Even more info has surfaced on Chris Fehn's pending litigation against his own band, Slipknot. Fehn claimed saying that the band was keeping money from him, setting up corporations that he was not aware of. Fehn had since been dismissed from the band, even though the statement has since been pulled from the band's website. Taylor has publicly said he and his band are being wrongfully accused.
Fehn contends that frontman Corey Taylor and founder M. Shawn Crahan, along with their manager Rob Shore, created six separate companies. Fehn is suing for two counts of "breach of fiduciary duty," one count of "breach of implied in fact contract" and one count of "unjust enrichment." We break down the entire lawsuit filing here. One of Fehn's attorneys, Joel B. Rothman, appeared on Rock Feed today (hear the entire interview below) and offered some new information on the reasoning for the suit.
Rothman alleges that Slipknot wouldn't even let Fehn hit the studio until signing a new, unfavorable deal that treated him like "a second-class citizen" in the band:
"First of all, the lawsuit came about because in order for Chris to continue to participate in the band and attend recording sessions for the album that the band is working on, he was presented with a very onerous take-it-or-leave-it, you're-not-an-equal-member-of-the-band-type proposal. And I'm not gonna go into the details of it, but let me put it this way. If you had spent 20 years of your life devoted to an enterprise like Slipknot, where you had given your heart, your soul, your sweat, your blood, your tears to making the band the best it could be the way that so many of its fans love, and then you were told you were a second-class citizen here, I doubt that anyone who's listening to this would feel any differently from the way Chris felt, which was that he wasn't being given the respect that he deserved. And in speaking with his [other] attorneys, what we saw was that Chris, from the beginning of Slipknot, was treated like an equal, and it wasn't until later, after the band had experienced success, that they began to treat Chris like less than that equal. And we looked at that, and we said, 'Well, that doesn't seem fair,' based on the facts as we understood them that he began as an equal partner in the band in the beginning, and he should continue to be treated in that same fashion."
Rothman reiterates what was mentioned in the suit – it was a conflict of interest for the band's manager to also personally represent certain members of the band:
"What appears to have been going on is that management for the band appears to have been doing two things. Number one, representing individual members of the band while representing the band as a whole where their loyalties to individual members interfere with their ability to represent the whole band, especially if members of the band aren't being treated equally. So we noticed that going on. And we also noticed that information about the band and the band's activities was being withheld by management from some bandmembers, like Chris, but not from others. And as a result of that, we looked not only at whether Slipknot, the group, wasn't being fair to Chris but whether Slipknot's business management, Rob Shore's company, whether they weren't being fair to Chris."
Asked by Rock Feed what Slipknot meant in their statement when they noted "Chris knows why he is no longer a part of Slipknot. We are disappointed that he chose to point fingers and manufacture claims, rather than doing what was necessary to continue to be a part of Slipknot," Rothman says:
"Not really. The suggestion that Chris did something personally to any member of the band, Chris rejects. The suggestion that Chris isn't up to it musically is absolutely false. In fact, it's our position that the band is going to miss Chris on the recordings it's doing, the compositions it makes. There's a reason why Chris is one of the composers on all the band's work, why he is an important background vocalist and percussionist on all the band's recordings, and for anyone to suggest that he doesn't make a valuable contribution, I think, is gonna be absurd to anyone who follows the band."
Rothman added: "The reason why the lawsuit was filed was, as I said before, Chris was denied access to information about the band and its business and he was essentially being proposed that he would be a second-class citizen in the band. And that, in our view, was not fair, it wasn't equitable, and it wasn't consistent with his role from the very beginning."
Beside's Slipknot's plans to release a new album in August, which is among our most anticipated for 2019, the band have a busy summer ahead. They have set up a massive tour with Volbeat, Gojira and Behemoth. Here are the dates:
Fri Jul 26 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre
Sat Jul 27 – San Bernardino, CA – San Manuel Amphitheater
Thu Aug 1 – Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheatre
Sat Aug 3 – Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheater
Sun Aug 4 – Phoenix, AZ – Ak-Chin Pavilion
Tue Aug 6 – Denver, CO – Pepsi Center
Thu Aug 8 – Lincoln, NE – Pinnacle Bank Arena
Sat Aug 10 – Des Moines, IA – Iowa State Fairgrounds*
Sun Aug 11 – Tinley Park, IL – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Mon Aug 12 – Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre
Wed Aug 14 – Virginia Beach, VA – Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater
Fri Aug 16 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center
Sat Aug 17 – Bonner Springs, KS – Providence Medical Center Amphitheater
Sun Aug 18 – Maryland Heights, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Tue Aug 20 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage
Wed Aug 21 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Fri Aug 23 – Burgettstown, PA – KeyBank Pavilion
Sat Aug 24 – Scranton, PA – The Pavilion at Montage Mountain
Sun Aug 25 – Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Amphitheater
Tue Aug 27 – Mansfield, MA – The Xfinity Center
Wed Aug 28 – Wantagh, NY – Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
Fri Aug 30 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
Sat Aug 31 – Camden, NJ – BB&T Pavilion
Sun Sep 1 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live
Tue Sep 3 – Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
Wed Sep 4 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Fri Sep 6 – Austin, TX – Austin360 Amphitheater at Circuit of The Americas
Sat Sep 7 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion
Sun Sep 8 – The Woodlands, TX – The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion presented by Huntsman
*Iowa State Fair – Slipknot & Gojira only
[Transcription via Blabbermouth]
