Tom Waits Set To Sue

Thu 21st Apr, 2005 in International News

Tom Waits, the gravelly-voiced American musician and all-round weird artist has taken legal advice after fans contacted his label to enquire about a song that appears in a Scandinavian advert for car manufacturer Opel. It turned out that Waits was not the artist in the sound-alike commercial.

The ad featured a song containing the singer’s trademark odd instrumentation, as well as an impersonator mimicking Waits’s unique vocal style.

Waits issued the following statement, following discussions with his legal advisors:

“In answer to the many queries I have received: No, I did not do the Opel car commercial currently running on TV in Scandinavia. I have a long-standing policy against my voice or music being used in commercials and I have lawyers over there investigating my options. But I got to tell you, it doesn’t look good. This is the third car ad, after Audi in Spain and Lancia in Italy.

“If I stole an Opel, Lancia or Audi, put my name on it and resold it, I’d go to jail. But over there they ask, you say no, and they hire impersonators. They profit from the association, and I lose time, money and credibility. What’s that about?

“Commercials are an unnatural use of my work… it’s like having a cow’s udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating.”

As Waits’s statement suggests, this isn’t the first lawsuit the singer has brought against those seeking to trade off his image and reputation. In 1992, he went to court against snackfood manufacturer Frito-Lay Inc over an illegal use of his tune Step Right Up in one of their ads. The singer won, as he did in 1994 when he sued his own song publisher for allowing the use of the track Ruby’s Arms in a jeans ad. In 2000, a Spanish court ruled that an Audi advert had used his track Innocent When You Dream illegally.

The singer is notoriously against artists using their work in adverts. As he said of another famous performer, “If Michael Jackson wants to work for Pepsi, why doesn’t he just get himself a suit and an office in their headquarters and be done with it.”

Tickets for the famously reclusive singer’s only UK date last year changed hands for up to $1700.