Heavy metal band Metallica forced the Pentagon to remove one of its songs from a video promoting the Trump administration's expanded drone program.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a video posted on X, Thursday, explained how his department is carrying out President Donald Trump's recent executive order to "unleash American drone dominance."
The video originally featured Metallica's 1991 hit "Enter Sandman" as its soundtrack, but it was later taken down and reposted without the song. According to Rolling Stone, a Metallica representative confirmed that the track was used without the band's permission.
A Pentagon spokesperson addressed the issue in a statement Friday.
"This afternoon, representatives from X reached out to DoD regarding a video posted to our social media page and asked that the video be removed due to a copyright issue with the song 'Enter Sandman' by Metallica. The video has been taken down, corrected, and re-uploaded to our page," the statement read, according to the Independent.
In the two-minute clip shot outside the Pentagon, Hegseth praises the Trump administration for cutting "bureaucratic red tape" in military drone production, while a buzzing quadcopter hovers beside him carrying a memo.
"Here's the memo we're signing today, delivered via drone," he says before signing it. The re-uploaded version of the video no longer has any background music.
Metallica has previously tried to distance itself from the U.S. military. In a 2013 Esquire interview, the Navy SEAL who shot Osama Bin Laden revealed that interrogators in Iraq initially used the band's music to unsettle detainees.
"When we first started the war in Iraq, we were using Metallica music to soften people up before we interrogated them. Metallica got wind of this and they said, 'Hey, please don't use our music because we don't want to promote violence,'" the SEAL said.
"I thought, Dude, you have an album called 'Kill 'Em All.' But we stopped using their music," he added.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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