Report: Soundgarden members claim ownership of unreleased songs in response to Vicky Cornell's lawsuit

Posted By: Staff
February 4, 2020 @ 11:30 am
Music News

ABC/Randy Holmes

ABC/Randy HolmesThe surviving members of Soundgarden have responded to Vicky Cornell‘s lawsuit over seven unreleased audio recordings, TMZ reports.

According to docs obtained by the site, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd claim ownership over the recordings, which were made prior to Chris Cornell‘s suicide in May 2017.

To support their argument, the Soundgarden members refer to a February 2017 interview that Chris Cornell gave to MusicRadar.com, in which he says “We have a lot of interesting songs” in response to a question about a potential new album from the grunge legends. They maintain that the word “We” implies that the recordings belong to Soundgarden as a whole, and not just Cornell.

As previously reported, Chris Cornell’s widow Vicky Cornell sued Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd late last year, accusing them of using “strong-arm tactics” to obtain the recordings, which she claims were “solo authored” by her late husband. She also accused the trio of “shamelessly conspir[ing] to wrongfully withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars” in royalties owed to her and Chris’ children.

According to TMZ, Soundgarden’s response to the lawsuit maintains that Vicky Cornell filed the complaint in an improper district — she filed in a Florida federal court, but the band is based in Seattle. As such, they believe that the lawsuit should be dismissed, or, barring that, be refiled in the correct district.