Cedric Bixler-Zavala, vocalist for The Mars Volta, At The Drive In and several other music ventures, recently spoke out against digital service provider Spotify. Earlier this past week, Backline, a mental health and crisis support line for those in the music industry, partnered with Spotify for a mental health and songwriter summit held in Nashville, TN.
Given Spotify‘s controversial status in having financial ties to military tech, in addition to much decried royalty payout rates, and platforming controversial figures, the aforementioned partnership incensed Cedric. As seen on Reddit, the following post directed towards Backline over partnering with Spotify was shared via his Instagram story, and it found him excoriating both parties:
“With Spotify? How are we supposed to take you fucking serious? Ain’t nobody at Spotify give a fuck about mental health. Fuck outta hear with this shitty propaganda. This is like forced religious arbitrations with your gremlin abusers. Wake. The. Fuck. Up. While they sit there listening to your humanity, Spotify contributes financially to death of children via military war applications they invest in.”
A sizable protest against Spotify emerged in 2025 after word that the company’s co-founder, and now executive chairman, Daniel Ek, had been involved in leading a $693.6 million round of funding for Helsing via his venture capital firm Prima Materia last year. Objections to that funding came about from Helsing’s involvement in developing AI-based military applications. That very association alone saw numerous artists pull their music from the Spotify platform in protest
