In the wake of US rapper Macklemore’s controversial removal from Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour following an onstage speech highlighting the plight of Palestinians affected by the conflict in Gaza, many musicians have felt obliged to make their own positions clear.
For some, this has meant declaring their own shows agenda-free zones, where political and social issues are never discussed onstage. And earlier this week, Metallica’s James Hetfield went viral for seeming to suggest that his band were mere entertainers, and that politics would play no part in their shows.
“Unless you live in Vegas, you’ve come a long way to spend some time with Metallica,” he told the crowd at the fourth of Metallica’s Life Burns Faster shows at Sphere in Las Vegas. “We’re grateful for that – your travels, the money you spend, the time it took. Thanks for coming to celebrate with us.”
“And I just gotta say, Metallica is not here, like some other entertainers, to influence you with their bullshit, OK? We are here, no bullshit. We’re here to forget about all the outside shit, OK?”
Now, a similar clip of Mötley Crüe‘s Nikki Sixx has gone viral.
“It does not matter to Mötley Crüe if you’re a Republican. It does not matter to Mötley Crüe if you’re a Democrat,” Sixx says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or if you’re straight or if you’re going right down the fucking centre of the lane of life cause we’re all in this together. Can we agree?”
It’s not clear when the clip was filmed, but Crüe finished their Return of the Carnival of Sins tour last month, and he delivered an almost identical speech in Charlotte, NC, in August.
“It doesn’t really matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, or if you’re gay or if you’re straight,” Sixx told the crowd at the Truliant Amphitheater. “It really doesn’t matter to us. All that really matters to us is that we’re all here together. Can we just start unifying the fucking world together? Can we do that?”
Sixx has said in the past that artists should be free to say whatever they like on social media as long as they keep their shows politics-free, while Crüe drummer Tommy Lee frequently uses X and other platforms to voice his opposition to US President Donald Trump.
“We have our beliefs, and inside of our own camp it’s not 100% all one way or another,” Sixx told NME in 2016. “We don’t really feel it’s necessarily something you want to stop in the middle of a rock show and say.”
“I’ve been quite vocal on my socials – I’m also very sarcastic most of the time, so I think people know where I stand, but, in America especially, we’re very divided. To have a fan feel that they have to choose their music because of the person they voted for, that is not fair to the music.”
Sixx’s sentiments were echoed by Rolling Stones‘ frontman Mick Jagger in July, during an episode of The New York Times’ podcast, The Interview.
“The bottom line is that my job in the live music world is to [make sure] people that come have the best time they possibly can,” he said. “And for two hours, forget all their problems and the problems of the world, their mortgages and whatever. Just so they can have the best time.
“Your job is to make them go more apeshit,” he continued. “You don’t want to lecture them.”
Nikki Sixx joins Metallica, says Motley Crue doesn’t care about your politics. https://t.co/g5LY6M0kMMOctober 14, 2026
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