Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Chris Cornell EstateSoundgarden has dropped claims against Chris Cornell‘s widow, Vicky Cornell, accusing her of misusing funds raised from the January 2019 benefit concert held in honor of the late grunge rocker, according The Hollywood Reporter.
The surviving Soundgarden band members — guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd — initially made the allegations in a May 2020 countersuit against Vicky Cornell. She had originally sued Soundgarden in December 2019, accusing Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd of withholding royalties and using “strong-arm tactics” in an effort to obtain seven demos recorded by Chris Cornell prior to his death in May 2017.
As THR reports, newly filed documents show that Soundgarden has dropped the claims regarding the benefit concert funds after Vicky Cornell’s lawyers, who called the allegations “shameful and objectively frivolous,” threatened the band with Rule 11 sanctions — that is, a formal complaint declaring same.
In the documents, Soundgarden maintains that the claim, which accuses Vicky Cornell of using money from the 2019 concert for “personal purposes,” is “well-founded,” but still agrees to “voluntarily dismiss” it.
Meanwhile, the legal battle of the seven demos continues, with each side claiming rightful ownership over the recordings. In her original suit, Vicky Cornell claims that the recordings were “solely authored” by her late husband, while Soundgarden maintains that five of them were co-authored by other members of the band.
By Josh Johnson
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