Posing a Challenge to Love’s Case

Rock star Courtney Love carved out a new identity for herself this year as an artist-rights activist, ranting about greedy corporations that she claimed cheat bands out of royalties and try to steal their music.

But that crusader image suffered a blow Wednesday when the remaining members of the grunge band Nirvana sued Love, accusing the widow of bandmate Kurt Cobain of trying to seize control of the trio’s recordings for her own financial gain.

“We’d have a lot easier time accepting this Joan of Arc music industry crusade if it wasn’t coming from somebody trying so hard to hold the two of us down,” said Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, who with Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Love in King County Superior Court in Seattle.

The legal action is a response to a suit Love filed in May seeking to take charge of Nirvana’s catalog and block the future release of any Nirvana recordings by Novoselic, Grohl or Vivendi Universal, the French music conglomerate she is battling to break her own recording contract. Love’s suit puts the brakes on a greatest hits package originally scheduled to hit stores during the Christmas season.

“Dealing with Courtney is like getting stuck on a mean street where somebody is always trying to pull a cheap hustle on you. It’s an indignity,” Novoselic said in an interview. “We’re just holding our noses through this whole thing.”

Love could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But her attorney, Yale Lewis, said: “There are a million disputes like this going on right now across the nation between former business partners and family members, each claiming rights to the legacy of a deceased person. They’re often very bitter.... But in this case, Kurt Cobain named the band, sang lead, played lead guitar and wrote all the music. In this country, copyrights go to the heir. When this is over, Courtney will own it all. And when she dies, it will all be passed on to Kurt’s daughter.”

Recently, Love has taken to referring to Novoselic and Grohl as hired “sidemen,” challenging their musical contribution to Nirvana’s sound. Although the warring parties have worked together in a legal partnership since Cobain killed himself in 1994, Love now contends that Nirvana’s legacy no longer can be entrusted to Novoselic, Grohl or Vivendi Universal.

Earlier this year, Love and other artists criticized what they call the “unconscionable” contracts and accounting practices of the Big Five music conglomerates.

“I could end up being the music industry’s worst nightmare: a smart gal with a fat bank account who is unafraid to go down in flames fighting for a principle,” Love said of her crusade.

Nirvana is widely regarded as one of the most successful American bands in rock history, generating an estimated $500 million in retail sales worldwide since its first release in 1990. Its fan base is still so vital that Vivendi Universal projected that sales would exceed 5 million units over the next year for the upcoming greatest hits collection, before Love blocked its release.

The band was co-founded in 1987 by Cobain, an aspiring singer and guitarist, and Novoselic, a bassist. The duo ran through a series of drummers before settling on Grohl, who joined the group in 1990.

According to the suit, the trio rehearsed five days a week and played small clubs from Seattle to Miami, earning pocket change and often sleeping in Novoselic’s van.

Born out of the underground alternative rock scene, Nirvana was launched as a partnership, the suit says, both creatively and professionally. The band members shared expenses and split the proceeds from their musical efforts.

The trio spent many hours creating the muscular musical arrangements of their novel sound before releasing an album on a Seattle independent label called SubPop and then signing a long-term contract with Geffen Records. Cobain wrote most of the band’s songs, but its first CD credited the entire trio as composers of the music. Love, the suit says, was not involved in, or in any way responsible for, the success of Nirvana.

“Frankly, we’re sick of Courtney trying to paste herself into Nirvana’s legacy,” Novoselic said. “She doesn’t have a clue how we worked together.”

According to the suit, Cobain required Love to sign a prenuptial agreement before marrying her in 1992. Later that year, Love gave birth to Cobain’s daughter, Frances-and inked her own recording deal with Geffen. Fronting a band called Hole, she soon became a rock star herself.

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. He left no will.

The suit says Cobain’s estate, including his interest in Nirvana, should have been distributed to his only child after his death. But Love, the suit says, launched legal action against the estate, successfully invalidated her prenuptial agreement and seized control over Cobain’s estate from her child.

Grohl, Novoselic and the estate authorized the release of two live albums and agreed in 1996, with Love’s consent, to deliver a compilation box set by June 30, 2001, the suit says.

In 1997, they formed a limited liability company consisting of three equal partners: Grohl, Novoselic and a Seattle attorney representing the estate. Love formally signed onto the liability company agreement in September 1997.

“There is only one reason that the box set never came out and her name is Courtney Love,” Novoselic said. “It has nothing to do with the music. It’s all about Courtney, the Hollywood mover and shaker, trying to exclude Dave and me to further her own future, to fuel her own career--at the expense of everything that Nirvana worked so hard to create.”

Novoselic and Grohl contend that Love is using Nirvana’s catalog as leverage in her own legal battle with Vivendi Universal.

Love sued the giant French conglomerate in January, claiming that she--like other artists--was forced to sign an “unconscionable” contract.

The suit also accused record companies of using corrupt accounting practices and cheating acts of royalty earnings by forcing them to underwrite their own recordings, tours and promotions.

Novoselic and Grohl say Love raised some valid concerns in her lawsuit against Vivendi Universal, and agree that artists are often treated unfairly by record companies.

“When I first heard about Courtney’s crusade, I thought, well that’s kind of noble,” Grohl said. “If only this activism was coming from someone with purer intentions, somebody who had a bigger agenda to make the world a better place with beautiful music that brings people together. Not just somebody who is milking it for publicity to strike a better record deal.”

After suing Vivendi Universal to break her deal, Love filed another suit against the conglomerate in May blocking the release of the upcoming Nirvana compilation. Novoselic and Grohl also were named as defendants in the suit, which contended that the band’s legacy was being damaged by shoddy repackaging.

Novoselic and Grohl say Love is using the band’s legacy as a bargaining chip to increase leverage for her own personal gain. “This is all about what benefits Courtney,” Novoselic said. “She could care less about what happens to Nirvana or our fans.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Love and Nirvana Nirvana albums have generated an estimated $500 million in worldwide retail sales. The unreleased greatest-hits package being blocked by Courtney Love is projected to generate $62 million in worldwide retail sales in the first year of release. U.S. sales of Nirvana albums, in millions of units:

*

*--*

Unit sales Album Label Release date (in millions) Bleach Subpop Sept. 1990 1.5 Nevermind Geffen Nov. 1991 7.6 In Utero Geffen Sept. 1993 3.6 Unplugged in N.Y. Geffen Oct. 1994* 4.1 From the Muddy Banks Geffen Oct. 1996* 1.2

*--*

* Released after Kurt Cobain’s death in April 1994 Sources: Soundscan, industry sources Los Angeles Times