It’s not quite the Pink Floyd flying pig fracas, but it might belong in the same category.
Back in 1991, Howard Scott King says he showed Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee a design for a drum rig. Tommy Lee had been using his flying drum kit rig, made famous by the “Wild Side” music video. But King says his design was for a rig that looked like a roller coaster.
Flash forward 20 years, a period of time considered just this side of forever in technological terms, and Tommy Lee started using a roller coaster-looking drum stage rig.
Howard King felt he should see some money for what he considered to be use of his design. Lee thought otherwise. The design was not the same; it was a theme that no one “owned” (a roller coaster); and plenty of time had passed, disconnecting his use from King’s idea.
King sued.
Now, according to TMZ, the case has finally come to an end, and not the end that King had hoped for. The judge hearing the case has dismissed it altogether. He says that King never had exclusive rights to the design that he talked with Lee about, and that he is therefore due no compensation for Tommy Lee using a similar design 20 years later.
King once had a business called Stages N’ Motion, but no longer operates that business.
With this ugliness behind him, Tommy Lee and Motley Cure can now get back to rocking, with a roller coaster stage rig as a centerpiece.
Image via: YouTube