Modest Mouse Cut Simon O'Connor Loose Before the Tour Even Starts
The guitarist won't be on the band's summer run after a teenage fan posted screenshots of his DMs — and the replacement is already booked.
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The tour was supposed to open on August 4th at the Libbey Bowl in Ojai, California. It still will. Just without the guitarist who plays on the record it's meant to promote.
Modest Mouse announced on July 31st that Simon O'Connor won't be joining them on their upcoming North American run. The band's Instagram statement was short and did not mention why: "Simon O'Connor will not be joining us on the upcoming tour. The good news is that Seth Jabour of Les Savy Fav will be jumping in to play guitar. We look forward to being out there with you all." No explanation, no reference to the allegations that landed a week earlier. Just a lineup swap and a forward look.
What actually happened
On July 26th, a fan took the story to r/ModestMouse. A 17-year-old user posted screenshots of an Instagram DM exchange with O'Connor, saying she was 16 when the photos he commented on were taken. Per Rolling Stone, the messages included an erotic image and remarks on her bikini pictures. The screenshots did the rest of the work; the thread traveled fast.
O'Connor responded on Reddit with an apology and an explanation. He said he thought the account belonged to someone who had been trolling him, and that he fired off what he called a tasteless meme and a sticker reading "Simon calls your bluff" as an attempt at a gotcha. In his words: "After a few minutes, I realized that I had made a mistake and this was not the person who I had dealt with before. I unsent the messages and immediately ceased communication." He added that he opposes any sexual behavior toward minors, and apologized directly to the fan for the stress it caused her.
The band did not litigate any of that in public. It weighed the explanation, and it still pulled him off the tour. That's the whole answer, and it's the right one. When a minor posts receipts, the move isn't a paragraph of nuance about mistaken identity. It's a fill-in guitarist.
The guy stepping in
Seth Jabour is not a session hire pulled off a roster. He's the lead guitarist of Les Savy Fav, the Brooklyn art-punk band whose live shows are less concert than controlled demolition. Jabour is the one holding the songs together while that chaos happens around him, and that's exactly the skill set a band needs from someone learning a catalog on short notice. It's a solid pick, not a panic pick.
O'Connor had been in Modest Mouse since 2021. He plays on and co-wrote An Eraser and a Maze, the album that came out June 5th on Glacial Pace and the reason this tour exists. Whether his exit is permanent is unclear; a rep pointed Rolling Stone to the Instagram post and said nothing more. Read that silence however you want.
The part worth sitting with
This is a familiar shape by now. Fan documents the DMs, the screenshots spread, the band moves before the internet forces its hand. What's notable here is the speed and the flatness of it: no drawn-out statement, no crisis-management essay, no attempt to reframe the artist as the wronged party. The band replaced him and named the replacement in the same breath. Some fans in the replies called it good news for people who love good news. Hard to argue.
The tour runs on. The record is still the record. And the person who made a chunk of it won't be onstage playing it. That tension isn't going to resolve into a clean narrative, and it shouldn't have to. A band drew a line. That's the story.
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