Black Keys drummer: Bon Jovi used me to avoid talking to Chris Christie

Black Keys Drummer Patrick Carney says New Jersey rocker Jon Bon Jovi is willing to go to great lengths to avoid speaking with Gov. Chris Christie.

In an interview with Vice News, Carney said that the famed Jersey musician once used him as a buffer to get out of a conversation with Christie while attending a birthday party for Howard Stern.

As Carney told Vice, Bon Jovi surprised him at the party by speaking with him "really intensely." While charmed, the drummer ultimately began to wonder why the legendary rocker wanted to speak with him.

"I've met Bon Jovi once and it was actually at Howard Stern's birthday party," Carney said. "Chris Christie was in the room and Jon Bon Jovi came over and started talking to me, like really intensely. I was like, 'Wow, why does Jon Bon Jovi want to talk to me?' Then I realized it was just because he didn't want to talk to Chris Christie."

As the Asbury Park Press reports, Christie and Bon Jovi were present at a 2014 birthday party for Stern at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Christie reportedly introduced Bon Jovi to the crowd prior to a speech.

A rep for Gov. Christie told Page Six that the governor and Bon Jovi are close friends, and that Carney's story is "completely ridiculous."

"The governor and first lady are personal friends with Jon and Dorothea," the spokesperson said.

Bon Jovi's camp has not yet issued a statement on the story. During the 2016 presidential campaign, however, Bon Jovi, who stumped for Hillary Clinton (including headlining a concert in Philadelphia support of Clinton with Bruce Springsteen), allowed Christie to use his music during campaign stops.

"My friendships are apolitical, and, yes, I absolutely gave him permission to use my songs," Bon Jovi said of Christie last year.