Soundgarden and late frontman Chris Cornell's widow Vicky Cornell are once again embroiled in a lawsuit.
Vicky is currently suing the band over low-balling her on an offer to buy Chris' stake in the band. Vicky claims in the lawsuit that the three remaining members offered her a $300,000 buyout for Chris' share of the band, and is alleging the band got an offer of $16 million to sell their masters to an outside investor and want to push her out before making the sale. She feels that she is entitled to an amount closer to what would be Chris' $4 million cut of such a sale.
After we posted the original offer, Vicky Cornell's representation, Marty Singer offered this statement "The band’s contention that this dispute is somehow not about the money for them is absurd and hypocritical. Of course this is about money and their greed. They received a third party offer to buy just a portion of their interests for 16 million dollars, and yet subsequently offered to buy out Chris’ interest for a mere $278,000. And then Vicky offered $21 million for their shares, which they turned down – not because they wanted to preserve their life’s work but because they know that they will make even more off of future exploitation of the music that Chris wrote and the legacy that he created (which has lined their pockets for years)."
Now the remaining members of Soundgarden have responded to the lawsuit in a statement to Spin, calling Vicky's retelling of the band's offer "grossly mischaracterized."
“The buyout offer that was demanded by the Estate has been grossly mischaracterized and we are confident that clarity will come out in court. All offers to buy out our interests have been unsolicited and rejected outright.
"For more than a year, Soundgarden’s social media accounts have been hijacked; misleading and confusing our fans. Being a band from Washington State since 1984, we are proud of Soundgarden’s musical legacy, work and career. We look forward to completing the final Soundgarden album.”
It seems like the one thing Soundgarden and Vicky can agree on right now is that there will be more music from the band in the future.
