Patrick Carney of The Black Keys has labelled Spotify board member and Napster founder Sean Parker an “asshole” who he claims “steals” royalties from artists.

Speaking to US radio station WGRD, the blues rock duo’s drummer said he disagreed with statements Parker – pictured below – made at SXSW in Austin, Texas earlier this month. At the music festival and industry conference, Parker claimed that Spotify would make more money for the music industry than iTunes over the next two years. Carney said in response:

He’s an asshole. That guy has $2 billion that he made from figuring out ways to steal royalties from artists, and that’s the bottom line. You can’t really trust anybody like that.

Carney continued: “The idea of a streaming service, like Netflix for music, I’m totally not against it. It’s just we won’t put all of our music on it until there are enough subscribers for it to make sense.”


Carney added: “Trust me, Dan [Auerbach, frontman] and I like to make money. If it was fair to the artist we would be involved in it. I honestly don’t want to see Sean Parker succeed in anything. I imagine if Spotify becomes something that people are willing to pay for, then I’m sure iTunes will just create their own service, and they’re actually fair to artists.”