US military use Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ to promote war drones in now-deleted video
The United States military has used Metallica‘s ‘Enter Sandman’ without the band’s permission in a now-deleted video that promoted war drones.
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump‘s Secretary of Defence, posted the clip on X, which depicted their new approach to building military drones. Hegseth can be seen signing an order that will cut “bureaucratic red tape” to the tune of the massive hit.
Metallica’s lawyers acted fast. A spokesperson for the US Department of Defence (DoD) said: “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.”
As the military did not gain the consent of the band to use their song, and therefore equate their ideals to Trumpism, Hegseth was forced to remove the soundtrack.
In 2023, Donald Trump posted a campaign advert to his Truth Social account, which featured audio from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s film Air. Again, they did not consent to the audio before its usage. Consequently, the company released a statement that read, “We had no foreknowledge of, did not consent to and do not endorse or approve any footage or audio from Air being repurposed by the Trump campaign as a political advertisement or for any other use.”
The metal outfit consists of long-time members James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and bassist Robert Trujillo. They recently made headlines after playing for 60,000 fans, who were so enthralled by the performance that they caused a minor earthquake when reacting to the first bars of ‘Enter Sandman’.
In May, Metallica announced details of a huge stadium tour which will visit the UK and Europe in 2026. A portion of tickets sold will be donated to their All In My Hands foundation, which has raised millions for vital causes since its inception in 2017.
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