Bad Wolves guitarist Doc Coyle has spoken about the latest developments with their former vocalist Tommy Vext, who recently filed a lawsuit against the band’s manager Allen Kovac. Vext, who exited the band early this year, alleged in his suit that Kovac, who manages Bad Wolves and heads up their label Better Noise Music, had engaged in a campaign to have him booted from the group after he refused to keep his outspoken political beliefs and subscription to various conspiracy theories to himself.
Vext also alleged that Kovac had addressed him with racist dialogue in the past and is seeking damages in the millions of dollars, alleging Kovac breached his fiduciary duties. Vext has also made claims in the past that the band’s camp have been attempting to strongarm him for his stake in the Bad Wolves trademarks.
In a statement issued yesterday, July 26th Kovac denied the claims of racism made against him, labeling them “categorically false”. He also went on to say that “[Vext] and his team of lawyers have been trying to extort the band and the record company for a big payout.”
Vext has been vocal about the fate of various unreleased music he had in the works while still a member of Bad Wolves, alleging at one point that he expected the songs to be given to other artists. In the past Vext also claimed he was being “financially bullied into submission” to give away the rights to the songs.
During the latest episode of his ‘The Ex-Man With Doc Coyle‘ podcast (see below,) Coyle addressed Vext‘s lawsuit and the continued negativity thrown the band’s way by him:
“He [Tommy Vext] filed a lawsuit. Keep in mind, I’m not involved in any of this shit. All right? I’m not in the band business. I’m not on the record label, so I’m not involved in lawsuits, no one’s suing me. I mean, not yet [laughs]. But like I don’t own anything with the band. And so it’s like so I hear about this shit all like secondhand.
…So this article comes out on TMZ, and it’s basically like a press release for him. I’m like damn, you could just do that with TMZ? They’ll just kind of like, filter your talking points as if it’s an actual story? And then our label owner/manager, Allen Kovac, he put out a statement, kind of refuting some of the stuff that seems like a really frivolous lawsuit, you know? And I’m being a little bit more outspoken about this stuff.
Everything I can’t talk about right now—and I’d like to be more open with it—because, like I said, I think, you know the reason why Allen made a statement is because you’re just saying things that are not true. And I think you have that you have this weird kind of no-win situation when you’re dealing with someone who’s a troll, or just trolls in general.
Because a troll, the way they win is by getting you to react. And when your kind of day-to-day thing is drama, and having something… It’s like playing tennis right? Like I need someone to hit the ball back. So you’re in the situation where if you say nothing. Yeah, I mean you’re taking the high road and there’s, there’s elements of that that’s good.
But if someone says something about you that’s false and that is damaging to your reputation, it’s difficult not to respond that takes a lot of willpower. But then there’s also the element of sometimes certain charges against you are so ridiculous by even acknowledging it, you’re almost giving it oxygen. So that’s a really tough balancing act we have to figure out.
And so we haven’t been that that open was stuff because we’ve been advised not to say anything. But I think that’s going to start changing. And I think it’s important because our fanbase, or a big portion of the fanbase has essentially been radicalized against the band under false pretenses.
And that’s, that’s a real thing, you know, I don’t know how many people it is, I mean who knows, who knows how many fucking people see the bullshit on Instagram every day. It’s probably like 20-30% of the people that follow him and maybe less, I don’t know, we really just don’t know.
And so we can do is go out there and out the music and promote it, get it out there and just hope people like it. And I’m really confident in the record, I think it’s phenomenal. And hopefully that’s what actually matters in this situation is music.
The songs man, man. I mean, you think about your favorite bands and those that how magical it is right? And that’s all we want to do I think as creators and being part of this thing like this… anything like this that you make things that last and affect people.
And I don’t want to be deal with this shit. I don’t want to be in a war, a war of words, a feud, shit is wack. I play music because it’s fun. this That shit is not fun, but that’s the point. The point is to wear you down, it is to make it a war of attrition that is so belabor that you’ll give up. And I look at these situations as a test of one’s will.
Will wins out, you know. It’s a tough one to say like, you go through the gauntlet, but you’re not happy… and it’s just like sometimes people do something they are fighting just to win. And they’re doing it for so long by the time they go through it, they forget they were being fighting for. I’m someone, I don’t really care about fame. I don’t really care much about money.
I don’t want to not have money but I’m not like, I don’t have that thing in my heart that’s like I need to go make $80 million, like I just, I don’t know, it’s just not, it’s in. Listen, I don’t wanna be broke. I definitely want to do well in life, but it’s not my main motivator.
I just want to do cool things things and try and do right by people and I don’t know, just be part of positive inertia. And I feel like if you do the right things, the money will take care of itself.
And we’ll see how that turns out.”
Bad Wolves are presently readying their new album “Dear Monsters” for an October release. It will be their first with Vext‘s replacement, Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz (LGND, ex-The Acacia Strain).
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