Despite being the frontman of a band that pretty much everyone agrees bit their sound from a whole host of different bands and artists that came before them, The Killers vocalist Brandon Flowers is pretty vocal about plagiarism.
Flowers recently spoke to NME about the much-publicised ‘Blurred Lines’ verdict, which saw Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams forced to pay $7 million to the estate of Marvin Gaye for ripping off the singer’s 1977 hit ‘Got To Give It Up’.
In the interview, Flowers claimed that he “agrees 150 percent” with the verdict, which unlike most copyright infringement cases, was decided by a jury. Flowers added that there are “so many bands who should get sued”.
“I’m so sick of hearing people steal. I hate it,” said the frontman, who releases his second solo album this month. “I hear it all the time, but I’m not gonna tell you which bands. I won’t because I don’t wanna start a whole thing.”
It’s at this point that we have to make like Seth Meyers and ask, “Really?” Seriously, though, Brandon Flowers, really? You’re sick of hearing people steal and think that there are “so many bands who should get sued”?
Have you forgotten how you openly admitted to biting the bass line from David Bowie’s ‘Slow Burn’ for The Killers’ 2005 hit ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’? And no, you didn’t say that you just ‘took inspiration’ from it.
“We also took the bassline from a David Bowie song called ‘Slow Burn’, from Heathen, although enough time has probably passed now that I think he probably won’t sue us!” Flowers said back in 2013.
Just for context, there was a three-year gap between ‘Slow Burn’ and ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’, the gap between ‘Blurred Lines’ and ‘Got To Give It Up’ was 36 years. And that’s not the only time The Killers have sounded oddly similar to another artist.
Indeed, The Killers have something of a long track record of plagiarism and alleged plagiarism. Many outlets noted similarities between the band’s 2012 song ‘Runaways’ and Bruce Spingsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’, as well as The Killer’s ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’ and Richard Marx’s ‘Hazard’.
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While all of this makes Flowers look like something of a hypocrite, the bigger issue at hand is the fact that one of the people most affected by the ‘Blurred Lines’ trial, i.e. a musician, is actually in favour of the potentially dangerous precedent it sets.
Already, we’ve seen a dispute over Mark Ronson’s ‘Uptown Funk’ settle out of court, with one of the stakeholders admitting that the ‘Blurred Lines’ verdict has made the music industry extra nervous about such matters.
But hey, if Flowers reckons artists should be sued for borrowing a song’s “vibe” then we’re sure he’ll be chuffed when he gets a call from David Bowie’s lawyers, or Bruce Sprinsteen’s, or Joy Divison’s, or Duran Duran’s, or… well, you get the idea.
