Hawthorne Heights Sues Victory, Brummel
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Hawthorne Heights has filed a lawsuit against its record label, Victory Records, and label head Tony Brummel today (Aug. 7). The band claims that Brummel's "overly-aggressive, unethical and illegal schemes and tactics," including physically threatening music industry figures and scheming against other artists, have severely damaged the band's reputation and its relationship with fans.
In February, Hawthorne Heights and Ne-Yo were vying for the top of The Billboard 200. On Feb. 28, an email from someone at Victory appeared to urge its street promotions team to tamper with Ne-Yo's sales potential. "If you were to pick up [a] handful of Ne-Yo CDs, as if you were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn't bother to put them back in the same place," the message read, "That would work ... just relocating a handful creates issues."
Within hours of the email's March 1 appearance on industry message board AbsolutePunk.net, a second email appeared calling the first message "a joke." The Hawthorne Heights record, "If Only You Were Lonely," wound up debuting at No. 3 on sales of 114,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while Ne-Yo's "In My Own Words" bowed at No. 1 on sales of 301,000 units.
Band members Eron Bucciarelli-Tieger, Casey Calvert, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff claim that Brummel then signed the band's name without their knowledge or approval to a so-called manifesto, which falsely stated that the band believed it was in some type of war with artists in the hip-hop and R&B music genres, leading many to brand the band as racist.
In the suit, the band also charges Victory and Brummel with "egregiously fraudulent accounting practices." Despite sales of nearly 1.5 million units of the band's recordings and videos, Victory and Brummel claim that the band owes the label in excess of $1 million, the suit says, even though Victory has received in excess of $10 million in revenues from their sale of Hawthorne Heights' CDs, DVDs and merchandise.
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Hawthorne Heights wants the court to stop Victory from distributing its recordings, to order that the recording agreement be rescinded and to order the company and Brummel to pay unspecified monetary damages.
The complaint alleges a slew of claims, including copyright and trademark infringement, invasion of privacy for placing the band in a "false light," fraud and interference with business relations.
In a statement, Victory Records said, "The lawsuit filed by Hawthorne Heights has no merit whatsoever. Victory Records fully expects Hawthorne Heights to honor their commitment to deliver two additional studio albums to Victory pursuant to their recording artist agreement with Victory."
Tue Aug 8, 2006 12:50 AM ET
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Pop-punk band Hawthorne Heights, whose latest album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year, has sued its label, alleging that its "overly-aggressive, unethical and illegal schemes and tactics" have severely damaged the group's reputation and its relationship with fans.
In the suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the Dayton, Ohio-based quintet also claims that Victory Records did not pay it for sales of albums, digital downloads, ringtones and foreign sales or for the use of its music in film soundtracks and video games.
The group accuses Chicago-based Victory and owner Tony Brummel of applying a low royalty rate for its payments, and failing to account for merchandise sales.
The suit also excoriates Brummel's "outrageous" business schemes, and alleges that he physically threatened the band's manager and radio station personnel who refused to increase airplay for the group's songs.
In February, Hawthorne Heights and rapper Ne-Yo were vying for the top of The Billboard 200. On February 28, an email from someone at Victory appeared to urge its street promotions team to tamper with Ne-Yo's sales potential. "If you were to pick up (a) handful of Ne-Yo CDs, as if you were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn't bother to put them back in the same place," the message read, "That would work ... just relocating a handful creates issues."
Within hours of the email's appearance on an industry message board on March 1, a second email appeared calling the first message "a joke." The Hawthorne Heights record, "If Only You Were Lonely," wound up debuting at No. 3 on sales of 114,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while Ne-Yo's "In My Own Words" bowed at No. 1 on sales of 301,000 units.
Band members Eron Bucciarelli-Tieger, Casey Calvert, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff claim that Brummel then signed the band's name without their knowledge or approval to a so-called manifesto, which falsely stated that the band believed it was in some type of war with artists in the hip-hop and R&B music genres, leading many to brand the band as racist.
