Chris Cornell‘s widow Vicky Cornell has fired back at Soundgarden‘s recent motion to regain access to their official Soundgarden social media profiles. The band filed a motion on March 25th, 2021 to have the court order that they be given the new passwords for the accounts, which they assert were changed by Vicky in late 2019.
Vicky is said to have changed the passwords after an arrangement with the band’s then management team Patriot Management was terminated. Prior to that Patriot had been acting as a go-between for Vicky and the Soundgarden camp in regards to social media responsibilities.
The group alleged in their motion last month that Vicky had been misrepresenting herself as the band on those accounts and let them fall into a ‘state of neglect’. The group had first voiced their concerns on the matter back in May of 2020. In June of 2020, the group launched their own collective social media accounts under the name of ‘Nudedragons’—an anagram they had previously performed under.
Yesterday, April 01st, saw the official Chris Cornell Instagram account (controlled by Vicky and the Chris Cornell Estate) share several posts on the matter. Among them was the below post from the band’s former manager Ron Laffitte:
“During my six years working with Chris Cornell and Soundgarden, Chris and Vicky always controlled all of Soundgarden‘s social media accounts, both directly and through their own personal social media representative. At no time were any other members of Soundgarden involved, and this was true both before and after Chris died. Because of this, Soundgarden‘s attempt to seek an injunction in connection with the social media accounts is surprising to say the least.”
Another newly shared post was attributed to Vicky‘s lawyer, Marty Singer:
“Ms. Cornell‘s forthcoming motion will expose the truth about the Soundgarden‘s supposed social media accounts. Ms. Cornell created the social media accounts; grew the accounts by allowing them to trade on Chris‘ then-existing, popular accounts; devoted her personal time and money in growing these accounts as Soundgarden displayed absolutely no interest in social media (unless it was to promote their solo projects). Ms. Cornell has overseen these accounts for close to a decade. The fact that Soundgarden is unaware of the user-names and passwords for their alleged “own” accounts confirms their utter lack of involvement in creating, growing and maintaining their alleged accounts.
Soundgarden solely wants the social media accounts in order to maliciously defame Ms. Cornell, provoke her online stalkers (as Matt Cameron has done continuously) and to instigate third-parties to harass Ms. Cornell and her minor children.
Moreover, while they now claim a sense of urgency, Soundgarden‘s claim are a stale repacking of the claims that they filed in the Florida court in May of 2020.”
Vicky herself also shared the below post, alleging that the band are now seeking legal action against her usage of a lyric from the Soundgarden hit “Black Hole Sun” as a hashtag on Chris Cornell‘s social media accounts:
“Sadly the other three Soundgarden members now object to a celebration of Chris‘ voice even as they take legal action to demand the use of his vocals.
In their latest attacks they claim to be against the “no one sings like you anymore” hashtag — even though that was taken from Chris‘ lyrics from “Black Hole Sun” that was created and used by fans all over the world as a mark of respect and in tribute to him since the day after he died.
My children and I are so grateful to the fans for the love and respect you have all shown to him and thereby us since that tragic night.”
A separate post shared by the Chris Cornell account yesterday saw the aforementioned #noonesingslikeyouanymore hashtag used, accompanied by another ‘#thatswhytheywantyourvocals’. Soundgarden‘s aforementioned motion will be heard by the courts on April 16th.
The bitter legal battle between Vicky and Soundgarden has been ongoing since 2019 and is chiefly focused around seven songs Cornell is alleged to have recorded for a new Soundgarden album prior to his death. While the band feel they should have access to those tracks under more standardized band arrangements, Vicky herself has instead refused to turn them over outside of select terms being honored, including the hiring of a preferred producer and more.
Those songs and their respective writing credits as per the band include:
“Road Less Traveled” (Cornell/Cameron)
“Orphans” (Cornell/Cameron)
“At Ophians Door” (Cornell/Cameron)
“Cancer” (Cornell)
“Ahead Of The Dog” (Cornell/Thayil)
“Merrmas” (Cornell/Shepherd)
“Stone Age Mind” (Cornell)
The courts have not found any evidence of the band having an explicit partnership agreement with the terms thus falling under Washington general partnership law.
There’s been numerous other angles to the case over the past few years including a dropped counterclaim. There’s also allegations that the band had been strong-arming Vicky to hand over the unreleased tracks by withholding royalties owed to her via her late husband’s share of the band and more. That latter allegation was recently recommended for dismissal by U.S. District Judge Michelle Peterson.
Just this past February further legal action was taken, after buyout attempts of the Soundgarden catalogs initiated by Vicky soured.
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