Bon Iver and frontman Justin Vernon have said ‘fuck you’ to the organisers of The Grammys who offered them a chance to play at the awards ceremony but only if they collaborated with another artist who was more well known.
The group shot to fame with their sophomore album Bon Iver, Bon Iver, scoring them four Grammys nominations and peaking at #2 on the Billboard Charts in the US and ARIA Charts here in Australia, as well as in the top 10 in nine other countries.
But despite shipping over 350,000 copies in the US alone organisers at The Grammys felt the group were too unknown to perform on their own at the ceremony which takes place this weekend on February 12th.
In an interview with Billboard, Vernon detailed why his group turned down the offer explaining “We kind of said ‘f**k 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.”
“We wanted to play our music,” he continued. “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… 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.”
“The suggested collaborators were people that I would love to play a song with. But you know what? F**kin’ rock ‘n’ roll should not be decided by people that have that job. Rock ‘n’ roll should be the f**king people with guitars around their backs. And their friends. And their managers.”
Bon Iver are travelling to Australia later this year in March to headline the Golden Plains Festival in Victoria.
