Why Tom Waits hates advertising firms: “Painful and humiliating”
Although some of his material, including much of Rain Dogs, could be described as commercially leaning, Tom Waits is dignified as an uncompromising artist in an age of globalised greed. Beyond gravelly voice and New Age poetry, Waits is bound to contemporaries like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan by a romantic quest for truth against the grain of bureaucracy and the mass media.
This quest brought Dylan face to face with warmongers in the 1960s in a battle echoed by Waits’ steadfast opposition to advertising firms two decades later. Granted, the musician requires competent marketing campaigns to earn from his creative produce, but a line must be drawn. Waits believes that a degree of artistic honesty is surrendered when creative material is used to promote a product in the mass media.
“Commercials are an unnatural use of my work,” he once remarked. “It’s like having a cow’s udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating.”
Like most popular musicians, Waits has been swamped by requests to have his music used in advertisements over the past five decades. Valuing his dignity over an easy cash grab, Waits has managed to keep his music from the jaws of advertising corporations.
“I get it all the time, and they offer… a whole lot of money,” Waits added on the topic. “Unfortunately, I don’t want to get on the bandwagon. You know, when a guy is singing to me about toilet paper – you may need the money but, I mean, rob a 7-11! Do something with dignity and save us all the trouble of peeing on your grave.”
Although Waits has never signed his music off for degrading TV ads, he once offered his unique voice to a dog food commercial in 1981. At the time, he was 32 years old and soon came to regret his actions as inconsistent with his public image. In 2005, Waits told NPR News that he’d “rather have a hot lead enema” than humour the advertising world again.
Despite his public scrutiny of the advertising industry, Waits has long grappled with the inexhaustible determination of advertising firms and resultant lawsuits. Most notably, in 1988, the songwriter was approached by Tracy-Locke, a firm representing Frito-Lay at the time. They wanted to use Waits’ song ‘Step Right Up’ to advertise Salsa Rio Doritos on the radio; needless to say, Waits swiftly declined.
Stubborn executives at Tracy-Locke instead hired a Waits sound-alike to soundtrack the advert. Despite legal dissuasion, Frito-Lay decided to use the Waits sound-alike over an innocuous voice. Waits was blissfully unaware for several months, but the widely distributed commercial couldn’t evade his ears forever.
Waits allegedly first heard the commercial while visiting a Los Angeles radio station to discuss his recent album, Franks Wild Years. Initially, he questioned whether it was, in fact, his own voice he heard, but after a few phone calls, it became clear part of his identity had been stolen.
Enraged, Waits launched a legal case against Frito-Lay and notified friends and family that he hadn’t sold out. “Part of my character and personality and image that I have cultivated is that I do not endorse products,” Waits noted. “Whoever was going to hear this and obviously identify the voice would also identify that Tom Waits, in fact, had agreed to do a commercial for Doritos.”
“It embarrassed me,” he continued. “I had to call all my friends, that if they hear this thing, please be informed this is not me. I was on the phone for days. I also had people calling me saying, ‘Gee, Tom, I heard the new Doritos ad…’”
Initially, Waits’ legal case encountered a hurdle in the fact that the rights to ‘Step Right Up’ belonged to his former label, Asylum Records. However, the artist emerged triumphant when the court ordered Frito-Lay to pay Waits $2.6 million in damages.
Discussing the case with Newsweek in 1999, Waits joked about how he spent the cash. “Two and a half million bucks? Spent it all on candy,” he said. “My mom told me I was foolish. I’ve always been foolish when it comes to money…”
Watch Tom Waits’ 1981 dog food commercial below.
