The surviving members of Soundgarden are firing back at the widow of late frontman Chris Cornell over the ownership of unfinished songs and allegations of missing royalties.
Vicky Cornell launched legal action in a Florida federal court in December (19), accusing the singer's old pals of failing to hand over "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in royalty payments "indisputably owed" to the tragic star's family.
She claims that withholding the money is an attempt to "strong-arm Chris' Estate into turning over certain audio recordings created by Chris before he passed away", for which the remaining Soundgarden rockers are seeking to obtain the rights.
However, Chris' bandmates - Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd - have now responded to Vicky's accusations in court, arguing that some of the tracks in question date back to 2015.
In legal papers obtained by TMZ, they highlight press interviews in which Chris and guitarist Thayil mentioned the development of new material, while they also provide details of their recording sessions over the years to work on the songs, right up until weeks before the frontman's May, 2017 suicide, which occurred while the band was on tour.
The musicians also point to text messages exchanged between the stars and Vicky about the songs, which she reportedly referred to as the "SG files", and acknowledged were the band's property.
Meanwhile, Soundgarden have also taken issue with Vicky's complaint about the lack of royalties, because they insist no one is currently being paid, until "the Partnership, by vote of the Remaining Partners, formally elects to make such a distribution".
And the rockers are calling for Vicky's suit to be dismissed simply on the grounds of appropriate jurisdiction, because she has no real link to Florida, where she claimed Chris had recorded his vocals for the tracks.
In fact, the bandmates argue the lyrics were largely recorded in the group's homebase of Washington, and New York City.
A ruling on their request for a dismissal has yet to be made.
