Voodoo Six bassist Tony Newton has been awarded a share of royalties from a track on Velvet Revolver's debut album in an out of court settlement on a lawsuit regarding the plagiarism of a song he wrote for a former band.
In the settlement, Newton will now receive 20% of all past and future royalties on the song, 'Dirty Little Thing', which was originally released in 2004 and was a successful single in 2005. The payout comes after Newton's publishers, Universal Music Publishing, filed a lawsuit claiming that the song stole the melody and core guitar riff from the song 'Cyber Babe', which appeared on the debut album of the bassist's former band Dirty Deeds in 1999.
Newton told CMU: "It was all a bit surreal really. A couple of years back a mate of mine in LA called me to say he'd heard what he thought was my song on the radio, and that he had been a bit shocked when he realised it was Velvet Revolver. When I checked it out myself, I genuinely couldn't believe it, because it wasn't as if it was close... it was basically the same riff. Anyway, I called my publishers to check whether they knew anything - which of course they didn't - and then basically left it with them. I never really expected to hear any more about it and was as surprised as anyone when I heard that Universal had settled with Velvet Revolver".