Braids, Japanese Breakfast, & More Condemn Company For Sexist “Pussy Melter” Guitar Pedal

Ebru Yildiz

Braids, Japanese Breakfast, & More Condemn Company For Sexist “Pussy Melter” Guitar Pedal

Ebru Yildiz

Braids’ Raphaelle Standell and Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast are among the musicians who have openly criticized Danish company TC Electronic for the use of sexist language surrounding their “Pussy Melter” guitar products.

The guitar pedal is a collaboration with Satchel, the guitarist for comedy metal band, Steel Panther (who have songs with titles including “Gloryhole,” “Fat Girl,” and “It Won’t Suck Itself”).

“When we met up with Steel Panther’s oh-so-humble guitarist, he had only one condition: that the tone is as wet as the ladies on the front row,” reads the company’s website.

Guitarist Jessica Fennelly has started a petition to have TC Electronic remove the effect name and description, writing “Not only is this description extremely vulgar and unnecessary, but TC Electronic went out of their way to actually pay someone to write a marketing description for this.”

Montreal trio Braids shared the petition via Twitter, adding “As a female guitarist and just a female, in general, this makes me super disappointed!”

Other artists who have called out the company include Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner who wrote, “This is f****** disgusting,” Ted Leo, who tweeted, “HIRE WOMEN and consider that YOUR MARKET SHOULD ALSO BE WOMEN. Ya f****** troglodytes,” and Emily Reo who wrote, ” ew what the f***, I thought making pedals that break all the time was bad enough.”

TC Electronic could not be reached for comment at press time.

UPDATE: TC Electronic has issued an apology and removed the TonePrint in response to the controversy. “It’s become clear that a number of people have been offended by the title and description of a delay TonePrint that we created over a year ago with Steel Panther’s Satchel,” the company tells MusicRadar in a statement. “Steel Panther is an American comedic glam metal band from Los Angeles, California, mostly known for their profane and humorous lyrics, as well as their exaggerated on-stage personae that reenact the stereotypical 1980s ‘glam metal’ lifestyle (from Wikipedia). It has never been our intention to offend anyone but simply to provide fans of Steel Panther with guitar presets made by Satchel. We recognize that the material was inappropriate and we have removed the TonePrint in question from the app and we will take it down from our website as soon as possible. We sincerely apologize.”

This story originally appeared on Billboard.

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