Interesting, though hardly surprising, news coming across the wire from the California-based legal clearinghouse Courthouse News Service. It seems the head honchos at Victory Records continue to have a hair across their collective proverbial asses about Streetlight Manifesto. How big a hair, you ask? A fucking million dollar hair, that’s how big.
According to the lawsuit, Victory Records have Streetlight Manifesto frontman Tomas Kalnoky as the primary target in their crosshairs because of the fact that the band didn’t hold up their end of a decade-plus-old contract that called for them to release four studio albums. As a result of Kalnoky and the band’s “incessant production delays” and “proclivity to procrastinate,” the label have filed suit seeking more than $1,000,000 in damages.
If you’re keeping score at home, Streetlight Manifesto released a total of five albums through Victory Records; 2003’s “Everything Goes Numb,” 2006’s “Keasbey Nights,” 2007’s “Somewhere In The Between,” 2010’s “99 Songs Of Revolution: Vol. 1,” and of course 2013’s highly contested “Hands That Thieve.” However, according to the lawsuit, “Keasbey Nights” doesn’t count toward the contract due to the fact that it’s essentially a re-recorded version of an album from Kalnoky’s old band, Catch 22. “99 Songs Of Revolution” doesn’t count, meanwhile, because it’s a collection of cover songs.
The band and the label have exchanged legal and public blows for the last several years, increasing around the release of Streetlight’s last album, “The Hands That Thieve.” Read more about the suit, which is officially on the record as “Victory Records, Inc. v. Tomas Kalnoky,” case number 1:2015cv09180 at the Illinois Northern District Federal Courthouse, right here. Meanwhile, if you want to catch up on the tumultuous events surrounding the release of “The Hands That Thieve,” you can do so here and here and here and here. Stay tuned to this one…we’ll have more later.