Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek is known for his cantankerous on-stage persona, and recently got in a little trouble after calling a Hopscotch Festival audience “fucking hillbillies,” which he took in stride. Now, it seems as though he said some disparaging remarks about the War On Drugs during his set at last weekend’s Ottawa Folk Fest. A review of the performance from Exclaim has the details: Kozelek was playing opposite the Philadelphia band and, when noise from their set started to spill over into his, he stopped the show and asked the crowd, “Who the fuck is that?” After the crowd responded, Kozelek said, “I hate that beer commercial lead-guitar shit. This next song is called, “The War On Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Dick.” He continued to throw insults the band’s way throughout the remainder of his set, at one point even referring to the band as “John Cougar Mellencamp.”

The War On Drugs tweeted earlier today looking for clarification:

Can anyone confirm that mark kozelek was talking shit on us during his set in Ottawa last night? Cuz we obviously booked the schedule….wtf

— The War on Drugs (@warondrugsjams) September 15, 2014

Seems like it might have been at least partially in jest so whatever. Just upsetting to me as a fan that's all. We're just doin' what we do

— The War on Drugs (@warondrugsjams) September 15, 2014

Kozelek hasn’t commented yet. Sun Kil Moon and the War On Drugs made Stereogum’s #1 and #2 best albums of 2014 so far.

UPDATE 9/17: Kozelek has addressed the situation on sunkilmoon.com, but does not apologize for his comments:

September 17, 2014
To War On Drugs from Mark Kozelek in regards to Ottawa:

I had never heard of your band prior to taking the stage in Ottawa the other night. But to give you an idea of how bad the bleed was, my drummer said that it would have been easier for him to play along to your set than ours. It could have been any band’s music blaring from over the hill, and I still would have made jokes.

I hope to catch your set someday when it’s not drowning out my own. The schedule wasn’t your fault—I get it. That was my third rodeo with The Ottawa “Bleed” Fest. They’re still figuring things out over there. I hope they get it together someday.

Peace and all the best,
-Mark Kozelek

[Forecastle photo by Taylor Hill/Stereogum.]