Tom Morello claims he worked behind the scenes to remove Barclay as the Download Festival’s sponsor

It was particularly curious as to why Tom Morello, who was scheduled to perform at the event, wasn’t participating in the boycott since the start of the Download Festival due to Barclay’s bank sponsorship. Given Morello‘s lengthy history of left-wing activity, it seemed logical for him to be one of the musicians standing up to Barclays. Furthermore, it began to seem odd that Morello wasn’t at least endorsing the boycott when he made statements on his next single and his recent partnership with Def Leppard.

We now have an answer, as Morello finally spoke out about the issue following Barclays’ decision to halt all festival sponsorship due to the negative feedback. It seems like Morello has been putting in a lot of effort behind the scenes to have Barclays kicked out of the festival. 

But, like in all things, some were quick to attack in the comments section, with one person noting that Morello will still be playing the event and getting paid for it, while lesser-known musicians sacrificed their fee in the name of their beliefs. However Morello has been working hard on this problem considering how persistent he has been in his advocacy, and his behind-the-scenes lobbying may have had an even greater impact than the boycott itself. Anyway, the tale has a nice conclusion since Bands Boycott Barclays, the movement that started the boycott, thanked Morello in their Instagram story. A silver lining after all!