Back in March, Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management filed suit against Guns N’ Roses, AKA Axl Rose, to collect what they claim to be $1.9 million in unpaid fees. The suit claims that Rose breached an oral contract that obliged him to pay Front Line 15% of $12.5 million earned from concerts in Asia, South America and Canada.
Lord knows why a savvy businessman such as Irving Azoff would expect an “oral contract” with a musician not involving drugs to put two million bucks in his hand, but whatever.
It all got a little more interesting today when Axl filed suit against Azoff for $5 million he claims is owed due to a failure to promote GNR’s 2008 “comeback album,” Chinese Democracy, as well as a deliberate mishandling of concert dates that forced Rose “into a position where he would have no choice but to reunite with the original members of Guns N’ Roses for a reunion tour.”
The fact that such a tour never happened makes that claim somewhat dubious, even more dubious than the additional claim that Azoff purposely sought to cause Rose emotional distress by using his adopted name of William Bailey in his suit, rather than Rose’s legal name, W. Axl Rose. “Azoff knew that the name William Bailey carries significant emotional damage,” Rose’s suit claims.
Caught that? Now here’s the best part: For the loudest verbal face-slap since Frank Vincent told Joe Pesci to get his shine box, The New York Times reports that, upon being asked to comment today, Azoff replied: “On advice of counsel I cannot respond at this time, but will discuss in my upcoming book, My Life With William Bill Bailey.”
That’s some cold shit!
As far as I know Axl is quite right here. Considering the fact that Chinese Democracy wasnt released in form Axl wanted it to be ( without proper booklet for example), Haiti relief controversy, Band touring Asia without management , and Azoff record of reuniting bands with hard history because thats were the bigger $$$$ is for him. Lack of promotion , lack of video lack of US tour makesxmore sense right know.
[...] agreement was that Rose would pay Azoff 15% of the $12.5 million that GnR made while on tour (via Antiquiet). Rose is now counter-suing Azoff for $5 million dollars saying that Azoff tried to sabotage GnR [...]
[...] This situation sounds a little different than the conflicts that arose when Gwen Stefani and Courtney Love realized, only after signing rights away, that once a rock icon’s avatar was in the game, it could be used to play any silly song on the list. Cue ridiculous videos of Kurt Cobain doing Public Enemy and Bon Jovi songs. Still, one has to take Axl’s claims with a grain of salt. Surely Activision wouldn’t have simply forgotten if these conditions were in fact contractual. And they couldn’t have possibly expected Axl Rose to go out of his way to avoid a lawsuit. [...]