I read a few days ago that Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver had refused to play at the Grammys, despite being nominated four times, so I thought, well may be I had misjudged the guy, would he actually be humble and have a noble reaction for once,… a sort of I-don't-give-a-shit-about-all-these honors?
But the interview he did with Billboard magazine during a Bushmills whiskey event in New York, reveals quite a different picture.
He was actually asked to perform as part of a performance with another artist, as he explained:
‘We wanted to play our music, but were told that we couldn't play. We had to do a collaboration with someone else’.
‘And we just felt like it was such a large stage — we're getting nominated for this record that we made. Me and Brian [Joseph] and a bunch of our fucking friends and we were given accolades for it, and all of a sudden we were being asked to play music that had nothing to do with that. We kind of said 'fuck you' a little bit, and they sort of acted like they wanted us to play, but I don't think they wanted us to play.’
So he refused to play! I mean you can refuse playing the Grammys if you think award shows are crap and are always rewarding the same usual millions-of-records-sellers suspects instead of recognizing true art. Sure, or you can refuse for any reason you like, but this doesn’t make Vernon look good, it simply looks like he didn’t want to share the stage with someone else. So may be this someone else was horrible? Nope! This is what he answered when asked who this artist was/were:
‘Awesome people. People that I would love to play a song with’
So what is his fucking problem???….and he continued:
‘But you know what? Fuckin' rock n' roll should not be decided by people that have that job. Rock n' roll should be the fucking people with guitars around their backs. And their friends. And their managers.’
Funny how he plays it all pissed-off till the end of the interview, with a series of fuck-fucking-shit words at each sentence, like he were some kind of big angry man! I am sorry but whatever this guy says or does, he does not look authentic,… he rather sounds like a big-ego-tool.