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Black Keys regret inducting Steve Miller into Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame

By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 14 April 2016

Don’t meet your heroes, they say. And in this specific case that should be updated to: don’t induct your heroes into the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame. Sadly, that update comes too late for The Black Keys, who were on inducting duties for Steve Miller last Friday.

While Gene Simmons and NWA were scoring headlines with their post-Hall Of Fame dispute, Miller was also drawing media attention thanks to him having not a nice word to same about anyone. Particularly the organisers of the ceremony.

So focussed was he on his anger about the event, that he forgot to be courteous to Black Keyers Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney, who had come all the way to the induction ceremony especially to talk him up before he took to the stage.

“I guess we felt, I don’t know, we read a lot of things and we got a really uncomfortable feeling when we first met Steve”, Auerbach told Rolling Stone. “He had no idea who we were. No idea. The first thing he told us was, ‘I can’t wait to get out of here’. He knew that we signed up to do this speech for him. And he made no effort to even… he didn’t even figure out who we were. I don’t live in New York City. This is like three days out of my life flying from Nashville and leaving my kids at home”.

“Pat and I both regret it”, he continued. “It’s unfortunate. Of course there are problems in the music industry. Of course. But we were there, unpaid, on our own free will, to come celebrate his achievements and spread the joy of rock n roll. To inspire kids to pick up guitars. To play music. And it felt like we were doing the opposite”.

Read Auerbach’s full Q&A on the incident here, and watch Miller’s rant here: