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One time Idol finalist sued by former bandmates
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 10 April 2012
Former ‘American Idol’ contestant, and the most successful ‘Idol’ runner up in terms of post-show record sales, Chris Daughtry says he is “very hurt” by claims by former bandmates that he has screwed them over on the royalties from four songs.
After appearing on the 2006 series of ‘Idol’, Daughtry, with rather more rock leanings that the average ‘Idol’ wannabe, formed a band which took his surname as its moniker. But it wasn’t the singer and guitarist’s first band, and the new lawsuit – reported on by North Carolina’s News & Record – comes from other members of the outfit he performed in prior to his ‘Idol’ appearance, called Absent Element.
Former Absent Elementers Ryan Andrews, Scott Crawford and Mark Perry claim that four songs on the first Daughtry album were co-written by the Absent Element band members before they disbanded, and that their former frontman previously acknowledged this fact and promised them a share of any revenues the songs generated.
But no share of the loot has been given to Andrews, Crawford or Perry, the new lawsuit claims, which, the legal papers add, amounts to “constructive fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, unfair trade practices and other deceptive and wrongful conduct”.
But Daughtry denies that his former bandmates were in any way involved in the writing of the songs they mention, nor that any previous agreement was reached on royalties. In a short statement on his website, the singer said: “I am very hurt by these false accusations. The songs listed in this lawsuit were written solely by me and no one else and at this time, I have no further comment”.
