Both Jack White and Meg White signed on to a lawsuit against the Trump campaign on Monday for using their iconic song “Seven Nation Army” in a video posted on social media.
The White Stripes, the defunct Detroit garage rock band famous for hits like “Icky Thump” and “Fell in Love With a Girl,” accused the Republican nominee of copyright infringement in a new suit filed in the Southern District of New York on Monday.
The dispute began in August, when a Trump communications staffer posted a video of the former president boarding a jet on the campaign trail set to the opening bass line.
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“Oh….Don’t even think about using my music you fascists,” White wrote in an Instagram post with a clip of the video. “Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.)”
The band claimed that the videos were “even more offensive to Plaintiffs because Plaintiffs vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.”
According to the suit, the video was viewed over 65,000 times and reposted over 700 times. The White Stripes’ lawyers promised to use discovery to “determine the amount of financial contributions that are attributable to the Infringing Trump Videos.”
The band also claimed that the campaign “chose to ignore and not respond to” the band’s attempts to solve the copyright dispute before the lawsuit was filed.
The suit claims the campaign did not seek to acquire a license to use the song, and that the duo would not have given them one if they had—which they claim the campaign “knew or should have known this based on the Plaintiff’s very public statements in 2016 making as much abundantly clear.”
Trump had previously used the song in a video during his 2016 campaign—which also caught the ire of the band. “The White Stripes would like to unequivocally state that they have nothing whatsoever to do with this video,” the band wrote in a statement at the time. “They are disgusted by this association, and by the illegal use of their song.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
The White Stripes consisted of Jack White on guitar and vocals and Meg White on drums. The duo was famous for their minimalist style, red, black, and white color aesthetic, and were an instrumental part of the post-punk revival movement of the early 2000s. The Whites were married during the White Stripes’ earliest days, but divorced in 2000.
The band continued putting out records and touring for years, but officially split in 2011. In a statement at the time, the Whites said they decided to call it quits “mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.”
“Seven Nation Army,” a song from their 2003 album Elephant, might be one of the most enduring parts of the band’s legacy. To this day, the iconic riff is chanted in soccer stadiums across the globe. The band’s lawsuit acknowledges this, calling it “one of the most memorable and widely recognized pieces of modern-day music.”
Trump is also facing a lawsuit from the estate of soul and funk legend Isaac Hayes, who obtained an injunction against the campaign for using the song “Hold On, I’m Coming.” Hayes penned the song for the soul duo Sam & Dave in 1966.
A judge granted the Hayes estate an emergency injunction and later ordered the campaign to stop using the classic at campaign events.
