Former Guns N' Roses members, Slash and Duff McKagan have sued former lead singer Axl Rose, claiming that he tried to cheat them out of royalties resulting from the Guns N' Roses song catalogue.
The pair, who now play with Velvet Revolver, say that Rose signed a multimillion-dollar publishing deal with the Sanctuary Group in the United Kingdom that included old Guns N' Roses songs. Slash and Duff still own part of these songs.
The suit read: "Rose's actions were malicious, fraudulent and oppressive, and undertaken in conscious disregard of ( Slash and Duff's ) property rights." The suit also claims Rose received a US$92,000 royalties cheque in 2005's first quarter.
In response to the lawsuit filed against Axl Rose's attorney, Howard Weitzman stated: "This is a classic case of premature accusation. If someone had taken the time to investigate or ask about this situation before rushing to judgment they would have learned that ASCAP (the entity that collects money for songwriters) made a clerical error and failed to appropriately divide and distribute the royalty's owed for the first quarter of 2005 to Axl and the former Guns N' Roses musicians. The amount ASCAP mistakenly sent to Axl's publisher was never received by Axl nor was he ever made aware of the error. The publisher alerted ASCAP to the error, returned the money immediately and asked ASCAP to remedy the situation by distributing the funds appropriately."
"Contrary to allegations in the lawsuit, Axl has never denied that others made substantial contributions towards the success of Guns N' Roses, but there is little doubt as to who was the creative catalyst behind the group's success."
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