Kurt Vile Blasted for Licensing Music to Bank of America
Songwriter Kurt Vile has come under fire from fellow indie rockers for licensing his song "Baby's Arms" to Bank of America. Patrick Stickles, the frontman of the New Jersey punk band Titus Andronicus, took Vile to task for licensing the tune on Twitter last week, saying "Come on, Kurt Vile, yr a million times better than that" and lamenting "I thought you were, like, the best dude in music!"
Photos: Random Notes
Vile defended himself in a series of tweets, joking that he "did it to be like the Carpenters and to buy my daughter high-end diapers" but also noting that "never cared about that sorta thing" and needed to pay back his publishing advance. Vile's manager later posted in a comments thread on the Pitchfork Facebook page that his client "never used his music as a political platform" and that his involvement with Bank of America's campaign was in motion long before the Occupy protests began.