Ted Nugent's not afraid to speak his mind, and during a recent interview he went off on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for inducting artists from other genres, accusing the institution of "pissing on the face of" rock greats.

“It says ROCK and Roll Hall of Fame. And they basically pissed on Chuck Berry's grave, the way I look at it," he said. When asked specifically about Chubby Checker, one of the genre's pioneers, being nominated this year the guitarist upped the ante.

“Chubby Checker, if he's not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but Grandmaster Flash [is]... I'm not knocking Grandmaster Flash. Maybe I am. But there's a bunch of people that are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that is just sacrilege. It's just rude. It's dishonest," Nugent declared. "It's pissing in the face of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Little Richard and all these magnificent, real rock and roll masters.”

“I'm referencing the difference between REAL rock and rollers and people who are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that have nothing to do with rock and roll, whether it's Madonna or Grandmaster Flash,” he clarified before calling some of the Rock Hall's decisions "inexcusable."

Despite a pretty impressive career, Nugent has never been nominated for the Rock Hall even though he's been eligible since 2000. In 2022, he called the snub "literally disrespectful."

Checker joins Oasis, OutKast, Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Maná, Phish, Joe Cocker, The White Stripes, Bad Company, The Black Crowes, Joy Division/New Order, and Soundgarden on the 2025 ballot.

Rock Hall chairman John Sykes recently addressed the institution's inclusion of artists outside the genre, explaining that the decision is an effort to “communicate that rock and roll is open to all.”

“I think it’s because some people don’t understand the meaning of rock and roll,” he said about the backlash. “If you go back to the original sound in the ’50s, it was everything. As Missy Elliott calls it, it was a gumbo. It just became known as rock and roll. So when I hear people say, ‘You should just change it to the Music Hall of Fame,’ rock and roll has pretty much covered all of that territory.”

“Rather than throwing the name out, it’s doing a better job of communicating to people where rock and roll came from and what it’s truly about," he continued. "Once they hear it that way, they understand.”

Sykes also noted Jay-Z's reluctance to accept his own induction in 2021. “He told me, ‘Rock is dead. It should be called the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame,’” he recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, hip-hop is rock and roll.’ He goes, ‘No, it isn’t.’ And I said, ‘We’ve got to do a better job explaining it. Little Richard, Otis Redding, Chuck Berry – these artists were the cornerstones of rock and roll. If you look at the sounds over the years, those artists ended up influencing hip-hop.’”

Dave Hines

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