‘BEYOND DEVASTATING’
Aerosmith drummer sues to return before Grammys
Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer doesn’t want to miss a thing — especially something as big as a major Grammy gig on Sunday.
So the founding has filed a lawsuit claiming singer Steven Tyler, guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford and bassist Tom Hamilton are treating him like a rag doll, keeping him out of the Boston-based group after he was briefly sidelined with a disability last year.
He says the “freeze-out” crossed a line when it extended to Sunday night’s Grammy show, where Aerosmith is set to perform a “career-spanning medley” after receiving the 2020 MusiCares Person of the Year award, the breach of contract complaint states.
“Being prohibited from playing with a band that I have given 50 years of my life to supporting, is beyond devastating,” Kramer, 69, said in a statement to the Daily News.
“This is not about money. 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.
“To be removed from my rightful place on stage to celebrate our success, a success that acknowledges my own life’s work, is just plain wrong,” he said.
Tyler and the other band members released a statement late Tuesday saying, “Joey Kramer is our brother; his well-being 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 6 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 said.
“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,” the statement said.
According to his 16-page complaint filed in Massachusetts state court, Kramer says the disability he suffered last year was minor, and he was ready to return to the group’s “lucrative” Las Vegas residency at the MGM Resorts a few months later, as well as its slate of “50th anniversary activities.”
Instead of being welcomed back, Kramer is cryin’ that he was informed he had to reaudition to prove he was able to “play at an appropriate level,” even though he never agreed to such a policy.
“It was an artificial, madeup and undefined ‘standard’ contained nowhere in the contracts and one to which no member had ever been held, formally or informally, in the history of Aerosmith,” his complaint states.
To “defuse the situation and prevent further acrimony” amid negotiations over his return, Kramer says he agreed to pay for a replacement drummer during the November and December Vegas residency run at an “exorbitant” cost of up to $20,000 per week.