Cleveland to Bora Bora: Why Eaten By Clowns Declined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Eaten By Clowns Statement about their Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Eaten By Clowns wants to publicly acknowledge another year of being begged to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by the committee. However, until such acts as Iron Maiden, Motörhead, The B-52’s, and Mariah Carey are admitted, we cannot accept such an honor. Iron Maiden have been legends for decades and no one has rocked the Long Beach Arena harder. Lemmy is God, so obviously Motörhead should be in there. That’s just common sense. The B-52’s were pioneers and refused to fit the mold long before everyone was rocking out at the “Love Shack.” And Mariah…well, I actually don’t listen to her, but she obviously rules Christmas, so it just seems logical to invite her if you all hope to get new guitars from Santa this year. I’m also shocked that artists like Thin Lizzy, Weird Al, Tool, Fugazi, Devo, Bjork, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Alice in Chains, Jane’s Addiction, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, and one of our personal favorites, the Pixies, are not already in the Hall of Fame. They are all obviously very deserving of the honor and your president should be publicly flogged every day they are excluded.

We encourage the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to invite these legendary artists next year, so that we can finally accept the invitation ourselves and claim our place as the greatest band to have never played live. We know you’ve already prepared the space for our enshrinement, and have been patiently waiting for us to accept, but I’m afraid that we’re going to have to stick to our principles. Do the right thing and we can all jam on that stage in Cleveland next year.

And seriously, why Ohio? Was it cheap land? Did the governor offer tax incentives? It’s freaking cold in Ohio, which is not good for instruments. So, here you have all of these classic axes, donated by recipients, and you’re just going to let them go out of tune in that cold weather. The necks are going to bow! For the love of ham sandwiches, what is going on over there? Sure, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” jacket will be fine, but what about Jimmy Page’s guitar? It’s ridiculous. I tell you what though. My parents have a lot of extra space at their house in California, so we could just move it all there. There are a lot of musicians that live in the area, so I’m sure ticket sales would go up. It just makes good financial sense. Give our people a ring and we’ll get it going.

Anyway, thank you again for this prestigious invite, but we will again have to respectfully decline. We do, however, want to thank you for the use of the private jet that you sent to collect us. We decided to take it to French Polynesia for a few weeks of relaxation. It seemed like such a waste to send it back to the cold of Ohio. We promise to take care of it and feed it every day. (Or whatever it is you do for jets. Honestly, we’re going to let the pilot handle it, but we are going to be passing him margaritas on his days off from flying. Only cocaine for flying days — we know the rules.) We’ll wash the salt water off before returning it, so that it doesn’t rust, and sorry about the mess in the back. Our drummer gets airsick. Or has claustrophobia. Or is a Jehovah’s Witness. We really can’t remember and he’s a drummer, so we don’t actually talk to him much unless we’re wearing the protective gloves. We expect to come back from Bora Bora refreshed, and having learned an important life lesson that hopefully makes us better people.

Yours Truly,
Eaten By Clowns