The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach has said he regrets that he and his band-mate Patrick Carney agreed to induct Steve Miller into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last Friday night after the veteran rocker launched into an expletive-laden tirade against the industry.
The 72-year-old musician, who's best known for hits such as Space Cowboy and The Joker, attacked the music ceremony in interviews afterwards, calling it an “amateur production” and deriding music industry people as,
a bunch of jackasses and jerks and f***ing gangsters and crooks who’ve f***ing stolen everything from a f***ing artist.
"The whole process was unpleasant,’”Auerbach told Rolling Stone. “And for Pat and I, honestly, the most unpleasant part was being around him.”
To add insult to injury, Auerbach also claimed that Miller had no idea who the Black Keys were, and made no effort to find out. “Pat and I were both definitely disappointed, to say the least,” he said. “But you never really know what to expect when you meet quote-unquote ‘superstars’.”
Auerbach noted that while Miller had excoriated the Hall of Fame for being a “boy’s club”, not one of his own band’s 35 members over the years had been women.
Steve Miller takes questions in the press room after the event
The Black Keys' frontman said that he and Carney had been so upset by the experience they had left the Barclays Center in Brooklyn just after they had inducted Miller, indeed while he was still playing on stage.
“There’s a time and a place to stand up and be angry,” he continued. “But when people are honouring you for how great you are, that’s not the f***ing time or place. It was the only story everyone talked about … And I hated being a part of that. I hated the feeling in my gut of being connected to that negativity".
On the 'boys' club' issue, Kenny Lee Lewis of the Steve Miller Band later defended his boss. He revealed that his wife, Diane Steinberg Lewis, had been asked to join the band in 1983, but was unable to. He also revealed that the band had auditioned a woman in 2008.
He said that Miller had wanted an unnamed “very big rock star” friend to induct him into the Hall of Fame, but was told that he did not have the right to choose. “So Steve honestly did not know who the Black Keys were and frankly didn’t care and was extremely disappointed before he even showed up.”
Lewis also hit back at The Black Keys proving once again that nothing beats a good old Rock 'n Roll fued.
“And as for Mr Miller being called an asshole and boorish for his bully pulpit moment, you spineless non artists who said it, you are disqualified from being able to make such a statement because you’ve never stood inside a rock star's shoes nor have an inkling to what it's like to be abused and exploited".
Miller performs at the Rock n Roll Hall of fame event last Friday night
