“I have been working with people who have been sponsoring the boycotts. I've been throwing tantrums right, left and centre. There are a lot of different levers to push for the end of the war crimes happening in the Middle East, and one of them is this. I'm entirely supportive of the acts that have pulled out, and I don't believe that a company like Barclays, given their financial ties to war crimes, has any place at a metal festival, period. I'm hopeful that Barclays will not be sponsor by the end of the day. I've had some encouraging information about that, so we'll see.”
It's 3pm on Thursday, June 13 and, ahead of soundcheck for a headline show with his new band at London's Electric Ballroom, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello is sitting in a North London hotel discussing the fact that a number of hardcore, metal and crossover bands - Zulu, Scowl, Ithaca, Speed and Pest Control among them - have, within the past 72 hours, announced their intention to boycott Download in solidarity with the people of Palestine, due to the fact that Barclays bank, the festival's 'Official Payment Partner', provides financial services to companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel.
This is not the first instance this summer that bands have spoken out in opposition to Barclays sponsorship of arts and music festivals, as the death toll in Gaza, caused by Israel's response to the October 7 Hamas attack on 22 locations in Israel, mounts. In the immediate wake of the Hamas assault, during which more than 1,160 Israeli citizens, mostly civilians, were killed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to inflict an “unprecedented price” on Hamas: by mid-May, the United Nations published third-party estimates that more than 34,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in response, including over 14,500 children.
Last month, more than 100 artists boycotted Then Great Escape festival in Brighton due to Barclays' sponsorship of the festival, and earlier this week, the acclaimed Irish doom-folk band Lankum revealed that they had signed a letter asking Latitude festival to drop Barclays as their sponsor, and had been in discussions with other acts on the issues involved, stating that they “firmly believe that collective action is the most effective action.” A number of Irish bands - Pillow Queens, Thumper and CMAT among them - had already stated their intention to boycott the Suffolk-based weekender, with Dublin singer/songwriter CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) stating on Instagram that her decision was taken after learning that Barclays “has invested over £100 million into General Dynamics which provides gun systems to the fighter jets which are being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.”
“Let me be clear,” Thompson's statement continued, “There is a genocide happening in Palestine right now. All I can do as a citizen is turn up to as many demonstrations as possible and try to follow the advice of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] boycott list as closely as I possibly can. This falls under that action. I hope that as many of you reading this as possible will choose to show your solidarity with the Palestinian people in whatever way you can."
Barclays, of course, are not the only financial institution who handle accounts for defence contractors and munitions manufacturers, but the fact that the bank has been actively increasing its investments in companies which other institutions have divested from in recent years due to ethical concerns, has made them a focus for protests.
