Original Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos has dropped a 2013 breach of contract and trademark infringement lawsuit against his fellow band members.
In 2010, Carlos contends he and his bandmates signed an agreement which noted that while he would step away from performing live, he would remain a fully-vested member of the band, hold equal shares in the band’s fortunes, be an equal partner in the various corporations through which Cheap Trick conducts its business and would maintain the right to essentially nullify any business decision with which he disagreed.
Late last year, Cheap Trick members filed a countersuit against Carlos in a Deleware court stating the drummer was ousted from the group when he stopped touring with the band and that left him subject to removal as a corporate director without a unanimous shareholder vote.
“As far as the last few years have gone, I have dismissed my lawsuit against the band,” Carlos tells Classic Rock Revisited. “I remain a twenty-five percent owner and a member of Cheap Trick. The decisions Cheap Trick makes I am a part of. That’s basically how that kind of ended up.
“It is kind of a musical uncoupling type of thing. It’s something like that, you know. In 2010, I got notified and was told, basically, to not show up for the next gig. One guy doesn’t want me there and the other guys were fine with that. They asked if they could use my drums. I said, ‘Yeah, go ahead and then send them back to me, please.’ That is basically what happened.
“The lawsuits were about business, you know. There are ways to run a business and they weren’t being run correctly in my opinion. I had to go to court to enforce my rights.”
“I must have pissed somebody off [laughter],” he adds. “After forty years everybody is not always on the same page and stuff like that. Looking back on it… people ask me what happened, you know what happens with bands. Usually it is a woman or something. It is usually sex, drugs or money. When the lawsuits got filed it ended up to be money.”
Guitarist Rick Neilsen’s son, Daxx, has been handling drum duties for Cheap Trick since 2010.
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