From the Dec 6 – Dec 12, 2001 issue

News

Legal Heat

The Reverend Horton Heat Sues Sub Pop

by Amy Jenniges

The Reverend Horton Heat, the "psychobilly" rock trio from Dallas, Texas, came up to Seattle two times this fall. The band, which began its career in 1991, signing with Seattle's Sub Pop Records, showed up in September to play Bumbershoot, and returned in October. But on the band's October visit, the guys left their guitars at home. They were here to visit King County Superior Court, and file a lawsuit against Sub Pop and the company's CEO, Jonathan Poneman.

The Reverend Horton Heat claims Sub Pop broke their contract by withholding royalties--a move which cost the band something in the six-figure range, according to the group's manager. The band also claims that Sub Pop retaliated after Reverend Horton Heat filed the lawsuit.

The Reverend Horton Heat's relationship with Sub Pop began in the early 1990s: the Texas band fit in with Sub Pop's eclectic repertoire, which at the time included Nirvana and Mudhoney (and currently includes Love as Laughter and Mark Lanegan). The Reverend Horton Heat put out a few albums with Sub Pop in the early '90s, such as 1992's Smoke 'em If You Got 'em. In 1994 they jumped over to Interscope Records, but came back for a 1999 fling with Sub Pop for a greatest hits album, Holy Roller.

The band had a cordial relationship with their former label, Sub Pop, until late 2000. Things soured when the Reverend Horton Heat's 2000 and 2001 royalty statements were thousands of dollars short due to retroactive royalty deductions, the band says. The Reverend Horton Heat alleges that Sub Pop, due to financial difficulty, implemented a new accounting approach to some bands, applying retroactive royalty deductions so the label could save cash.

"It is our belief that as they were running out of money, [Sub Pop] arbitrarily tagged recoupable costs to the band's royalty statement," says band manager Scott Weiss, of High Watt Management in Los Angeles.

The Reverend Horton Heat says while their contracts allowed for the types of deductions Sub Pop was making--things like producer's and mechanical (i.e., songwriter) royalties--Sub Pop wasn't allowed to go back 10 years to make those deductions. The band filed a lawsuit on October 11.

Sub Pop's reply, filed in court on November 16, tells the label's side of the story. Sub Pop says that an accounting employee hadn't correctly applied royalty deductions, which caused overpayments of $60,000 in the Reverend Horton Heat's case. The smaller royalty statements reflect the corrected amounts, the label says.

"Sub Pop made royalty overpayments to the Reverend Horton Heat," Poneman told The Stranger. "When Sub Pop discovered these errors, we corrected the band's royalty statement to reflect the accurate amounts that Sub Pop should have been paying."

As to the band's allegations that Sub Pop is strapped for cash? "Plenty of articles have been written and rumors spread about Sub Pop's financial well-being," Poneman says. "All I know is that it's almost 2002 and we're still putting out the good shit."

According to court documents filed by the Reverend Horton Heat, the case got even trickier once Sub Pop got wind of the original suit. The Reverend Horton Heat alleges that Sub Pop retaliated. The band says the record company interfered with a deal between Levi Strauss & Co. and the Reverend Horton Heat for commercial use of the band's song "Big Sky," costing the band a significant amount of money, according to band manager Weiss. The band's Sub Pop contract allows the rock trio to re-record "Big Sky" (something Sub Pop doesn't contest), but Sub Pop planned to tell Levi's ad agency otherwise, the band's lawsuit says. The Reverend Horton Heat claims Sub Pop indicated they would give the green light to re-recording the song if the band dropped the lawsuit.

Sub Pop has a different account. In its legal response, Sub Pop says it didn't interfere with anything. The label says: Levi's ad agency contacted Sub Pop about the song prior to the lawsuit. Sub Pop referred the agency to the band. In the end, the jeans company purchased the licensing rights directly from Sub Pop, even though the record label made it clear the band was free to re-record the song and circumvent Sub Pop.

Michael A. Moore, attorney for the Reverend Horton Heat, declined to comment on the case while it is still pending in court. Sub Pop's attorney Susan Fahringer said in a written statement that the label intends to vigorously defend their claim. The trial is set for March of 2003.

amy@thestranger.com