Soundgarden Is Being Sued By The Widow Of Chris Cornell’s Widow Over Royalties & Rights

Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil has made it understood that there’s a final record with musician Chris Cornell and that the band can’t get their hands on Cornell’s vocal tracks to wrap up the album. Thayil said at the time that the fight over the tracks has been going on since Cornell’s departure in 2017 and that Soundgarden has “copies of them” but not the original files required for overdubs.

At the time, Thayil said:

“We’ve asked nicely, we’ve suggested that this will benefit all parties if the band could just have these files, and we could finish the songs we were working on.

“But there seems to be some confusion amongst various parties as to what that would entail and how that works, and who that would benefit. And it’s been tiring, you know. And we can’t move on until some future date when someone realizes the value of allowing the creative partners to have access to the material.”

While Thayil has professedly taken the high road to avoid saying exactly where the roadblock is, today’s news sure paints a clearer representation.

TMZ has obtained legal reports filed by lawyers representing Vicky Cornell, the widow of Chris Cornell. Vicky is challenging the other members of the band of denying thousands of dollars of royalties owed to her and Chris’ children and cites the band of strong-arming her.

The legal document cites the band of “unlawful attempt to strong-arm Chris’ Estate into turning over certain audio recordings created by Chris before he passed away.”

There are seven tracks at the crux of this argument, and Vicky claims that these tracks, which are Chris’ final recordings were “solely authored by Chris; contain Chris’ vocal tracks, and were left to Chris’ Estate” for the benefit of Chris’ wife and kids.

Vicky has recorded in the papers the requirements with which she was willing to share the recordings. Vicky claims she aspired to respect Chris’ wishes and Chris’ producer involved, something the band was not interested in.

Even though Thaiyl has avoided naming her directly in earlier interviews, she attacked Kim Thaiyl of turning the band’s fanbase against her, making it seem like she is the main barrier in getting new Soundgarden music released, when she argues it is the band which is the hindrance. She claims that Thaiyl knew Chris worked on the tracks solo.

Soundgarden has replied to the claims, saying they and Chris have been working on the files in a “collaborative effort.” In a letter to Vicky, they write “The entire band was feeling very positive about their rekindled artistic energy and creativity” before Cornell died.

Soundgarden disputes that Chris was the sole writer of five of the seven tracks, also crediting other band members for those tracks.

Vicky is asking the judge to determine that Cornell’s estate is the sole owner of the tracks and to make the band hand over the unpaid royalties.