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John Sykes Pulls Back the Curtain on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Voting Process
He's here to answer all your questions about how the Rock Hall works.
To hear John Sykes tell it, the meeting each year where the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee gathers to vote on that year’s induction class is nearly as entertaining as the induction ceremony itself.
“I always like to call the nominating committee meeting a cross between a discussion between music professionals and WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment],” says Sykes, who has been chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation for five years.
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The nominating committee consists of 30 people, each of whom is allowed to make two recommendations per year. There is some duplication; Sykes estimates that pitches are made for 40 to 50 different artists per year. Nominating committee chairman Rick Krim reaches out to every committee member beforehand to get an idea who they’re thinking about nominating so that they can avoid too many overlapping choices in the meeting.
According to Sykes, the committee members take their jobs seriously. “This is a passionate group of people who really put a great deal of time and effort into those two selections they’re going to present to the group. You watch as these committee members fight for their artists. It really is an organic process that only works if you have a passionate group of committee members who do their homework before they walk into that meeting – and they do. They come in with written presentations and they’re ready to go to war to support their nominee. You don’t see anyone in that meeting flying by the seat of their pants.
“When you have someone like Tom Morello [who was inducted in 2023 as a member of Rage Against the Machine] making a presentation, he’s such an eloquent speaker and such a great presenter of creative reasoning as to why an artist should be inducted. He’s a committee member I’d like to have nominate me.”
Sykes, who turns 70 next week, also has a big “day job” – president of entertainment enterprises at iHeartMedia. A co-founder of MTV, Sykes was previously president of VH1, president of Chrysalis Records, North America, and chairman and CEO, Infinity Broadcasting Corporation.
Here are highlights from our conversation – 10 things you may not have known about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voting process.
