Food In The Belly and White Moth continued on this tangent, embracing themes of family and mother earth, all the while being assisted by Rudd’s trademark melodies and that slide guitar he has made his own. Since his hugely popular, breakthrough 2003 album, Solace, Rudd has been writing summer anthems consistently seeking inspiration from the most basic and natural elements at his disposal. He’s even happy to delve into the fairly hectic personal stuff he has had to go through in the past couple of years, describing it with honesty and grace. While it may be subtle, Rudd has continually striven to re-invent himself with almost every album, while staying true to his favoured blues and roots genre.Īnd just in case anyone was wondering, Rudd is exactly how you think he would be polite, easy going and just a fucking cool dude. In recent times, however, with different fashions and phases coming and going, roots-folk doesn’t quite have the same hype surrounding it that it may have had earlier this decade, which is a shame as Xavier Rudd’s music is stronger than ever (last year’s performance at Falls Festival was especially monolithic). Kids loved his easy-on-the-ears dreadlock-folk-surf tunes, the oldies loved his political and environmental conscious and those that hadn’t seen him just enjoyed the spectacle of seeing one little man make such a big noise.
Rudd has not responded to any of the criticism on social media, nor has he released a statement explaining how ‘Let Me Be’ came to be included in the ad.At one stage a few years ago, Xavier Rudd was firmly positioned at the top end of almost every festival he was invited to attend. “Maybe after so many years of believing in him I’d like to hope we can trust and support him and hold disbelief in this? That should come before doubt, anger and such sharp judgement without even hearing an answer first?”Īt the moment, fans don’t have much of an answer. “I think we should perhaps take a moment, take a step back… maybe we should consider how devastated he might be right now, knowing that one of his songs that he has shared with us is being slaughtered by the one thing he hates?” wrote one fan. However, some fans have come out to defend Rudd, suggesting the songwriter may have been completely unaware that his song was being used in a fast-food commercial and that it could be the work of whoever owns the publishing rights to the track. Shame in you.” The controversy appears to be ongoing, with fans slamming the singer’s social media posts with criticism about the KFC association. Care to explain why?” wrote another, while many echoed this fan’s simple sentiment: “WTF?”Ĭutting particularly deep was one fan who commented, “Ironic that you newest song is called ‘Shame’…. “Why are you supporting Kentucky fried cruelty? Thought you were an animal protector… you have lost my faith in you and probably many others.
“Please tell me you didn’t sell rights to let me be to be played on the KFC ad… BIG downfall,” wrote one disappointed fan. The commercial debuted last month, immediately triggering a wave of criticism towards the singer. The multi-national factory-farmed chicken fast food giant and enemy of all things vegetarian decided to use Rudd’s bouncy, uplifting 2004 tune in an ad promoting their alliance with Australian cricket, much to the chagrin of Rudd’s fans. However, fans of the animal-loving Rudd have taken to social media en masse to express their surprise and disappointment with the singer-songwriter after hearing ‘Let Me Be’, one of his signature tunes, in a commercial for KFC.