Chris Cornell’s wife, Vicky Cornell Sues Soundgarden on proposed offer

Vicky Cornell, Chris Cornell’s widow, has filed a new lawsuit against the surviving members of Soundgarden, Variety points. According to court documents seen by Pitchfork, Vicky Cornell claims that she received an offer of less than $ 300,000 for the remaining band members: Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Hunter Benedict Shepherd. The complaint, which was filed yesterday (February 16) in a United States District Court in Seattle, refers to the offer to purchase as “a vile low number”. Cornell seeks a judicial assessment of Chris Cornell’s interest in Soundgarden assets, including merchandise and receipts from future tours.

The suit alleges that the offer to buy Soundgarden was not in good faith and that the proposed amount “does not correspond to the royalties that Vicky received from Soundgarden’s master recordings only in 2018”. The complaint added that Soundgarden made its purchase offer to Cornell after receiving an offer from a music investor, who offered to buy only Soundgarden’s master recordings for $ 16 million.

Cornell’s complaint states that she was forced to sue after making two counter offers to the band. On December 17, 2020, she counter-offered Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd $ 4 million each for their collective interests in Soundgarden. The band subsequently rejected the offer, declaring that they had no interest in it “because those interests represent their creative life’s work”. Cornell then offered each member $ 7 million, which they rejected.

The suit states that a bona fide assessment “would be responsible for the significant revenue to be obtained from sales of the band’s merchandise and for the nostalgia-driven profitable projects that follow the passage of rock and roll icons – for example, future tours using a lead vocal substitute (as Queen did by replacing Adam Lambert with Freddie Mercury); posthumous concerts of a Chris hologram concert (as Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley performed profitably); and false interpretations of Chris’ vocals extracted of existing artificial intelligence recordings that could generate new Soundgarden hits. ”

Because Vicky Cornell and the remaining members of Soundgarden do not agree with Chris Cornell’s interest in the band’s assets, Vicky Cornell seeks a judicial determination of the purchase price.

Vicky Cornell’s lawyer, Marty Singer, offered Pitchfork the following statement:

The band’s claim that this dispute is somehow not about money for them is absurd and hypocritical. Of course it is about money and your greed. They received an offer from a third party to buy only a portion of their holdings for $ 16 million and subsequently offered to buy Chris’s stake for a mere $ 278,000. And then Vicky offered $ 21 million for his actions, which they declined – not because they wanted to preserve their life’s work, but because they know they will do even more with the future exploration of the music Chris wrote and the legacy he created (which he lined up) your pockets for years).

A Soundgarden representative wrote:

As requested by Chris Cornell’s Estate and as required by Washington State laws, surviving Soundgarden members submitted to Cornell’s Estate four months ago an offer to buy the Estate’s holdings in Soundgarden calculated by respected appraisal from the specialist music industry Gary Cohen.

Since then, the band members have continued to try to resolve all disputes with the Cornell Estate and in their various attempts to resolve, the band members have chosen to offer several times more than the amount calculated by Cohen. This dispute was never about money for the band. This is your life’s work and legacy.

In December 2019, Vicky Cornell sued the remaining members of Soundgarden for non-payment of royalties. Last February, the band filed a response, stating that the recordings linked to these royalties are owned by the band.