Ariel Pink and John Maus.
Photo-illustration: Vulture, Getty Images and Shutterstock
Among the crowd at the pro-Trump rally “Save America” on January 6, which eventually gave way to the violent siege of the Capitol, were indie provocateurs Ariel Pink and John Maus, who traveled to Washington, DC, to attend. Pink clarified her role in the rally on twitter. “I was in DC to peacefully show my support for the president,” he wrote in response to a user. “I attended the rally on the lawn of the white house and went back to the hotel and took a nap. case closed. “Documentary filmmaker Alex Lee Moyer, known for his sympathetic documentary TFW No GF (for which Pink and Maus provided music), posted a photo of her, Pink and Maus on Instagram in a hotel room, marked for Washington DC, according to the images taken before she made her account private. “The day we almost died, but instead we had a lot of fun,” she wrote. Moyer too filmed Bad at the rally outside the Capitol. She later told Pitchfork that she was working with Pink and Maus on an unrelated project.
Pink is known for making controversial misogynistic, anti-gay and Trump comments. Days before the rally, he tweeted, “Vote for trump card”. After Twitter users discovered his presence, he also tweeted on the false conspiracy that the election was “stolen” from Trump and tried to compare the demonstration to last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. Maus, for his part, spoke in the past about his leftist policy, which apparently appears in songs like “Cop Killer” and “Rights for Gays”. But he also generated controversy for performing on the Adult Swim program Extreme million dollar gifts: world peace, which was canceled due to creator Sam Hyde’s alt-right ties. Maus never tried to distance himself from Hyde or the show, telling Vulture about those he met on set, “Nothing about them suggested they pay alms to any blood cult.” He is also a longtime friend and collaborator of Pink; Maus defended Pink’s anti-feminist comments in 2014, claiming that Pink was “a nymphomaniac”. Bad tweeted about a collaboration with Pink in December 2020. He didn’t directly address his involvement in the protests, instead, enigmatically tweeting a 1937 encyclical on nationalism given by Pope Pius XI.