Immortal frontman Olve ‘Abbath’ Eikemo says the other parties involved in a legal row over the band’s name walked away from the group this year.
Last week it was revealed Abbath was trying to legally secure exclusive rights to the Norwegian black metal band’s name, but that his move had been blocked by guitarist Harald ‘Demonaz’ Navdal and drummer Reidar ‘Horgh’ Horghagen, who say the name should be shared between all three.
In his latest correspondence with the Norwegian Industrial Property Office, Abbath claims Horgh and Demonaz left him to pay the bills on a rehearsal space and that he has recorded a new album with other musicians.
Dagbladet reports Abbath’s letter as saying: “This summer Olve received a message from Harald and Reidar indicating that they wanted to take a longer break after a conflict occurred between Olve and the other two band members.
“The band rents a rehearsal space where costs were being shared between the three band members. Harald and Reidar did not want to pay their share of the rent since the band, in their opinion, was not active. Olve, as songwriter, was dependent on the rehearsal space and was willing to cover the rental costs himself.
“The other two members then moved out of the premises and stopped paying their share of the rent. Olve perceived this move as them pulling out of the band.”
The letter adds that Immortal are contracted to record a new album for Nuclear Blast and that Abbath has near enough completed the work with the help of other artists.
Navdal tells Dagbladet he has seen the letter and that it contains “incorrect information.” He adds that he is working on a response.
