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Immortal Comments On Copyright Battle With Abbath

Echoing previous black metal schisms like the Gorgoroth disaster, Immortal recently split into two entities, with Abbath going his own way in a self-titled project while Demonaz and Horgh continued on with the Immortal name.

After the Immortal trademark case was closed by Patentstyret (Norway’s Patent Office) in November 2015, Demonaz and Horgh can finally share their side of the story for the first time. They comment:

"The conflict was not about anyone leaving the band as Abbath claimed. It was all about his personal problems. He had cancelled rehearsals and ruined the band’s progress for a very long time. We were forced to confront him about it.

"Abbath recently told Australian website TheMusic.com.au that we wanted things solely on our own timetable and that we claimed he needed rehab.

"The band had to reschedule rehearsals all the time because of him. Even then, he did not show up. He told the band, friends, and family that he needed to go to rehab again. He had got help from a clinic before. We offered to wait for him to recover this time also. Sadly he changed his decision.

"Instead of trying to solve his problems, he went behind our back and secretly applied for a trademark ownership of the bands logo and name. It was hard to believe that his problems had led him to such a point.

"When his attempt to get the rights was discovered by the band, he all of a sudden went solo. His accusations against the band in media changed from day to day. The fans started to question his version and wanted us to speak about what really happened. Unfortunately, we had to wait until the case was all closed, to make a statement.

"His trademark application was denied and the case closed by Patentstyret in November, 2015. One of the reasons was because he had only contributed as a co-writer of music in Immortal. Nor did he contribute any lyrics or titles to the band’s albums. The fact is that the music has always been a result from the band as a unit.

“We are well prepared and looking forward to present the new material to the fans. We did not want to rush things, but take the time to deliver another high quality Immortal album. More news is coming soon.”

Immortal will record a new album in 2016, which will be released by Nuclear Blast Records.