The legal battles between Soundgarden and Vicky Cornell, the widow of frontman Chris Cornell, continue with the band filing new court documents alleging Cornell locked them out of their social media accounts and their official website.
Per Billboard, “Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, Ben Shepherd and their business manager Rit Venerus filed papers in Washington state U.S. District Court on March 25 accusing Cornell of locking them out their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube, Snapchat, Tumblr, Top Spin and Pinterest accounts, as well as Soundgarden’s official website, and changing all the passwords. The band is asking a judge to order her to hand over the passwords or include a final posting stating, ‘Soundgarden has temporarily suspended its official social media accounts due to pending litigation.’”
Billboard also notes the band claims that they’ve been locked out of their social media accounts ever since Vicky filed the first lawsuit against them back in December 2019. Before this, the band’s management company, Patriot Management, handled all of their social media channels. However, Patriot’s relationship with the band was terminated in October 2019. After this, the band says they found out Patriot gave all of the social media and website logins to Cornell.
Additionally, Billboard reports the band’s filings identify their social accounts and website are “in a state of neglect” with no news updates added to their website since October 2019. There also hasn’t been any new activity on Soundgarden’s Twitter since January 2020, and the lone new post on their Facebook page is to promote a posthumously released Chris Cornell album.
All of these matters will be addressed in a court hearing on April 16.
This is just the latest legal issue between the surviving members of Soundgarden and Vicky Cornell. Just last week, a judge ruled there wasn’t any evidence the band was withholding “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in royalties from Vicky and Chris Cornell’s estate.