In the suit, the band also charges Victory and Brummel with "egregiously fraudulent accounting practices." Despite sales of nearly 1.5 million units of the band's recordings and videos, Victory and Brummel claim that the band owes the label in excess of $1 million, the suit says, even though Victory has received in excess of $10 million in revenues from its sale of Hawthorne Heights' CDs, DVDs and merchandise.
The suit, filed in the federal District Court in Chicago, follows the band's posting of its own "manifesto" on its Web site (http://www.hawthorneheights.com), in which it describes the way it claims Brummel has treated them.
Hawthorne Heights wants the court to stop Victory from distributing its recordings, to order that the recording agreement be rescinded and to order the company and Brummel to pay unspecified monetary damages.
The complaint alleges a slew of claims, including copyright and trademark infringement, invasion of privacy for placing the band in a "false light," fraud and interference with business relations.
Said Robert Meloni, Victory's litigation attorney: "Victory believes there's no merit to the lawsuit, and Victory maintains the group is obligated to deliver two more albums to the label, and we'll hold them to it."
 | Hawthorne Heights Sue Victory Records, Say They've Been 'Abused'08.07.2006 9:19 PM EDT Label's litigation counsel says lawsuit, which details fraud, has no merit. |
| Hawthorne Heights Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images |
The band claims there is a"huge pile of hay that broke our backs" but one of the final straws was Victory CEO Tony Brummel's letter to their street team members suggesting they hide albums by Ne-Yo, whose recent album was released on the same day as Hawthorne Heights' If Only You Were Lonely (see "Hawthorne Heights Deny Ne-Yo Beef, Pick Oreos Over Cristal").
Brummel called the letter a joke (see "Hawthorne Heights' Anti-Ne-Yo Campaign 'A Joke,' Label Claims"), but the band apparently did not find it humorous.
"Despite the band's lack of knowledge or approval of Brummel's schemes and tactics, Hawthorne Heights have become irreparably associated in the public mind with Brummel's conduct," the band wrote in the lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Northern Illinois.
"At the time of the letters we were branded as racists by some, all over a letter we did NOT write, targeting a genre which we have NOTHING against whatsoever," the band explained in a letter posted on its Web site Monday. "Because of these letters, our second album debuted at #3 on the charts, an incredible feat, which would normally be cause for joy, but now is tainted much like Barry Bonds' statistics."
Brummel did not return a request for comment, but Robert Meloni, litigation counsel for Victory Records, said the lawsuit has no merit whatsoever.
"Victory Records fully expects Hawthorne Heights to honor their commitment to deliver two additional studio albums to Victory pursuant to their recording artist agreement with Victory," Meloni added.
Hawthorne Heights' lawsuit also details other complaints against Brummel, including threatening music-industry executives. In their letter to fans, the band claims Brummel threatened the program director at Q101 in Chicago for putting a Taking Back Sunday song into rotation "to the point in which the program director pulled [Hawthorne Heights'] 'Saying Sorry' from rotation. ... You can see why we would more than question whether or not the head of our label cares about us or his own ego more."
The lawsuit also asserts Victory has received more than $10 million in revenue from Hawthorne Heights CDs, DVDs and merchandise, yet the label still claims the band owes Victory more than $1 million.
"We have never seen a single dollar in artist royalties from Victory Records," the band said in its letter. "Tony will claim that we have not 'recouped,' a term used by those in the music business which means the label has spent more money in advertising than has been made by CD sales. In fact questionable accounting practices are the culprit and we are in fact owed substantial amounts of money much like audits from Taking Back Sunday, Thursday and Atreyu have uncovered."
The letter also explained why the band waited three years on the label before filing the lawsuit.
"Like being in an abusive relationship, we let certain things slide as we were afraid, as many of the bands on Victory are, to stick our neck out for fear of being 'beaten,' in this case represented by the threat of not being promoted, as has been the case with certain bands on the roster," the band wrote. "We're done being abused."
