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Former Mushroomhead vocalist Jeffrey Hatrix real name Jeffrey Lewis Hetrick) is suing Mushroomhead drummer and producer Steve “Skinny” Felton over alleged copyright infringement and unpaid royalties.
According to a lawsuit obtained by Blabbermouth, Hatrix claims Felton has not paid him royalties for “several years at least” despite having written or having helped written nearly 150 of Mushroomhead‘s songs. Cleveland.com also notes that Filthy Hands Company, a company registered by former Mushroomhead keyboardist Tom Schmitz to handle the band’s business, is named in the lawsuit.
“Most of the performing arts copyright registrations were registered as Stephen Felton being the copyright claimant,” reads a portion of the lawsuit. “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.”
The lawsuit also claims that Felton was paying himself twice, adding: “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.”
Hatrix‘s attorney Ronald Stanley said to Cleveland.com that Hatrix is seeking at least $3.5 million in damages, later adding that “We don’t know all what he is entitled to yet.”
