Two more men have come forward to accuse Christian rock superstar and Maga firebrand Michael Tait of drugging and sexually assaulting them – including Jason Jones, the founding manager of the American hard-rock band Evanescence.
Jones said he was fired from the band – which had ties to Tait – for speaking out about his alleged assault. Jones said the firing, which he claimed happened in 1999, cut him out of Evanescence’s massive success beginning in 2003.
“It destroyed me,” said Jones. “I was achieving my dreams at an early age, and Tait changed all that.”
Evanescence co-founder Ben Moody denied Jones was fired from the band for speaking out against Tait.
Moody said he does recall Jones telling him about a sexual encounter with Tait, but at the time Moody interpreted it as consensual.
“I was a kid, only 18, and clearly didn’t realize what he was going through,” Moody said. “I’m sure I missed a lot of things I’d recognize today. I didn’t realize he was traumatized.”
In all, eight alleged victims have now come forward publicly with sexual assault allegations against Tait. A previous investigation by the Guardian reported allegations of sexual assault by Tait against three young men while another from the Christian news outlet the Roys Report reported allegations by three other men.
Tait became famous as the frontman for DC Talk and Newsboys, two Christian mega-bands known for packaging conservative rhetoric about sexual abstinence, sobriety, Christian nationalism and the coming rapture in catchy rock songs. Tait has been a supporter of Donald Trump and served as a key bridge between Trump and evangelical voters.
Tait has not responded to questions from the Guardian about the allegations against him. But in an Instagram post in June, Tait confessed to a decades-long addiction to cocaine and alcohol and admitted that he had “at times, touched men in an unwanted, sensual way”.
In the post, Tait added that he had recently “spent six weeks at a treatment center in Utah”.
Jones was described by friends who knew him in the 1990s as a happy-go-lucky Christian teenager, bursting with ambition and creativity. Growing up in Arkansas, Jones remembers, one of his biggest dreams was “to meet DC Talk”.
Jones achieved that dream in 1994 after moving to Nashville to manage the band of his friend, Randall Crawford, who was also friends with Tait and introduced the two.
Jones recalled going to McDonalds with the DC Talk frontman and being mobbed by so many teenage fans they had to leave before getting their food. “That kind of thing happened a lot,” he said.
Jones was thrilled to be welcomed into Tait’s inner circle, yet he was taken aback by what he described as Tait’s proclivity for randomly grabbing other men’s genitals. He said he eventually learned that Tait was living a double-life as a closeted gay man, which was becoming a problem for a band mentored by Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell, who called Aids “God’s punishment for homosexuality”.
While surprised, Jones held no negative feelings toward Tait’s sexuality, even taking him to gay clubs in Little Rock (at Tait’s request) when DC Talk performed there.
Jones was regularly traveling back and forth from Nashville to Little Rock, and in 1995 he met aspiring musician Moody – the two of them hitting it off and collaborating on a project that would come to be named Evanescence.
After co-producing the first Evanescence demo, Jones returned to Nashville and began talking up the band to his friend, Tait.
Jones, as an evangelical, was sober and a virgin at the time. But he recalls getting caught up in a whirlwind of partying with Tait in 1995, chain-smoking cigarettes and marijuana and closing down bars, then returning to Tait’s house to continue drinking. Jones said he was uncomfortable with all of it, but was eager for Tait’s approval so he complied.
“I had this band that I was trying to take places,” Jones recalled. “And [Tait] had the power to open doors for us in the industry. So I went along with whatever, but didn’t know what it would cost me.”
Jones’ used his connection with Tait to help Evanescence get a foot in the door in Nashville, speaking with A&R people, record labels, venue owners, producers and musicians.
Sources that wish to remain anonymous alleged that Tait had a rotation of attractive young men at his Nashville home at this time, some of them underage, and that Tait had a “no clothes allowed” rule in his hot tub. “He would put his penis against one of the jets, and tell us to do the same, saying ‘see, it feels good!’” recalled a source who visited Tait regularly at this time, and wishes to remain anonymous.
“He was all about the shock factor,” recalled Crawford, who was close with Jones and Tait throughout the 90s. “He was always saying ‘let’s make out in front of these people!’ And I was like ‘no, you’re gonna destroy your career.’ But he felt untouchable. And in some ways, he was.”
