Last month Journey fired bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith,accusing them in a lawsuit of trying to take control of the band’s name in an “ill-conceived corporate coup d’état.” Well, now Valory is fighting back.
In a countersuit against Journey members Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, Valory insists he and Smith did not try to gain control of the band’s trademark.
The original suit argued that per a 1998 written agreement Cain, Schon and Steve Perry owned all rights to the Journey name, through their Elmo Productions, and that they only licensed the name to the band’s corporate entity Nightmare Productions. But Valory claims Cain, Schon and Perry’s original agreement terminated in 1994, and that the 1998 agreement gave ownership of the name to Nightmare Productions.
Valroy also claims that he and Smith were actually trying to “protect” the Journey name when they called a meeting of shareholders and board members, because Schon had filed a trademark for something called “Neal Schon Journey Through Time.”
The lawyer for Schon and Cain said in a statement, “The cross-complaint has no merit whatsoever,” adding, “Valory is out of the band. When the pandemic is over, Journey will go out on tour without him. Life will go on.”
Source:Rolling Stone
(photo: Getty Images)