Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas has agreed to meet with an indigenous Australian photographer, as he deals with the fallout from his racist remarks on stage in Melbourne.
The singer told concert goers at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night that he was dealing with his jet lag by drinking and would keep drinking until he was a "black Australian".
"What you do is, when you get on the plane on your way here, you start drinking. And then I drink until I think I'm Australian. And I keep drinking until I think I'm a black Australian," he told the crowd, according to news reports.
The remarks were said to have been met with groans from the crowd and the singer released an apology on his Facebook page after the gig, after it was brought to his attention backstage that what he said was racist.
"Please understand that although it is no excuse, I was completely unaware that in Australia there is a polarizing social issue happening right now involving indigenous people and alcohol," he wrote.
He released a further post the following day, attempting to explain his onstage "joke".
"I said I drank until I thought I was Australian. Then I drank so much that I thought I was a black Australian and then I drank so much I thought I was a little Australian girl. These were 3 things I chose at random to represent 3 things I'm not. I'm not Australian. I'm not black and I'm not a little girl," he wrote.
There has been outrage on social media over Thomas' onstage comments and indigenous photographer Barbara McGrady has offered to give the singer a chance to make amends for what he said.
"Want to really make amends for your hurtful, ignorant and derogatory comments to what I gather to be a mainly white audience? Well then invite me to come photograph one of your Sydney shows," McGrady wrote.
Thomas responded to the photographer, keen to make amends.
"Please follow me on twitter so that we can message each other and arrange to meet. I would welcome that," Thomas wrote on McGrady's Facebook page.
The photographer then took to Twitter to confirm that the meeting has been arranged.
"@Rob Thomas has agreed to a meet up in Sydney," McGrady tweeted.
Thomas has eight more concerts left in Australia including one on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House on Wednesday night.
AAP has reached out to Thomas' representatives and to McGrady for comment.
