trying to take on the “character role of 21st Century rock star”. This was ahead of Ice Spice admitting that she was “confused” over Healy’s controversial comments about her on a podcast.
The frontman publicly apologised to Ice Spice after his appearance on The Adam Friedland Show. Friedland and co-host Nick Mullen discussed the New York rapper’s heritage, debating whether she has Hawaiian, Inuit or Chinese, before impersonating the accents of those countries and regions.
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