Around this same time, Crawford recalls Tait driving him through the campus of Liberty University – Falwell’s Christian college where DC Talk formed – speeding at 60mph and getting pulled over by campus security, who turned from anger to laughter when seeing Tait behind the wheel, even asking for pictures and autographs.
“After they left, Michael turned to me, calm as ever, and said: ‘I can do anything and not get in trouble.’”
Jones recalls drinking at Tait’s house one night in late 1998, just after DC Talk finished rehearsals for their Supernatural album tour. Jones remembers feeling tired suddenly, and Tait recommended he go to sleep in his bedroom. “I felt honored that he felt that close to me, that he trusted me enough to let me sleep in his bed,” Jones said.
Some time later, Jones recalls waking up, his pants missing, and Tait was giving him oral sex. “I said no and pushed him off, but then, somehow, I passed out again. I woke back up and he was still doing it. I said no again, then nodded out. And then I woke up a third time, aggressively shouted ‘no!’ and pushed him harder. It was then that he left me alone.”
Looking back, Jones said, “I believe that Michael Tait drugged me.”
Two alleged victims from the Guardian’s previous report also say they believe they were drugged by Tait before their alleged assaults. In addition, a female accuser cited by the Roys Report said she believed that Tait supplied Rohypnol or some other sedative to a crew member on a Newsboys tour, who then drugged and raped her while Tait watched.
Distraught and in need of comfort, Jones flew home to Little Rock the day after he said he was assaulted. There he confided in a friend and mentor – who wishes to remain anonymous – that he had had “a bad experience with Tait,” but wouldn’t go into details. “He wasn’t the same after that,” Jones’s friend recalled.
Jones said that in early 1999 he had also confided in his friend and Evanescence co-founder, Ben Moody, about being sexually assaulted by Tait. “Ben was only 18 at the time, new to the music industry, and I wanted to warn him,” Jones recalled. “[Tait] was flying Ben out to Nashville to write songs together, to see if he fit in Tait’s inner-circle.”
Moody remembers things differently.
“He didn’t frame it as ‘sexual assault,’” Moody said. “He described it as like frat-boy joking around while they were drunk, with [Tait] saying ‘what’s the big deal? A dick’s just a muscle.’ And Jason said ‘the next thing I know he’s sucking my dick.’”
Jones said he remains confident that he told Moody the full details of the assault, including that he verbally and physically resisted Tait three times as his consciousness came and went.
Moody said he soon noticed a change in Jones’s demeanor. Jones, a passionate, fun-loving guy who was easy to get along with, began suffering manic swings from depression to rage to paranoia and then to dissociation. “After a late night studio he couldn’t get the car shifter into gear and he just started screaming, hurling his body around, jerking the shifter violently like he was going to break it off.”
Moody said he and the band began wondering if they should continue working with Jones. In retrospect, Moody said: “I didn’t know what he was going through. Looking back I would’ve been a bit more attentive, but I was the typical 18 year old who wanted to be a rockstar.”
Moody said that in a phone call with Tait, he mentioned that Jones had told him about a sexual encounter between them, which Tait then denied. “I wanted to get ahead of [Jason] talking shit about us and ruining the whole thing. Back then there were rumors Michael Tait [was gay] and at that point, right after [DC Talk’s Grammy-winning album] Jesus Freak, he was the biggest thing in Christian music history, and the scandal would’ve been a huge deal.”
Jones and Moody differ on whether he was fired or quit, but both recall the incident with Tait – however it was characterized – as the turning point of the relationship.
“I hid away after that,” Jones recalls. “I started snorting meth, then smoking it.”
His isolation and drug binge would continue for five years.
Moody said he regrets how things went down with Jones back then. “He was my best friend for so many years, and now I ask myself ‘how fucking blind could I have been?’”
Evanescence went on to be one of the biggest bands in the world, winning “Best New Artist” and “Best Hard Rock Performance” at the Grammys in 2003 and eventually selling tens of millions of albums.
The following year, Moody and Tait would go on to be roommates and musical collaborators, with Tait singing on Moody’s solo album, and Moody producing Tait’s solo album, Loveology. In 2003, Moody left Evanescence to pursue his solo career.
