In the light of our recent news of BRAZEN ABBOT celebrating their 20th anniversary with a CD/DVD package and Joe Lynn Turner, the singer on it, voicing his dissatisfaction, the situation is continuing to turn nasty. The band’s leader, Nikolo Kotzev has delivered his own take on it. The text is below but, since attorneys are likely to be involved in the case’s resolution, no further comments from DME are forthcoming.
Writes Kotzev,
“I was very surprised and saddened to learn from Joe’s manager/wife, that they came out to medias with a hostile statement, which is harmful to me. This was completely uncalled for – they did not get in touch with me (as friends would do) prior to going out to medias.
Five and a half years ago the BRAZEN ABBOT show ‘Live At The Amphitheatre’ was filmed to be released on DVD. The whole band knew about it and, upon getting paid at the end of the tour, they signed waivers, allowing me to use the video material. Joe and his manager had obviously forgotten about him signing a declaration of waiving rights, so I sent them a copy of the document. The response was, ‘…I am not sure I am OK with the wording in it… it is not written by a lawyer.’ Yes, I usually don’t communicate with my band through lawyers, and not expecting any problems from the band members, back then I came up with the text myself. It was clear, that everyone is OK with this material being released and there will be no future claims of any kind.
BRAZEN ABBOT is my band, and Mr. Turner was the singer in it. No one else from the band has problems with that DVD, in fact they all have been looking forward to it being released. Of course, I felt no obligation to officially notify anyone about this release, as this is my band, I have personally paid for all the masters and own them. Mr. Turner is not a partner in BRAZEN ABBOT – he was a singer in the band and got paid in full, upon signing the waiver. No questions asked, no observations made, all in the presence of his future manager.
I have always had a great respect for Joe, so I responded in a friendly manner, explaining, that this package is released only to mark and honor the 20th anniversary of BRAZEN ABBOT – not for making money. In fact, there is no international record company behind it and it is available exclusively through the BRAZEN ABBOT website, with no commercial advertising of any sort. It will sell most likely 200-300 copies and will definitely leave me with a considerable financial loss plus a bunch of unsold boxes in the cellar. After finding out that Joe is unhappy and having pointed many times , that I want us to remain friends, in a gesture of a good will I offered him a cut of my share. Considering the minimal gain from sales, his share would have been peanuts, so his manager chose not to discuss that further.
Throughout the years I have proven my friendship towards Joe many times, I have also brought quite a lot of business to him. In return I have received no business or any income from Joe, except for one gig in my home country, where I was just the comfortable choice. In fact, many of you may know, that I recently played on almost half of the RATED X debut CD. Joe called me, being frustrated due to the unfortunate illness of the band’s guitarist and asked me to help him out of the troublesome situation he was in. He offered to pay for my work himself. I played, engineered and recorded the guitar tracks, the CD was released, but I did not get paid. Some changes were made to my guitar tracks without me even being asked. Never mind, I thought maybe this would lead to something good anyway, so I said nothing. However, upon reminding his manager about these events now, her reply was, ‘Joe asked if you are willing to do it… In my understanding, this was the only time in many years your name finally was mentioned in all the international musical media… And Joe was happy to help you with that, just as you were happy to help us…’ One more thing – I never even received a copy of that CD. In my opinion this says a lot about where Joe and I stand.
Finally I kindly asked Joe to send a disclaimer about his statement, but he did not do it, which led to my statement here.
Love, peace and respect to all,
Nikolo Kotzev”
