Aerosmith Drama: Judge Rules Against Joey Kramer Rejoining Band for Grammy Gigs
Aerosmith’s Joey Kramer and his legal request to be reinstated in the band for their upcoming Grammy performances have been denied in court.
Per TMZ, the judge assigned to the legal matter said Kramer “didn’t make a convincing enough case” for the drummer to be included during Aerosmith’s performances during the MusiCares Person of the Year Gala or the Grammy Awards telecast. The judge also said, “Given that Kramer has not played with the band in six months and the dearth of available rehearsal time before the upcoming performances, Kramer has not shown a realistic alternative course of action sufficient to protect the band’s business interests.”
Aerosmith has declined to comment on the ruling referring to it as “a family matter.”
News broke earlier yesterday (January 21) via TMZ that Kramer filed suit against Aerosmith accusing them of not letting him back into the band after he recovered from injuries in the spring of 2019. Kramer alleged that once he recovered from his injuries, he was forced to audition “to prove he was able to play at an appropriate level” before rejoining Aerosmith on stage. The audition consisted of a number of recorded solo rehearsals with a click track, not with the band, and then the band would listen back to the recordings to determine whether he would be allowed back in the band. Kramer says no other bandmember has had to go through an audition process like this in the history of the band, despite each member having to step away from the band at some point during their five decades together.
In the statement submitted to People, the band 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 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.”
The band continued, “Joey has now waited until the last moment to accept our invitation, when we unfortunately have no time for necessary rehearsals during Grammys week. 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.”
Aerosmith will be honored this Friday (January 24) at the 2020 MusiCares Person of the Year gala and is set to perform at the Grammy Awards taking place this Sunday (January 26.)
GALLERY: Aerosmith Performing During the Super Bowl XXXV Halftime Show
