Variety settles Vandals lawsuit

Posted by aubin on Monday, February 13, 2012 at 4:30 PM (EST)

Variety has settled it's lawsuit with The Vandals. Last year, the magazine once again sued The Vandals for their 2004 parody version of the logo from Hollywood Potato Chip. The band settled the issue initially in late 2004, but the issue has come up again due to the parody mark appearing on other sites.

According to Vandals bassist (and lawyer) Joe Escalate, Variety has settled the lawsuit without asking for any more cash from the band. Escalante spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the incident:

This was the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and to the band, and the hardest thing I've ever done. However, as my wife says, the crash course in federal court litigation made me a better lawyer. Hopefully this will be a lesson to other media companies and law firms with respect to how they deal with First Amendment issues in the Internet Age.

The ongoing legal battle has also been blamed for the lack of new material from the band.

Bands in this story

The Vandals

News (29 comments)

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

MN_DrNick (February 13, 2012)

So the Vandals won?

RottenBones (February 13, 2012)

I've only heard their 30 second song from Short Music for Short People, but that song is pretty cool

Heathbar (February 13, 2012)

Go get Live Fast, Diarrhea and Hitler Bad, Vandals Good, immediately.

RottenBones (February 13, 2012)

will do, I'll report back

skolarx (February 13, 2012)

The Quickening and Look What I Almost Stepped In are both great too. They had a nice little run before Internet Dating blew it (I think that was where they fell off rather badly anyway, might have been another bad one in there)

Heathbar (February 13, 2012)

The Quickening took a while to grow on me, so I usually suggest the two albums that grabbed me right away. I will have to check out Look What I Almost Stepped In. I know nothing of this or Internet Dating.

skolarx (February 13, 2012)

I picked up the Quickening years ago because I was going to see them with The Skolars and I knew nothing about them (97?). For me it was instant love, as were Live Fast and the 2 after it. After that it might have just been that the gimmick wore thin for me, for all I know Internet Dating Superstuds (is that right?) could have been incredible and I just didn't give it enough of a chance.

Look What has at least one Dexter Holland written song (Jackass, which sounds like an Offspring song and he sings backups on) and has Jack and Kyle from Tenacious D on the last track. Like any of their albums, it has a few throw away tracks and a few incredible ones, but i think the good far outweighs the bad.

Michael_Berryman (February 13, 2012)

Look is my favorite, easy.

exilesamongyouyouyou (February 13, 2012)

Out of the albums I have, I'd rank them: Peace Thru Vandalism > Oi To The World! = Hollywood Potato Chip > Hitler Bad, Vandals Good > Live Fast, Diarrhea > Shingo Japanese Remix Album > Fear of A Punk Planet (Anniversary Edition)

johngentile (john g.) (February 13, 2012)

Good for Joe. Details are scarce, but it seems that he got Variety to drop a weak suit without having to pay any money.

skolarx (February 13, 2012)

The worst thing to ever happen to them wasn't the suicide of their original singer?

loki13 (February 13, 2012)

Or Oi! to the World?

lookbackandlaugh (February 13, 2012)

This reminds me of a college basketball player at my university. He had had a child, who had actually died within a couple of years of being born. But when the team lost a minor tournament game, he said that it was the 'worst thing that had ever happened' to him.

skolarx (February 13, 2012)

Damn, what a shithead

andyponch (February 14, 2012)

Stevo! This is actually a fairly interesting read about the controversies with the band. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Ronald_Jensen

lookingforcorpses (February 17, 2012)

Are you kidding? Joe fucked that dude, and most old members, out of all sorts of money and is generally a bad person. I'm sure he was glad the dude was dead and there was one less person on Earth who wanted him dead and could sue him.

Sandsky (February 13, 2012)

I'm glad this is over. Now we can get back to worrying about fashion labels stealing the crass logo.

Also, Mr. Gentile: we saw an article outlining changes to trademark (or copyright, or something) law that saw band logo parody t shirts (even ones drawn or recreated from scratch) potentially become iffy in the eyes of the law. Does it cut both ways? If so, why has this not had a bearing on this case?

johngentile (john g.) (February 13, 2012)

I believe the TM legislation was in the UK. I wouldn't expect a similar bill to be introduced in the US. US is one of the most pro-fair use countries there is, if not the most pro-fair use.

porksoda (February 13, 2012)

I'd say now we can finally get new material from them, but I doubt Josh will ever play or record with them again since he's too busy playing for much better bands like Sublime With Rome.

skolarx (February 13, 2012)

He's always been in 20 other bands while being in the Vandals, although it wouldn't be the first time Brooks has recorded an album for them, assuming he'd be the drummer for it, or possibly Derek though he hasn't recorded with them before.

porksoda (February 13, 2012)

I know, but he was never really in full time bands, or bands that were doing much. He was more of a studio drummer back then. Now he's part of Weezer, which constantly makes him miss dates with other bands (Devo, most prominently). Weezer tour a lot, and so do Sublime w/ Rome. I just imagine it's going to be hard to get a stretch of time where both the Vandals and Josh are free.

And as for the other drummers, they're okay (I love Alkaline Trio), but Josh's drumming is part of what makes the Vandals, the Vandals.

lookingforcorpses (February 17, 2012)

The only band he's an actual MEMBER of, outside of the Vandals, is A Perfect Circle. He was an official member of that Black Light Burns band, but pretty sure they're done. I'm sure his arrangement with Weezer was no different than his one with GNR 10+ years ago, or any number of other bands.

Dante3000 (rich) (February 13, 2012)

It's true, the best way to learn about legal systems fast is to get involved with them. It's how I mastered small claims court and recently bankruptcy filings (which was an error on my banks part, as I didn't actually file for bankruptcy).

Amoeba (February 13, 2012)

Someone please tell the Vandals to use regular Times New Roman for their next album logo...

Can't wait for new music from them tho'

BallotResultRadio (February 13, 2012)

I still can't believe that anything but spite was involved here. The band stopped using the cover when they got a cease and desist from Reed Elseiver, and they still were embroiled in a lawsuit for 8 fucking years? It's ludicrous.

GingerAsh (February 13, 2012)

Agreed. It was spiteful. They just did that because they can't deal with the fact that print media is going the way of the dinosaur.

GingerAsh (February 13, 2012)

Good for them. Win one for free speech. Hopefully, they will get back to recording now. I met Joe in 2004. He's a hell of a nice guy.

KF84 (February 14, 2012)

Ah nice! I love the Vandals, and I like what Elsevier does for the academic world. But this lawsuit was not how gentlemen should behave.

puddboy (February 14, 2012)

Awesome news. Hope they are already in the studio. Maybe they can make up for lost time and put out a couple albums at once. Wasn't a big fan of Hollywood potatoe, but damn do I love their other albums.