Hey rock rebels what's going on So back in the early 2010's the
Fox TV show Glee was supposedly all the rage It was such a big show that even NBC's show The
Office did a whole episode about it Now I personally hated the show
and thought it was awful Now there was one story
though that went under-reported and that involved music being used for the show
So prior to Glee using music from popular artists or bands they need to get permission first
Now there were three bands that the producers of Glee went after who refused to let their music be
licensed and that was Foo Fighters Guns N' Roses and Kings of Leon and it would be Guns N' Roses
guitarist Slash who would reveal in January of 2011 to Entertainment Weekly that he said no to
the TV show licensing Guns N' Roses music saying Glee is worse than Greece and Greece is bad enough
I look at Greece and think between High School Musical and Glee Greece was a
work of art the guitarist will conclude it's kind of funny that this is coming
from the same guy who showed up on American Idol a number of seasons ago
Now the guitarist didn't have a hard-line stance against licensing
Guns N' Roses music but preferred to lend his music and image to projects he endorsed
For example Guitar Hero Three Legends of Rock video game featured Welcome to the Jungle even
though Axl Rose would turn around and sue the game developer and publisher three years later
but that's a story for another time Now Glee creator Ryan Murphy would
respond several weeks after Slash made his comments to Entertainment Weekly and
was pretty vitriolic in his response not only attacking Guns N' Roses but the band Kings of
Leon for publicly rejecting an offer to have their music in an episode of the hit series
Murphy would tell The Hollywood Reporter that Kings of Leon are as he put it self-centered
a-holes and they missed the big picture According to Murphy the bands are missing
the opportunity to inspire kids taking up music saying a seven-year-old kid can see
someone close to their age singing a Kings of Leon song which will make them want to join a
glee club or pick up a musical instrument It's like okay hate on arts education you
can make fun of Glee all you want but at its heart what we really do is turn kids on to
music and it would be Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill who offered a more even-handed the
response to Murphy's comments in the article saying this whole Glee thing is a shock to us
It's gotten out of hand At the time of the request
we hadn't even seen the show It came at the end of that record
cycle and we were over promoting Use Somebody This was never meant as a slap in the face to Glee
or to the music education or to fans of the show We're just not sure where the anger is coming from
In the same article Murphy would also respond to Guns N' Roses guitarist
Slash saying usually I find that people who make those comments their careers are over
Their uneducated and quite stupid but it would be Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl
who would go on the Howard Stern Show in 2011 and defend Kings of Leon and Guns N' Roses for
saying no to the show as he said here I've had the same manager for 21 years
I've had the same accountant for 21 years I admire your loyalty
I think you're very grounded person and there's not a lot of people in rock n'
roll who are very grounded There are a lot of people
who are just off their [---] rocker So we're talking about business for a second
So when this guy from Glee comes to you and he seems kind of like a mafioso he
says to you we want to use the music of the Foo Fighters for the TV show Glee
Well let me explain something first Okay
Glee never approached us to do music Oh
That that came up in conversation when we were doing an interview for The Hollywood Reporter
I was gonna ask is that the way you have to go now in music
You have to go to Glee You have to go to American Idol
Well I think the point I was trying to so eloquently make when I talked about it was
that I think it's important that bands don't feel pressured to to do that sort of big business thing
you know like we all grew up in garages and garage bands and fan tours and you know whenever anybody
asked me musical advice I say you know what just be good at what you do and don't expect much and
if that's not enough then don't do it because it's impossible to make it in the music industry
You gotta be either really really good are you gotta be really really lucky or both
Well there used to be artists who like The Who who would say we would never commercially use
our music we would never put in a commercial we wouldn't put on a TV show and they all seemed to
have shifted because the the The model changed
The model changed Like that's how you get your music out of here
but it seems to me it's become okay to sell out I kind of admire that you wouldn't go to Glee but
then the guy from Glee is saying hey you know [---] the Foo Fighters they
almost make it seem like you're homophobic or something if you won't give your music to Glee
Well you know it's funny because I said that like man you know I said that's not fair that he thinks
that everyone should do the show you know and then the next day I told my manager I'm like hey I kind
Several months after the war of words in April of 2011 Glee creator Ryan Murphy would walk back his
comments and a publicly apologized saying I didn't speak with as much clarity as I would have liked
Who am I to say F you That's not what I meant
I completely understand when artists don't want a show or another artist
to interpret their songs in fact I respect it It's their personal work and I'd feel the same way
We get turned down all the time and I don't fight it or even go back after a rejection
Now Murphy would point to a recent request to use a song by Icelandic singer Björk in
the show which the Icelandic singer turned down saying she read the scene and didn't
really think it was right fit for her song I told her that's completely cool and she
said come back to her down the road We deal with that every day
Now Grohl's words seem to have stung Ryan Murphy and emitted Foo Fighters fans saying
I've never felt that if you don't give Glee or music there's something diabolical about you
I support artists and what they choose to do I think Kings of Leon are cool as [---]
The Foo Fighters are brilliant we'd love to do one of their songs if they were ever interested but if
it's not their thing then okay I personally wish them luck and will still listen to their new music
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Thanks and remember guys legends may die bands will break up but rock lives on