Battle in the North: Immortal Members Now Legally Fighting Over the Band’s Name

It’s been more than five years since the release of Immortal’s last album, the totally sexcellent All Shall Fall. And now recent events suggest that all shall wait a lot longer for the band’s next record.

According to Norwegian news outlet Dagbladet (or, rather, according to a shitty Google translation of the Norwegian news outlet Dagbladet), Abbath [né Olve Eikemo] has submitted an application for the Immortal logo and brand to be the patented property of Eikemo Compositions, which, if the name doesn’t tip you off, is owned by Abbath and Abbath alone. Meanwhile, lawyers employed by his bandmates, Demonaz (né Harald Nævdal) and Horgh (né Reidar Horghagen), have submitted their own petition, which would deny Abbath sole ownership of the band’s name and logo. None of the band members have publicly commented on the situation as of yet.

If you’re an Immortal fan, I can’t see any way to view this news that isn’t bad, bad, bad. Either Abbath and his bandmates never had a discussion about him becoming the sole owner of the Immortal name — which could allow him to pull an Axl Rose and effectively turn the group into a solo project — or they had that discussion and couldn’t agree and then Abbath went and filed his application anyway. Either way, it seems unlikely that these chaps’ working relationship is in very good shape right now. Sure, it’s possible that these dudes are so chill that they’re fine fighting in court and being friends (or at least co-workers) out of court, but that doesn’t usually tend to be the case in instances such as these now does it? It’s hard for me to imagine that this story won’t end with one or more of the band’s current members leaving (depending on who wins the case). Really, the best case scenario here is that we end up with two different bands called Immortal. Having two competing bands with the same name is always good for a laugh, at least.

More news as it develops…

Thanks: Immyrtle