Aerosmith responds to Joey Kramer’s lawsuit when he allegedly accused the band is preventing him from joining them for their upcoming appearance in conjunction with this weekend’s Grammy Awards.
In a statement to People, the other four Aerosmith members said, “Joey Kramer is our brother; his wellbeing is of paramount importance to us. However, he has not been emotionally and physically able to perform with the band, by his own admission, for the last six months. We have missed him and have encouraged him to rejoin us to play many times but apparently, he has not felt ready to do so.”
“Joey has now waited until the last moment to accept our invitation, when we, unfortunately, have no time for necessary rehearsals during Grammys week,” the statement continued. “We would be doing a disservice to him, to ourselves and to our fans to have him play without adequate time to prepare and rehearse. Compounding this, he chose to file a lawsuit on the Friday night of the holiday weekend preceding the Grammys with total disregard for what is our limited window to prepare to perform these important events. Given his decisions, he is, unfortunately, unable to perform but of course, we have invited him to be with us for both the Grammys and our MusiCares honor. We are bonded together by much more than our time on stage.”
Just recently, it was reported that Kramer was suing Aerosmith after he failed an audition to join them — he was required to audition for them to know if he is fit to perform with the band due to the injury he sustained last spring. Aerosmith will be celebrated this weekend by the Recording Academy, first as the recipients of MusiCares’ Person of the Year Award, followed by a performance during the Grammy Awards.
“I am being deprived of the opportunity to be recognized along with my peers, for our collective, lifetime contributions to the music industry,” he said in a statement. “The fact that I would be asked to audition for my own job, demonstrate that I can play at ‘an appropriate level’ and play better than my temporary fill-in with a moving target of made-up standards is both insulting and upsetting. … But I did it, and I did it well. In Aerosmith’s 50-year history, no other band member has ever been subjected to this scrutiny, let alone be asked to audition for his own job!”
An anonymous source confirmed to People that Kramer had to audition because he had failed to appear during rehearsals.
“They had been inviting him to come back for the last six months since he’s been away for whatever medical situation he’s been dealing with,” the source revealed. “He said ‘Yes, I’ll come and rehearse’ and kept not showing up. On the eve of the Grammys and MusiCares, he wanted to be back.”
Kramer, though, complied to audition, but, the source added “They all got on the phone with him after they heard the demo and talked it through with him. They voted as a band, which they do with every decision, and it was four to one. They said, ‘Please come to MusiCares and Grammys. We’ll take photos and celebrate. You’re our brother. They just don’t want to risk a performance because he hasn’t been with them in six months.”