Longtime E Street Band Member Nils Lofgren Pulls Music From Spotify, Encourages All Musicians to “Cut Ties” With Service

Nils Lofgren, a longtime guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, is among the musicians to pull music from Spotify in the wake of the streaming platform spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

He follows Neil Young, who announced Wednesday that he would remove his catalogue in protest of COVID vaccine misinformation being spread on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and Joni Mitchell, who followed in solidarity soon after.

Both musicians referred to an open letter sent to Spotify from 270 professionals in the scientific and medical communities, calling on the streaming service to address misinformation distributed on the platform.

In a statement shared to the Neil Young Archives on Saturday, Lofgren shared: “A few days ago, my wife and I became aware of Neil and Daryl [Hannah] standing with hundreds of health care professionals, scientists, doctors and nurses in calling out Spotify for promoting lies and misinformation that are hurting and killing people.”

Lofgren noted that 27 years of his music has been taken off the service and that he is also reaching out to labels that own his earlier music to have that removed as well. The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Spotify for comment.

“Neil and I go back 53 years,” Lofgren’s statement continued. “Amy and I are honored and blessed to call Neil and Daryl friends, and knew standing with them was the right choice.”

The rock artist encouraged “all musicians, artists and music lovers everywhere, to stand with us all, and cut ties with Spotify.” He went on to call music “our planet’s sacred weapon, uniting and healing billions of souls every day.”