Fear Factory’s guitarist, Dino Cazares, revealed he has all the legal rights to Fear Factory’s name in a new interview with Metal Sucks. The name of the band had been under litigation since 2018, with former band members, Christian Olde Wolbers and Raymond Herrera, suing the band’s lead singer, Burton C. Bell, for the rights to the name Fear Factory. Wolbers and Herrera had also filed a separate suit against Cazares.
Cazares said that he had won his recent lawsuits, including the Fear Factory lawsuits and a bankruptcy lawsuit, in an Instagram post earlier this month, but declined to share the details of these cases in the interview. Cazares also informed fans that he was facing “huge legal debt” after winning the several lawsuits.
“I’ve been through a lot of shit these past 4 years,” Cazares said in a post on Instagram. “FF Lawsuits (I won) Bankruptcy Lawsuit (I won) Huge Legal Debt (need help) Divorce (not easy) with help from my family and friends I’m thriving and surviving.”
Cazares revealed to Metal Sucks that after winning his lawsuit against Wolbers and Herrera, the name of the band became available. The guitarist did not state the result of Bell’s lawsuit, explaining that he did not want to discuss Bell’s case as the information was personal.
“The name became available, and I got it,” Cazares said. “That’s the best way to put it.”
Cazares then explained that he and Bell had never gotten into a litigation with each other, and that he did not need to reach an agreement with Wolbers or Herrera when buying the rights to the band’s name.
“I can’t tell you Burt’s side because this is how I ended up with the name,” Cazares said. “I can’t tell you that side. I can tell you that it was expensive.”
The events surrounding the lawsuit first began in 2011, when Bell, Wolbers and Herrera “entered into an Agreement of Settlement and Mutual Release as to licensing rights regarding a band known as Fear Factory,” which allowed Bell to use the name in exchange for paying compensation to Wolbers and Herrera. Later on in 2011, Bell and his Wife filed for bankruptcy in the state of Pennsylvania, and were granted a discharge to injunction that allowed them to prevent creditors from coming after them for money that they owed, which included Wolbers and Herrera. After the two stopped receiving payments from Bell, they took him to court in California once again with the allegation that Bell was in violation of the agreement. Bell was ordered to pay Wolbers and Herrera $90,000 in damages and legal fees, with Bell filing a Motion for Contempt in Pennsylvania. Bell was eventually granted the decision where he would not need to pay the $90,000, but that Wolbers and Herrera were entitled to some compensation.
The cost of the lawsuit led to Cazares creating a GoFundMe for the band’s upcoming album, with the guitarist hoping to raise money to help fund the costs of post production. The album, which had first been announced by Bell in 2018, with release planned for 2019. However, Cazares later said there was no album coming, referencing a pending lawsuit to be the reason for its delay. Last week, the album was announced to be released in 2021, with the GoFundMe campaign launched only few days later. Bell then stated that he was not involved with the GoFundMe, and that the campaign did not benefit him in any way because he had already recorded all of his parts, while Cazares replied that Bell would benefit from a good sounding album that was mixed and mastered correctly.
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