One week after the Foo Fighters went after Donald Trump for using their music at a campaign event and said any royalties generated as a result will be donated to Kamala Harris’s campaign, White Stripes frontman Jack White similarly made clear that his group wants nothing to do with the ex-president.
After a Trump campaign aide used a clip of the band’s song “Seven Nation Army” in a pro-Trump social media post, White wrote on Instagram, “Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.) Have a great day at work today Margo Martin.” (Martin is Trump’s deputy director of communications.) White added, “And as long as I’m here, a double fuck you DonOLD for insulting our nation’s veterans at Arlington you scum. You should lose every military family’s vote immediately from that if ANYTHING makes sense anymore.” (Two members of the Trump campaign reportedly had a “verbal and physical altercation” with an Arlington National Cemetery official this week. A spokesperson for the campaign denied the physical-altercation aspect of the story, but the Army said in a statement that it absolutely occurred.)
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A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.
White’s words for Team Trump came the same day that the Swedish musical act ABBA demanded the ex-president stop using its music, telling Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, “We, together with the members of [ABBA], have discovered that videos have been released where Abba’s music has been used at Trump’s events and have requested that such use be immediately taken down and removed. Universal Music Publishing AB and Polar Music International AB have not received any request, so no permission or license has been granted to Trump.” (In a statement, the Trump campaign told The Washington Post it had a “license to play ABBA music” through an agreement with Broadcast Music and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.)
Other artists who’ve taken issue with being associated with Trump include Céline Dion, Beyoncé, and the estate of the late Sinéad O’Connor. In 2018, Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses tweeted, “The Trump campaign is using loopholes in the various venues’ blanket performance licenses which were not intended for such craven political purposes, without the songwriters’ consent. Can u say ‘shitbags?!’”
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