Metal Anarchy

Former Mushroomhead singer Jeffrey Lewis Hetrick (aka Jeffrey Nothing) has filed a lawsuit against drummer Steve “Skinny” Felton. The vocalist made the move after accusing Felton of copyright infringement and unpaid royalties.

Hatrix, who wrote or contributed to 148 songs, claims he has not received royalties “for several years at least.” The lawsuit said the following:

“Most of the performing arts copyright registrations were registered as Stephen Felton being the copyright claimant. And, although on many songs [Hatrix] was given proper credit for his participation in creating said works, there seems to be no record of mechanical royalty payments stemming from these performing arts registrations.”

It went on to say that that things were even getting bad before Hatrix’s exit:

“Felton’s actions … became more nefarious, including the doctoring of publishing splits giving Skinny (Felton) double pay under 2 names ‘Tenafly Viper’ and just plain ‘Steve Felton’, along with 30% going to him under ‘unknown publicist’ and ‘unknown writer.’ In fact, most of the publishing splits seem to have disappeared as plaintiff has not received any mechanical royalties to speak of for several years at least.

Although the money coming increased, plaintiff was apparently receiving pennies on the dollar. [Hatrix] was paid an ‘allowance’ $1,200 per week per, per tour. In fact, plaintiff was paid almost nothing beyond this and is due his publishing and other, royalties, income from touring, sales and royalties from film media, along with loss from other sources of income to be determined.”

Attorney Ronald Stanley told Cleveland.com that Hatrix was seeking at least $3.5 million. However, they still “don’t know all what he is entitled to yet.”

[via Blabbermouth]