British anarchist punk band Chumbawamba has demanded New Zealand deputy prime minister Winston Peters stop using its number one hit Tubthumping at his rallies and events because the band opposes the populist politician’s agenda.
Peters, a veteran politician whose party New Zealand First is part of the country’s coalition government, has used the song at his public events and cited the 1997 song’s lyrics “I get knocked down, but I get up again” in his speeches.
Last week, Peters used the song ahead of his state of the nation speech, where – among other topics – he discussed removing gender and sexuality lessons from the school curriculum and compared co-governance (shared decision-making between Māori and the Crown) to the race-based theories of Nazi Germany.
Boff Whalley, the band’s lead guitarist, said Chumbawamba did not give Peters permission to use the song, does not share any of Peters’ ideas on race relations, and wants Peters to stop using the song “to shore up his misguided political views”.
“Chumbawamba wrote the song ‘Tubthumping’ as a song of hope and positivity, so it seems entirely odd that the ‘I get knocked down …’ refrain is being used by New Zealand’s deputy prime minister Winston Peters as he barks his divisive, small-minded, bigoted policies during his recent speeches,” Whalley said.
“[We] would like to remind him that the song was written for and about ordinary people and their resilience, not about rich politicians trying to win votes by courting absurd conspiracy theories and spouting misguided racist ideologies.”
The band has asked its record company, Sony Music Publishing, to issue the party with a cease and desist notice.
Peters did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment, but in two social media posts on X (formerly Twitter), he said: “The story about the use of the Chumbawamba song has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show how my comments about these sorts of media organisations are correct.”
He said New Zealand First has not received any cease-and-desist notice from the band or any other representative, and did not expect to.
“If the reporter had any clue of the law, and not just some opiniated [sic] fake news headline, they wouldn’t have bothered publishing this nonsense,” Peters said.
In a follow-up post, he said: “It seems the media care more about the Chumbawamba story than we do. We actually don’t care. There’s nothing to ‘cease or desist’. The song worked like a charm for our first public meeting after the election. The over 700 people in the crowd thought so too. We will be sure to file the ‘cease and desist’ letter in a safe place if it ever arrives. I would use another of their hit song titles as a quip at the end of this post but unfortunately they only had one.”
On Wednesday, local media outlet Stuff reported that Apra Amcos – New Zealand’s music licensing body – would be forwarding a cease and desist notice to New Zealand First, from Sony Music Publishing.
Apra said the venue in which Peters delivered his state of the nation speech – the council-owned Palmerston North convention centre – is licensed for public music performances, but that licence is subject to exclusions, including the performance of music that could reasonably suggest the approval of an artist of any business, political party or cause.
Apra said requests to use music by political parties are common but no approval was sought from New Zealand First or Peters.
It is not the first time Chumbawamba has demanded a party stop using its song – in 2011, the band was “appalled” when UK politician Nigel Farage used the hit during a Ukip conference.
In New Zealand, the National party was ordered to pay Eminem $600,000 after a court found it had breached copyright for using a version of the rapper’s chart-topping song, Lose Yourself, in an election campaign advertisement.
