Campaign to get Eagles of Death Metal to #1 in UK

To “show solidarity against terrorism and support for peace”, UK fans have begun a campaign to get Eagles of Death Metal’s cover of Duran Duran’s Save A Prayer to the top of the UK charts.

The US band lost their merchandising manager Nick Alexander at their show at the Le Bataclan concert hall in Paris when gunmen stormed in and took the lives of between 80 to 100 fans.

Duran Duran have also joined the campaign, by donating all publishing royalties of their song (from 1982’s Rio album) to “the people of France” through an unnamed charity. Simon Le Bon said last night, “(We are) considering options that are useful, peaceful and uniting.”

Earlier this month the two bands performed the song together on the British TV show TFI Friday.

The Facebook campaign, which has already received 11,000 supporters, is at https://www.facebook.com/eodmforno1/timeline.

The post reads: “We thought it would be a nice gesture to put their brilliant version of Save A Prayer to the UK No 1 spot as a show of support to the band and all of those affected.

“For the record no we aren’t associated with the band or their record company, we’re just fans of them that feel happy to be alive, as some of our fellow EODM fans are tragically not now.”

The post, obviously made before Duran Duran’s offer, added, “Royalties we assume would go to Duran Duran as they wrote the song but that’s not the point of this campaign. This is not for profit or financial gain, just to make a strong statement.”

UK fans will have to wait until Friday November 20 to see if the campaign has been successful, when the official UK chart is released. The midweek charts saw it enter at #96. So far, Save A Prayer (from EODM’s Zipper Down album) has topped the Amazon rock chart and iTunes Rock chart, and #35 on the iTunes’ main chart.

Eagles of Death Metal have not made an official comment.

In the latest superstar acts to pull out of European dates, Prince last night postponed his 16 shows “until further notice” while Rudimental and Years & Years have axed their tours. As reported in TMN, they follow the likes of U2 and Foo Fighters.