Cleveland (by way of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center) rocked last night, as it does every year, to the tune of aging rock stars being serenaded with accolade-by-committee as the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame held its annual induction ceremony. This year saw a healthy crop of new inductees entering into the hall’s hallowed, guitar-festooned walls, including N.W.A., Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple, and producer Bert Berns. But one new member was decidedly less excited to be honored: musical joker Steve Miller, who took a few minutes after the ceremony to speak, as is his wont, on the pompatus of suck.
“I don’t know why I was nominated for this, ” Miller told reporters after the ceremony. “I don’t get along with the people running it. When I found out about it, I felt like I was in a (expletive) reality TV show.” (That “expletive” comes courtesy of the Associated Press; feel free to play a game of Steve Miller Mad Libs if you want to plug a word in for yourself.) He also took the time to call out the “laziness” of the ceremony, and deride most of the people he’d just been performing “The Joker” and “Fly Like An Eagle” for as “fat cats.” “It’s not a real pleasant experience, to tell you the truth,” he added, along with “I really didn’t want to show up,” just in case anyone was still in doubt about his feelings on the event.
For its own part, the Hall Of Fame was sanguine about Miller’s statements—even if, secretly, they would have preferred he just take his induction and run—issuing the following comment in response: “Rock ’n’ roll can ignite many opinions. It’s what makes it so great. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was honored to induct Steve Miller last night.”