R.E.M. took to Facebook to comment on Donald Trump and Ted Cruz using the band’s song at a Tea Party rally.
“While we do not authorize or condone the use of our music at this political event, and do ask that these candidates cease and desist from doing so, let us remember that there are things of greater importance at stake here. The media and the American voter should focus on the bigger picture, and not allow grandstanding politicians to distract us from the pressing issues of the day and of the current Presidential campaign.”
-R.E.M.
This comes days after Survivor founding member Frankie Sullivan talked to Rolling Stone about Mike Huckabee and Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis, who refused to give out gay marriage licenses, used “Eye of the Tiger” at a rally for Davis after she was released from jail.
“I do not like mixing rock and roll with politics; they do not go hand in hand,” Sullivan told Rolling Stone. “What upset me most was that, once again, my song was being used to further a political agenda – and no one even bothered to ask for permission.”
It’s far from the first time politicians have stirred up trouble in the music world. In 2000, John Mellencamp’s agents asked George W. Bush’s team to stop using his song “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A,” and in 2012, Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist Tom Morello wrote an opinion piece against Paul Ryan, calling him “the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.”
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