[M]Pearl Jam[/M] promoted their recent Missoula, Montana concert Monday with a [M]poster that depicted[/M] the White House on fire and [M]a bald eagle picking at President Donald Trump’s corpse[/M].
Matt Volz
Associated Press
HELENA, Mont. — Republicans are condemning a poster by Pearl Jam that shows the White House in flames and a bald eagle pecking at a skeleton they say is meant to depict President Donald Trump.
But Pearl Jam's bassist, Jeff Ament, is unapologetic, issuing a statement Wednesday saying he was the "sole conceptualist" for the poster. He said the role of an artist is to make people think and feel, and the current administration has people thinking and feeling.
He says he welcomes all interpretations and discourse and ends with, "Love, from the First Amendment, Jeff Ament."
But the National Republican Senate Committee and Montana Senate candidate Matt Rosendale both compared the poster to the now-infamous photo of the comedian Kathy Griffin holding a fake decapitated Trump head.
The rock group's Twitter account says the official poster from the rock group's Missoula, Montana, show Monday is a collaboration between Ament and artist Bobby Brown, also known as Bobby Draws Skulls.
The "Rock2Vote" concert aimed to encourage young people to vote in the November midterm elections and support Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who is from Ament's hometown of Big Sandy.
The poster includes an accompanying message from Ament that says, "Y'all know the deal, we're at a tipping point and its (sic) time for action."
The poster shows Tester in a tractor flying over a burning Washington, D.C., framed by the letters "P'' and "J," with smoke forming the word "Vote" in the background. Several objects and people are in the foreground, including a skeleton with a full head of hair lying face down, an eagle pecking at the bones of its foot.
Tester's Republican opponent, Montana State Auditor Matt Rosendale, also is depicted with a crab claw for a hand and carrying a "Maryland" flag, a reference to Rosendale's native state.