A Seattle indie music band that played last week between periods of the city's Kraken NHL team at Climate Pledge Arena said it was not allowed to play at more matches as previously planned due to a song they sang criticizing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Geek Wire has reported.
Instead, the band, called Who Is She? expressed disappointment at Kraken management, which implied that drinking alcohol and unprofessional behavior was the reason they were "disinvited" from performing at more games.
Amazon holds naming rights for the Kraken's arena, and its CEO is a minority Kraken owner, according to The Seattle Times.
The lines of the song included, "Oh no, Jeffrey Bezos. He's such a total jerk. Shut down, all the bookstores. Billionaires do not work."
The hockey team issued a statement that "the Seattle Kraken welcomes a variety of artists to play at our games, and we do not believe in censoring those artists, as is reflected by the variety of acts who perform at Climate Pledge Arena ... this decision was not related to the band's choice of song. We require that our artists are professional, punctual and avoid consuming alcohol during their performance. As such, Who Is She? did not play the following two games. We wish them well."
The four musicians who were performing told the Seattle Times that "a Kraken employee pulled us aside after our second set where we played that song. That's when they told us we were not welcome back.
"They didn't give us any specific reason except that we 'weren't a good fit for hockey.' When we asked if it was the Bezos line, they said 'that didn't help.'
The musicians also said they were not drunk during the performance, "and saying that we were would be a lie. We imagine that's why the Kraken's carefully worded PR statement only implies that we were rather than actually accusing us."
However, the group admitted that "after we were fired, we did drink the five Coors Lights we had previously avoided in the 'green room' fridge."
The musicians explained that the criticism at Bezos was part of a modified version of the 1999 song "My My Metrocard" by Le Tigre, which had poked fun at then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, with the song played at the Kraken game intended as a localized version.
"Since it's a cover song, our intent was to come up with a good couple lines to replace the 1999 Le Tigre lyrics to make it more specific to Seattle," the group said. "Replacing Rudy Giuliani's name with Jeff Bezos made sense to us, and his arena seemed like a great place to say it. We thought it was funny and well-received.
"We doubt an actual billionaire — or anyone who is paid or sponsored by said billionaire — feels that four women playing a cover song that contained a tame joke is capable of doing any damage whatsoever."
The musicians added that "we even cut out the few curse words from our set despite the fact that we were never asked to."
In addition, they said their onstage persona is of "women who laugh a lot and like to have fun" and told the Seattle Times that portraying that as inebriation or a lack of professionalism is a type of "coded, sexist language" they had dealt with earlier in their careers.
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