Eagles of Death Metal
Eagles of Death Metal’s Josh Homme has posted a letter asking that other musicians raise money for the victims of the Paris terror attacks by releasing a cover version of the band’s song as “a show of solidarity to help the victims of these atrocious acts”.
During a recent interview with Vice, in which the band recounted how events at the Bataclan unfolded during the 13 November attacks, the band had suggested that musicians cover a recent Eagles of Death Metal song, I Love You All the Time. Now, the band are “calling upon our friends to donate their time, talent and good will” by donating money generated from sales of the song to charity. “For every cover sold, we pledge to donate 100% of the publishing income to The Sweet Stuff Foundation,” writes Homme. The musicians charity is dedicating all donations in 2015 to the victims of the attack.
I Love You All the Time, featured on their most recent album Zipper Down, has so far been covered by My Morning Jacket and the Deen Ween Group. “I have been very close friends with Josh Homme for over 20 years,” writes Dean Ween, who is also frontman of Ween. “When Josh asked me to cover this tune, I dropped what I was doing on the most important (to me anyway) gig night of my life [he was debuting new music from Dean Ween Group].”
The Sweet Stuff Foundation, a not-for-profit charity, “was founded to give assistance to career musicians, recording engineers and their families struggling with illness and disability.”
Read Josh Homme’s statement, via Rolling Stone, in full below:
Hello talented friend,
The senseless and violent terrorist attacks of 13 November, 2015 in Paris have left us all unsettled and we dare not give another second of precious time to those who have tried to steal our freedoms and take away our power.
Instead, we are writing to ask for your help to Play It Forward.
We are calling upon our friends to donate their time, talent and good will in a show of solidarity to help the victims of these atrocious acts in Paris and those affected by terrorism worldwide.
We are asking for you to cover our song “I Love You All The Time”. For every cover sold, we pledge to donate 100% of the publishing income to The Sweet Stuff Foundation. We ask that you also donate the money generated from sales of the song to the charity.
In the same spirit, we would encourage you to offer one of your songs up to be covered by another artist, and follow suit – donate the publishing monies to charity – The Play it Forward Initiative.
Whether you’re soul or R&B; hip-hop or hippy; garage, goth, country, punk or pop; death metal or DJ; It matters not. Whether your version is faithful to ours, instrumental, uses only lyrics or fragments thereof or is completely reimagined in every way, it matters not. Your individual musical differences become our collective strength. Simultaneously, we will call upon iTunes, Tidal, Amazon, Spotify & all others who will sell these covers, to join us and donate their portions to a charity as a symbol of unity. So many wonderfully talented artists have offered their love & support or have reached out asking, “How can we help?” Our answer is simple: unite with us. All of us. The musicians, the bands, the music companies & the fans … because we are music. We are the anthems of great nations. We are the songs of our forefathers. We are the hymns of God. The songs of the broken hearted. The unchained melodies. The songs of puppy love & of love that cannot be broken. We are the music of hope & possibility. We are the call to arms. We are the chorus of victory. We are songs in the key of life.
We are the Champions … of the World.
In the event our song doesn’t float your boat, we encourage you to help unite our business by any means possible. If you’re drawing a blank, donate something of yours or the proceeds from one of your songs, as Duran Duran has so graciously done. But do join us help & heal through music. They attacked us all, please hear the call.
Thank you for your time & love to you all,
Eagles of Death Metal