The surviving members of Soundgarden have accused Chris Cornell’s widow of using money raised for charity for "personal purposes".
The ‘Black Hole Sun’ hitmakers – Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd – have filed a countersuit against Vicky Cornell and the Chris Cornell estate, in which they accused them of "fraudulent inducement" for allegedly taking funds raised for the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation during the ‘I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell’ concert in January 2019 and using them "personal purposes for herself and her family."
The concert marked the first time the remaining band members – who agreed to play for free – had performed as Soundgarden since Chris’ 2017 suicide and they claimed it raised "many millions of dollars" but the "recipient(s) of the revenue… have not been identified."
Documents obtained by Rolling Stone magazine stated: "Vicky Cornell did not have the intention of using some or all of the revenue from the Cornell Concert for charitable purposes, but rather for personal purposes for herself and her family.
"[She knew her charitable] representation was false, or exhibited recklessness and negligence as to its truth or falsity, for the purpose and intent of inducing Soundgarden into agreeing to perform at the Cornell Concert without compensation."
The suit claims Soundgarden "suffered damages" and "reputational harm" as a result.
As well as concerns over the concert revenue, the suit also highlights issues with Vicky’s alleged control of the band’s social media accounts.
They insisted they have never given Vicky permission to operate the accounts but she has used and identified herself as ‘Soundgarden’.
The documents accused Vicky of having "removed fan comments and has herself posted images and comments to publicly-accessible Band Social Media pages."
They added: "Some of those postings by Vicky Cornell are intended to denigrate the Band and Surviving Band Members."
The countersuit comes after Vicky sued the surviving members of the band last year, claiming they are witholding royalties from her over seven unreleased recordings made by Chris before his death.
Her suit insisted there was never any explicit agreement that these songs were for Soundgarden and that her late husband was the exclusive owner of them but she agreed to share the recordings for a potential new album so long as they used one of Chris’ "trusted producers" and kept her informed about any marketing strategy. However, she claimed the band didn’t comply with her conditions.
In Soundgarden’s new suit, they denied her previous claims and accused Vicky of trying to "extort" royalties.
They wrote: "The Complaint is an offensive recitation of false allegations and accusations. Soundgarden categorically denies every material contention lobbed by Vicky Cornell, who filed her Complaint — rashly and without good cause — with the true purpose of extorting Soundgarden into conceding rights to which she is not legally entitled, and of coercing Soundgarden to prematurely distribute Soundgarden funds to her.
"This legal action by Vicky Cornell is lamentable, preventable, and spurious."
Th band are seeking "compensatory and general damages in an amount to be proven at trial", as well as injunctions and declarations related to copyright, punitive and exemplary damages, and other relief to be decided by a court.
Soundgarden sue Chris Cornell’s widow
