Scott Borchetta, Big Machine Label Group‘s founder and president-CEO, has defended the company’s decision to release STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis‘s latest solo single, “Am I The Only One”, which takes aim at liberals and touches on American flags burning and statues that have been removed in the country.
Borchetta‘s comments came in reponse to industry blogger Bob Lefsetz, who slammed Lewis’s song as “heinous.” Lefsetz went on to call Lewis a “middle-class, right-wing wanker” whose divisive track “should have been played at CPAC, in between speeches by nitwits like saying to refuse the ‘Fauci ouchie.'”
Lefsetz reprinted Borchetta‘s letter in which the label head wrote in part: “Firstly, I believe in the First Amendment. My job has never been to tell my artists what to sing and write about.
“Aaron Lewis and I have political disagreements. But there are also things we agree on. I think that’s the foundation for the idea of our country. It doesn’t work if we’re so divided that we can’t reach across the aisle, have a conversation or an argument, and ultimately, shake hands. If we can’t do that, and this moment is so divisive, we may never get our country back.
“Let it be a wake up call to reps and dems alike — be loud and be heard!” Borchetta said. “It woke you up. It inspired you to make a statement. It worked. And it’s working. It’s inspiring conversation.”
“Am I The Only One”, which Lewis wrote with Ira Dean and Jeffrey Steele, was released earlier this month and topped the Hot Country Songs chart on Billboard last week. As of this past Tuesday, it was the No. 4 country song on iTunes.
Lewis sings in the song’s chorus: “I’m not the only one, willin’ to fight / For my love of the red and white / And the blue, burnin’ on the ground / Another statue comin’ down in a town near you.” Lewis also criticizes Bruce Springsteen at the end of the track, singing: “Am I the only one who quits singin’ along every time they play a Springsteen song.”
Springsteen can best be described as Lewis‘s political polar opposite, having been a vocal opponent to former U.S. president Donald Trump on many occasions. Last August, Bruce went as far as to allow the use of his song “The Rising” in a video that aired during night one of the Democratic National Convention.
Lewis, who is widely considered to be one of the most politically conservative musicians in rock, told the Anchorage Press in a January 2020 interview that he considered the first Trump impeachment by the House Of Representatives as the clearest representation of what’s wrong with America these days.
Lewis was a staunch critic of President Barack Obama, telling a crowd at one of his solo concerts in 2016: “Barack Obama should have been impeached a long fucking time ago. Every fucking decision he makes is against the Constitution, it’s against what’s good for our fucking country, and he is truly the worst fucking president that we have ever had in the history of this fucking country.”
That same year, Lewis told Billboard that he would support Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race, even though he was “disappointed” by the real estate mogul “with the bickering and the name-calling.” Lewis added that he voted for Senator Ted Cruz, Trump‘s closest competitor in the Republican nomination race, in the Massachusetts primary.
Last month, Lewis made headlines when he accused the U.S. Democratic Party of fighting against every major civil rights initiative and of having a long history of discrimination.