Evanescence co-founder Amy Lee and other representatives of the band could not be reached for comment.
Like Moody, Crawford remembers his friend Jones as a “a happy guy, a real sweetheart, but all that changed after 1998. I could tell something had happened. He didn’t tell me about it at the time, but he has since. And I believe him, because the same thing happened to me.”
Crawford first met DC Talk when the band was filming the music video for its first single, Heavenbound, in 1989. Crawford was working in a movie theater in the same Nashville mall the band was filming in. He loved their debut cassette and when they came by to catch a movie he introduced himself and gave them a discount.
Crawford remembers his friend Jason Jones getting squeezed out of the management position of Evanescence in early 1999, and that “it had something to do with Tait”, but was unaware of specifics at the time.
Back then, Crawford was an ambitious musician, and was being hired to write songs for solo projects for Tait and DC Talk’s Toby Mac (the band went on “hiatus” in 2000, and never officially reunited). Mac’s project was later nominated for a Grammy and Dove Award. Crawford had also just signed his own record deal for his band, Webster County.
Crawford recalls being distraught over a breakup one night in the fall 2000, and Tait inviting him over to hang out. “You’ll bounce back,” he recalls Tait saying, as he handed him a shot glass of Makers Mark whiskey.
“I told him ‘just one,’ and took the shot,” he recalled. “I had a pretty high tolerance for alcohol at the time, but I blacked out shortly after I took that one drink.”
Crawford said his memory picks up some time later, finding himself propped up on Tait’s kitchen counter, his pants around his ankles. “My legs were up in the air, and Tait was licking my anus,” he claimed. “I said ‘what are you doing, dude?’ and then he said the weirdest thing: ‘Hey man, did you catch the Colts game last week?’ Like we were just hanging out, chatting.”
Crawford said that he fled Tait’s house, but has no memory of driving home. He said he is convinced that Tait drugged him.
Two close friends of Crawford’s have corroborated his story. One of them confirmed that Crawford told him details of the alleged assault at the time, but only named the perpetrator two years ago. The other friend said he was told the whole story at the time.
“I was never the same after that,” Crawford said. “The joy and drive I had for music went away. Suddenly I had stage fright for the first time, brain-fog, anger issues, depression, and was even suicidal for a time. It ruined my career.”
Despite having finished recording the album for his band, Crawford felt unable to perform as a musician, and the record was never released.
Both Jones and Crawford recall thinking their assaults were isolated incidents and continued to have some involvement with Tait. Jones accepted a phone call from him when Tait’s father passed away and he was distraught, and Crawford says he was “love bombed” by Tait and succumbed to future advances.
After not speaking for years, Tait re-entered his life in 2020. Crawford’s wife was a musician herself, and Tait had offered to produce her album.
“I had buried the memory of that night for a long time,” Crawford said. After seeing Tait again, Crawford said, a lot of feelings came to the surface and he found himself weeping uncontrollably in the shower. After confessing to his wife what had happened, she encouraged him to enroll in EMDR trauma therapy, which he said had been helpful.
“Hearing Jason’s story recently broke my heart,” he said of reuniting with his friend, Jones, decades later. “I believe we’d both be in the music industry today if it weren’t for Michael Tait.”
Jones has been sober since 2008. After leaving the music industry he worked in banking and co-directed a sober living facility. Today he travels around the country sharing his story of abuse and addiction (not mentioning Tait’s name when recounting the experience).
Shortly after getting sober Jones contacted a law firm to ask about potential compensation he could be owed from Evanescence. According to his 2008 correspondence with the law firm that he shared with the Guardian, the firm told him that, because of the statute of limitations, his window for a suit against Evanescence had closed years earlier. Jones said the lawyers told him that, had he pursued the matter sooner, he could be entitled to up to tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
Moody disputed the notion that Jones has ever had the right to compensation for his management efforts in the early days of Evanescence.
Looking back 27 years later, Jones recalled the night he told Moody about what had happened to him. Warning him not only about Tait, but about the music industry in general, he recited a quote from the magazine journalist Hunter S Thompson, who said: “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free.”
“And that’s true for the Christian music industry as well,” Jones said. “Even more so, in my case.”