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Air Force songwriter apologises to White Stripes

By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 11 February 2010

The musician who wrote the music for that US Air Force advert, aired during the Superbowl last weekend, has issued an apology to The White Stripes after the duo complained that it sounded very similar to their song ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’. Actually, their complaint was that it was just an instrumental version of that song, but songwriter Kem Kraft says the similarity is entirely unintentional.

As previously reported, The White Stripes issued a statement this week, in which they said: “We believe our song was re-recorded and used without permission of The White Stripes, our publishers, label or management. The White Stripes take strong insult and objection to the Air Force Reserves presenting this advert with the implication that we licensed one of our songs to encourage recruitment during a war that we do not support”.

However, Kraft told The New York Times yesterday: “I’m sorry it sounds the same. It wasn’t my intention, truly, truly, truly. [If they] want to call me and talk to me, as far as I’m concerned, I’m responsible for this. Just me. I’m pretty much a one-man band here. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Air Force. They didn’t know anything, and I didn’t know anything either”.

Reiterating this, Mike Lee, the owner of Fast Forward Productions, who made the advert, said: “We went back and forth on the song several times. We changed stuff quite a bit, just to match the tempo of how I cut it together. I wasn’t familiar with the White Stripes song. I’ve heard of the White Stripes but I’m not a listener of theirs. I had no idea there was similarity until after the fact”.

The White Stripes are yet to respond to these comments.