The Black Keys have labelled Spotify board member and Napster founder Sean Parker 'an asshole' who ‘steals royalties from artists.’

The Ohio blues-rock duo told US radio station WGRD that they were incensed by Parker’s recent claims at the SXSW Festival that Spotify would make more money for the music industry than iTunes within the next two years.

Drummer Patrick Carney said: “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.

“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.”

However, the pair admitted that whilst they don’t agree with the views of Parker, who was famously played by Justin Timberlake in 'The Social Network,' they are open to the idea of music streaming:

"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.

“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."