In an interview with Billboard [via Pitchfork], Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon revealed that the band turned down playing at the Grammies, despite having four nominations.

“We wanted to play our music”, explained Vernon, “but we were told that we couldn’t play. We had to do a collaboration with someone else. And we just felt like it was such a large stage. We’re getting nominated for this record that we made, me and Brian [Joseph] and a bunch of our fucking friends, and we were given accolades for it. And all of a sudden we were being asked to play music that had nothing to do with that. We kind of said ‘fuck you’ a little bit and they sort of acted like they wanted us to play, but I don’t think they wanted us to play.”

Vernon described the proposed collaborators as “awesome people” and “people that [he] would love to play a song with.” But, he said, “fuckin’ rock n’ roll should not be decided by people that have that job. Rock n’ roll should be the fucking people with guitars around their backs. And their friends. And their managers.”

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Vernon had been collaborating with Alicia Keys, and has a plans to do both “an American songbook of the greatest women singers. There are so many: Casey [Dienel] from White Hinterland, Bonnie Raitt, Alicia,”  and “a one-off charity album to have an excuse to work with a bunch of people that I’d choose to work with, all at once.”