Justin Vernon's band Bon Iver seemed to be an surprising Grammy Award nominee to begin with -- not because of the quality of "Bon Iver," mind you, but because of his band's indie label and comparable sales status. The band's frontman had a surprising retort to the institution this week. Vernon was offered a spot to perform at this year's Feb. 12 awards ceremony, but he declined.

"We wanted to play our music, but we were told that we couldn't play. We had to do a collaboration with someone else," Vernon told Billboard. "We're getting nominated for this record that we made, me and Brian [Joseph] and a bunch of our f*cking 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 'f*ck 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... f*ckin' rock n' roll should not be decided by people that have that job. Rock n' roll should be the f*cking people with guitars around their backs."

The Grammys in recent years have tried to pair artists with other artists for unique onstage collaborations.

Bon Iver is up for four Grammy awards; however, months before he was nominated, he never imagined he'd be in contention.

"I don't think the Bon Iver record is the kind of record that would get nominated for a Grammy," Vernon told the New York Times. "But I kinda felt like going up there and being like: 'Everyone should go home, this is ridiculous. You should not be doing this. We should not be gathering in a big room and looking at each other and pretending this is important."

Vernon told USA Today earlier this week that Bon Iver is unlikely to release another full-length set for another five years, but that he is planning on making another album with side-project Volcano Choir and one with a "sort of a blues-gospel band" Shouting Matches. He has also written a song with Alicia Keys and, as previously reported, worked with the Flaming Lips.