Add Foo Fighters to the growing list of musicians angered by GOP candidate’s presidential campaign Donald Trump. As widely expected, the former president joined the former independent candidate on stage on Friday. Robert F. Kennedy, sonpart of their current joint campaign plan to block the Democratic nominee by Kamala Harris White House ambitions. Less predictable was the Trump campaign’s decision to introduce an accused sexual assaulter (oh, sorry, I should have been more specific—I’m talking about RFK, Jr.) to the song “My Hero,” the Foo Fighters’ anthem celebrating the most ordinary among us.
At an event Friday in Arizona, Kennedy confirmed that he would support Trump as he pauses—but does not end—his campaign and suggested, according to the Associated Press, that “Trump has offered him a job if he returns to the White House.” The son has not lost hope that he can still win the presidential election, telling Washington Post that if “no candidate wins 270 electoral votes, which is entirely possible—in fact, our poll today shows them tied at 269-269—I could still get to the White House in an unusual election.” To date, there has been no news of a similar job offer from future President Kennedy to Trump.
When Kennedy took the stage Friday to officially sign the deal with Trump, the loudspeakers played the 1998 Foo Fighters song. Was the intent to convey that RFK was Trump’s hero, or vice versa? No one knows, but we do know that the Foo Fighters weren’t happy about it.
Via X (formerly Twitter), Foo Fighters posted a screenshot of an exchange between their account and another user’s account, in which Dave Grohl– The main band has confirmed that the Trump campaign is not allowed to use their songs for campaign purposes.
In a statement reported by Weekly Entertainment and others, the band confirmed through a spokesperson that they “were not asked for permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it.” Any royalties generated from Trump’s use of the song will be donated to Harris-Tim Walz campaign, the spokesman said.
Foo Fighters aren’t the first artists to distance themselves from the Trump campaign, nor are they the first to criticize a campaign for using the song. Two weeks ago, Celine Dion Call out former president for using Titanic theme song “My Heart Will Go On,” later saying that she “does not approve of this or any similar use.”
And earlier this week, a Trump campaign spokesman Steven Truong used by Beyonce The song “Freedom”—a hymn widely understood to have been authorized by the Harris campaign—served as the soundtrack to the former president’s footage. After Beyonce’s camp reportedly threatened legal action, the video was removed. According to USA TODAYOther artists who say Trump has appropriated their work include the Village People (Trump frequently uses their 1978 hit “YMCA”) and the estate of Isaac Hayes, which has sought $3 million in royalties for the unauthorized use of Hayes’s Sam & Dave classic, “Hold On, I’m Comin.”
Meanwhile, in 2008, Foo Fighters took on a similar issue with the song’s use—this time, in Republican Senator John McCain’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency of the United States. After McCain’s campaign adopted “My Hero” as its theme song, the band responded, “It is frustrating and infuriating that someone who claims to represent the American people would repeatedly show such disrespect for creativity and intellectual property.”
“The saddest thing about this is that ‘My Hero’ was written as an ode to the ordinary and their extraordinary potential,” Foo Fighters continued at the time. “The fact that it was appropriated without our knowledge and used in a way that distorts the original sentiment of the lyrics only tarnishes the song.”
