Aerosmith Issues a Statement Regarding Drummer Joey Kramer’s Lawsuit Against the Band

There’s some ugliness in the Aerosmith camp this week regarding drummer Joey Kramer.

On Tuesday, it was reported that Kramer had filed a lawsuit against the rest of the band, claiming that he had been blocked from rejoining the group ahead of its anticipated GRAMMY Awards performance and upcoming Las Vegas residency dates.

Apparently, Kramer suffered what Rolling Stone called “a few minor injuries” that left him unable to take part in the band’s first slate of dates on its Las Vegas residency, but he felt ready to rejoin the band this past fall … only to find himself required to, in effect, audition again to be the band’s drummer. Said Kramer in a statement:

“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. Neither the MusiCares’ Person of the Year Award nor the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement honors can ever be repeated.”

On Wednesday, People published a statement from Aerosmith regarding Kramer’s lawsuit and the whole situation:

“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.

“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.”

Per a source that spoke with People, Aerosmith did welcome Kramer back this week to take part in the GRAMMY festivities — but not actually play drums:

“They said ‘Please come to MusiCares and Grammys. We’ll take photos and celebrate. You’re our brother,’” says the source. “They just don’t want to risk a performance because he hasn’t been with them in six months.”

This is obviously quite a big mess, but here’s hoping it all gets resolved amicably sooner rather than later.