Exclusive: Getaway Plan denied sample for ’Dark Horses’

Rod Stewart refused to loan the chorus from his 1981 track Young Turks for The Getaway Plan’s latest release.

The now wholly independent band released their third LP Dark Horses earlier this month, making it the band's highest ever ARIA debut and their first entry into the Top 10 at #10.

The 11-track long-player was originally set to include the track Lost In The Woods, which they had recorded late last year with producer/Gatherer band member Sam K.

The band’s frontman Matthew Wright told TMN the track didn’t directly sample Young Turks, rather he sang the chorus himself. However, when the band sent Rod Stewart’s representatives an email in October requesting clearance, they were advised the song could not be included at the time.

“We were like ‘Fuck it we’re just going to go ahead and do it’,” said Wright. “[We] mastered it and then a week or two after we mastered it they said no.”

The Melbourne band even went so far as to offer Stewart 100% of the royalties and offered to mark the track down as a cover. 

“To me [being refused is] flattering almost,” Wright told TMN. “That we would have a song that could potentially interfere with something. If it was shit they’d just be like ‘pfft go for it’.”

Ultimately Lost In The Woods was replaced by track 10 on the album, Monuments. Monuments was lifted from the band's acoustic EP, which they released exclusively for those who took part in their PledgeMusic crowdfunding campaign. 

Owen Ellis said Lost In The Woods “will see the light of day one day”. He hinted the band might release it as a free download in the future.

The news follows the release of A$AP Rocky’s track Everyday, which features Miguel. The track, produced by Mark Ronson, samples Rod Stewart’s single In A Broken Dream. Since Everyday’s release in June Australian singer-songwriter (and now also a journalist) David Bentley has been receiving royalties from the track; he wrote In A Broken Dream for Python Lee Jackson in 1970 and brought in Rod Stewart as an un-credited session singer.

The song was a hit in 1972 in the UK and the US, peaking at #3 on the UK chart and #56 in the US. Stewart’s re-recording of the track with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones was eventually released in 2009 as part of The Rod Stewart Sessions 1971-1998.