After 5 years with Metallica, bass player Robert Trujillo has found himself in the centre of a lawsuit over whom he can endorse.
Pre-Metallica, Trujillo had a deal with Fernades Guitars. They supplied him with custom designed basses in return for using his name to endorse the product.Result then - Happy Fernades, happy Robert.
5 years ago, Trujillo scored the gig of a lifetime. He joined Metallica as their bass player. While he joined the band just prior to the release of the St Anger album, he wasn’t on the album. Death Magnetic is his first album with the band.
Cut to now, the Metallica Corporation has a deal with ESP Guitars and as an employee of Metallica Corp, Trujillo has apparently inherited a new endorsement deal with the bands existing ESP Guitars deal.
Result now - Unhappy ESP, unhappy Metallica, shitty Fernades and worried Robert.
ESP is now suing Fernades claiming that it owns Trujillo and is trying to stop Fernades from using his likeness or name.
Metallica has copped some bad press in the last week when engineer Ted Jensen publicly disowned his work on the Death Magnetic album because he said the mix for the CD was substandard.
Undercover assumes that the next Metallica legal battle will be with the producers of Spinal Tap. How dare they rip off the Metallica story and portray it as a fictitious band.
