Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Rock band Stone Temple Pilots to go on without ex-singer: lawyer
Scott Weiland and Robert DeLeo (L) of the Stone Temple Pilots perform at the Pepsi Music Festival in Buenos Aires, October 15, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Marcos Brindicci
LOS ANGELES |
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The remaining members of Stone Temple Pilots will not disband despite former singer Scott Weiland asking a court to force them to do so, and it was their legal right to kick him out because of his "destructive behavior," their lawyer said on Tuesday.
"He's out of the band," Skip Miller, the attorney for the 1990s alternative rock band told Reuters, citing the quartet's 1996 legal partnership agreement that allows a majority of band members to vote out an existing member.
The agreement also allowed the majority to retain the intellectual property rights to the band's name.
"The three of them voted (Weiland) out for a lot of reasons," Miller said. "They don't want to play with him anymore. He was showing up hours late and had crazy, destructive behavior."
Weiland, whose growling vocals and dyed red hair became a symbol of the early 1990s grunge era, was fired from the band in February. The three remaining group members sued him last month for using the band's name to promote his solo concerts.
Weiland, 45, counter sued last week alleging that the group's three other members - Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz - secretly and wrongfully conspired to kick him out of the band.
The singer, who promoted a solo concert in Los Angeles last week featuring music from the group's 1992 album "Core" and 1994 album "Purple," has also asked the court for $5 million in damages as well as legally dissolving the partnership agreement.
"How do you expel a man from a band that he started, named, sang lead on every song, wrote the lyrics, and was the face of for 20 years, and then try to grab the name and goodwill for yourselves?" Weiland's lawsuit said.
"Knowing the value and goodwill associated with the Stone Temple Pilots name and that they would be unlikely to achieve any commercial success without it, the other members secretly met on numerous occasions ... to wrongfully expel Weiland from the band and seize for themselves the valuable Stone Temple Pilots name and associated goodwill," the suit added.
The singer had no additional comment, his spokesman said.
The remaining members of the band have played recent concerts under the Stone Temple Pilots name with new singer Chester Bennington, who is also the frontman of rock group Linkin Park.
The Stone Temple Pilots scored hits with guitar-heavy songs like "Plush" in 1993 and "Interstate Love Song" the following year. They disbanded in 2003 and reformed in 2008.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Philip Barbara)
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Source : http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/entertainment/~3/yTsGJz8aPUw/story01.htm
