The Killers say they have found no evidence to support allegations of sexual assault by members of their touring crew in 2009.
The rock band’s legal team launched an investigation last week after their former sound engineer claimed to have heard crew members discuss the sexual assault of an unconscious woman in a dressing room at a gig in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
After speaking to the female engineer, as well as venue staff, tour staff and the alleged victim, the legal team said they were “unable to find any corroboration whatsoever” for these claims.
However, the Las Vegas-formed band, who have headlined Glastonbury twice, urged anyone with further information to contact them.
The claims emerged last week in a blog post by the sound engineer, who said she had worked with The Killers briefly in 2009, and claimed she had been the only female touring with them at the time.
None of the band members were implicated in the allegations.
The band’s legal representatives said at the time that they were taking the allegations “extremely seriously” and they were “astonished and shocked by these claims”.
In a lengthy statement detailing the findings of their investigation, The Killers’ legal team said the “serious accusations” were “discovered to be entirely unfounded”.
They said the sound engineer had joined the touring team for three weeks and received much of the information detailed in her blog post from “a second or third hand source”.
It added: “She confirmed that she did not witness the alleged events herself.”
The legal team said a former front of house engineer for the band, one of her superiors, had been “a problematic workmate” whose treatment of others was deemed “unfair” by those who witnessed it.
They concluded this person’s “poor management” and “sexist remarks and rude comments” had caused the female engineer “great distress”.
Several crew members who were interviewed said this employee, who no longer works for the band, could have been the person who made a number of radio transmissions about an incident in “Dressing Room A” – taken to be the alleged sexual assault.
The legal team said everyone interviewed during the probe claimed the idea the band had been “paying them extra to ‘bring back girls’ or ‘have one waiting in the shower’” was an “in-joke based upon urban legends of tours from an earlier era”, and not something any of them had ever done.
However, The Killers have promised to establish a new touring system where “the entire touring party are furnished with an off-site independent HR contact” to call anonymously to flag any concerns.
The Killers – Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannucci Jr – formed in 2001 and are preparing to release their sixth album Imploding The Mirage.
