2005.08.27 - The Guardian - Band Turn Legal Guns On Axl's Cash

Band turn legal guns on Axl's cash

For the members of the band Guns N' Roses, paradise city has become an acrimonious legal jungle.

Two former members of the band, who enjoyed formidable success in the late 80s and early 90s with anthems such as Welcome to the Jungle and Sweet Child O' Mine, have sued frontman Axl Rose for allegedly claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to his former colleagues.

The lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles federal court by Slash and Duff, otherwise known as Saul Hudson and Michael McKagan, accuses Rose of naming himself sole administrator of the group's copyrights, and profiting by about $500,000 (£277,000) a year.

Rose is "suffering an apparent attack of arrogance and ego," the suit says. "He is no longer willing to acknowledge the contributions of his former partners and bandmates in having created some of rock's greatest hits," it says.

The suit claims that Rose told the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to send all publishing royalties to his company, bypassing the band's other partners.

The plaintiffs allege that, so far, they have been excluded from their share of at least $92,000 in royalties collected in one quarter of 2005.

Rose's attorney, Howard Weitzman, said the singer had asked to receive only his portion of royalties, and the overpayment was due to a clerical error by the society. He said Rose had returned the extra money to the organisation.

Guns N' Roses formed in the mid-80s in Los Angeles and quickly became an international sensation. The band has also kept the courts busy.

Last year, Hudson and McKagan filed their first lawsuit against Rose, alleging the singer had wrongly claimed ownership of the group's assets after he quit Guns N' Roses in 1995. It also claimed Rose had blocked Hudson and McKagan from licensing the band's recordings to film producers, "costing the Guns N' Roses partnership millions of dollars to date".

Rose is the only member of the band who retains the right to perform under the Guns N' Roses name. Hudson and McKagan are now part of the another bestselling band, Velvet Revolver.

Rose briefly joined forces with the pair last year to try to prevent Geffen Records from releasing a Guns N' Roses greatest hits compilation. They lost, and the album went on to sell more than 1.8m copies.