April 14 was a night of celebration for all those in attendance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, but some not in attendance weren't exactly happy about it.
"It's really painful to see all this celebrating going on and be excluded," former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Jack Sherman recently told Billboard. "I'm not claiming that I've brought anything other to the band... but to have soldiered on under arduous conditions to try to make the thing work, and I think that's what you do in a job, looking back. And that's been dishonored. I'm being dishonored, and it sucks."
Sherman appeared on the band's self-titled debut album, and while he did contribute to some degree to 1985's Freaky Styley, the Hall of Fame chose to acknowledge only the group's current lineup and any musicians who had appeared on more than one studio album.
"It's not a decision made by the band, it's a decision made by the Hall of Fame," said Eric Greenspan, the lawyer for Red Hot Chili Peppers.
This also excluded Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, who wrote and recorded 1995's One Hot Minute with the Peppers.
To Jack Sherman, it all appears to be a "politically correct way of omitting Dave Navarro and I for whatever reasons they have that are probably the band's and not the Hall's."
You can read more here.
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Josh Hart is a former web producer and staff writer for Guitar World and Guitar Aficionado magazines (2010–2012). He has since pursued writing fiction under various pseudonyms while exploring the technical underpinnings of journalism, now serving as a senior software engineer for The Seattle Times.
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