The Black Keys Talk Twitter Spat With “Irresponsible Asshole” Justin Bieber

Christina Lee | May 10, 2014 8:26 am

Patrick Carney, drummer of The Black Keys, calls Justin Bieber out in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. “Justin Bieber, like a fucking irresponsible asshole, sicced 40 million Twitter followers on me because I paid him a compliment he didn’t understand,” he says.

Carney was talking about how in February 2013, TMZ stopped him to ask about the Grammys. The Black Keys just won three awards, including Best Rock Album for El Camino, so naturally the outlet asks whether Bieber should feel snubbed for not scoring a nomination. “Grammys are for music, not for money, and he’s making a lot of money. He should be happy,” Carney said.

Bieber then joked on Twitter that Carney should be “slapped around,” which didn’t sit well with him even after turning his own profile into a parody account. “I’m saying that he should be grateful that he has a fucking career in music. And he shouldn’t be fucking telling his followers to slap me, and then also be doing anti-bullying bullshit. It’s so irresponsible,” Carney said. (The pop star has 51.5 million followers, nearly ten times as much as The Black Keys.)

“I just started getting called a faggot, you know? All these kids who don’t know what they’re saying are saying all of these things that are actually wildly inappropriate. And these kids are just dumbasses. I mean, Justin Bieber is a fucking moron. And that’s the gist of what I was saying. And then he goes and says I should be slapped?” (One Belieber also said, “I really want to kill you NOW,” as Rolling Stone notes.)

“Honestly, I feel bad for him. Every single person who works with him should fucking be embarrassed that they don’t. . . No one is doing him any favors, you know? And honestly, I don’t dislike his music. I don’t listen to his music, but he needs to not conduct himself that way. Like, really, you make millions of dollars playing music, you should feel fucking lucky.” (At the time, while absent from the Grammys, Bieber had just scored his fifth No. 1 album with Believe Acoustic.)

“If you’re a 34-year-old fucking loser like me, and you go on Justin Bieber’s Twitter account like a total pervert every time that he gets in trouble, you should look at his tweets the next day,” Carney says. “It’s always like, ‘I love you guys so much, always believe, never stop believing.’ He’s feeding them the Kool-Aid more and more. He pours it on heavy, though. It’s so manipulative! And whoever taught him that that was OK, whoever’s watching him and is like ‘that manipulation is acceptable,’ should be really ashamed of themselves.”

Nearly a year later, Bieber’s second concert doc Believe debuted (and tanked) in theaters. Reviews would point out that the doc portrayed the pop star as a victim, though while skimming over the biggest reason why – namely, the high-profile criticism he received for his reckless behavior.

The Black Keys’ new album Turn Blue is streaming now.