Executable Spring Boot ClassNotFound - spring-boot-maven-plugin

Question

if I set my jar as executable (via)
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>${springboot.version}</version>
<configuration>
<!--<executable>true</executable>-->
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>repackage</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
My app will die with the following error:
Exception in thread "http-nio-8080-exec-4" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/log4j/spi/ThrowableInformation
at org.apache.log4j.spi.LoggingEvent.<init>(LoggingEvent.java:165)
at org.apache.log4j.Category.forcedLog(Category.java:391)
at org.apache.log4j.Category.log(Category.java:856)
at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerAdapter.log(Log4jLoggerAdapter.java:581)
at org.slf4j.bridge.SLF4JBridgeHandler.callLocationAwareLogger(SLF4JBridgeHandler.java:221)
at org.slf4j.bridge.SLF4JBridgeHandler.publish(SLF4JBridgeHandler.java:303)
at java.util.logging.Logger.log(Logger.java:738)
at java.util.logging.Logger.doLog(Logger.java:765)
at java.util.logging.Logger.logp(Logger.java:1042)
at org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog.log(DirectJDKLog.java:181)
at org.apache.juli.logging.DirectJDKLog.error(DirectJDKLog.java:147)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1472)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
^CException in thread "pool-1-thread-1" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/logging/log4j/message/ParameterizedMessage
at org.apache.logging.log4j.message.ParameterizedNoReferenceMessageFactory.newMessage(ParameterizedNoReferenceMessageFactory.java:104)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.message.AbstractMessageFactory.newMessage(AbstractMessageFactory.java:75)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.spi.AbstractLogger.logMessage(AbstractLogger.java:2010)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.spi.AbstractLogger.logIfEnabled(AbstractLogger.java:1884)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.spi.AbstractLogger.error(AbstractLogger.java:793)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.core.util.DefaultShutdownCallbackRegistry.run(DefaultShutdownCallbackRegistry.java:76)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.logging.log4j.message.ParameterizedMessage
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:381)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
at org.springframework.boot.loader.LaunchedURLClassLoader.loadClass(LaunchedURLClassLoader.java:94)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
However if I just remove the executable section from the pom (and change nothing else) it all works fine.
I'm trying to run my app as a service on RHEL.
SpringBoot version 1.5.3.RELEASE
Any ideas?
Cheers!