Soundgarden, Chris Cornell’s Widow Settles Final Recording Lawsuits – Rolling Stone

A representative for the band declined to comment further, though they did re-post Cornell’s statement on Soundgarden’s official Instagram page. The move comes as a victory for the group, which has now been allowed to release new music. However, it is unclear when this music will be released.

Cornell, who died in 2017, is credited as a writer on all seven songs, and receives sole credit on two songs, “Cancer” and “Stone Age Mind”. wrote “Road Less Traveled”, “Orphans”, and “At Ophians Door” with Matt Cameron; “In Front of the Dog” with Kim Thayil; and “Mirmas” with Ben Shepard.

The dispute dates back to late 2019, when Vicki Cornell sued the surviving members of Soundgarden, accusing them of withholding royalties from her on the seven recordings. It alleged that the band “shamelessly conspired to withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars indisputably owed to Chris’ widow and minor children in an illegal attempt to forcefully arm the Chris’ Estate to divert some of the audio recordings Chris created before his death.”

Vicki claimed that Cornell made the unreleased recordings at his studio in Florida in 2017, and that there was no express agreement that they were for Soundgarden’s benefit, making Chris Cornell (and thus his estate) the exclusive owner. She also claimed that after Cornell’s death she had agreed to share the recordings with Soundgarden, as long as they used one of Cornell’s “trusted producers” and kept her informed of a potential marketing strategy—two conditions the band allegedly ignored.

Soundgarden responded in early 2020 that the unreleased recordings had in fact originated from the band’s writing and recording sessions dating back to 2015. The band’s motion cited public interviews with Cornell and Thiel about working on the material as early as 2015, as well as “letters”. email” between band members (including Cornell) exchanging audio files and lyrics, file metadata through Dropbox, and other tangible evidence such as complete “live” audio recordings of the band working and performing songs in Seattle studios. ”

The Soundgarden movement also included an exchange of texts in which Vicki referred to the unreleased recordings as “SG files”. There was also an email she sent in March 2017 that purportedly said Cornell was traveling for an “SG record.”

On top of the dispute over the final recordings, Vicki opened another front in the legal battle with a second lawsuit in February 2021. In this filing, Vicki asked the judge to settle a dispute over the amount of her inherited share in the band. worth (it claimed the band offered to buy out Cornell’s interest “for the wicked low figure of under $300,000”).

In response to the lawsuit, Soundgarden said in a statement that Vicki and the Cornell estate had “hijacked” the band’s social media accounts, “misleading and confusing our fans”. This part of the dispute was settled a few months later in June 2021, when both parties agreed that control of the social media accounts would revert to the surviving members of the band.