It took almost a year – and one extraordinarily drastic legal measure – but the Guess Who has settled an argument over control of the band.
Classic-era frontman Burton Cummings and co-founding guitarist Randy Bachman filed suit in October 2023 against original members Jim Kale and Garry Peterson over false advertising claims. Kale and Peterson had continued to tour as the Guess Who even after Bachman and then Cummings departed. Eventually, they both left the road too, even though fans were still allegedly given the impression they’d see the creators of such radio favorites as “American Woman,” “No Time,” “These Eyes” and “Undun.”
In the initial lawsuit, Bachman and Cummings described the modern touring act as nothing more than a “cover band.” Cummings subsequently took things one step further, terminating the performing rights for those hits. No one, including the current edition of the Guess Who, would be allowed to sing their songs – and royalty payments from concerts, TV and movie placements and radio plays abruptly stopped. The move was both unprecedented and effective.
READ MORE: How the Guess Who Carried on After Randy Bachman
“It was painful, but we’d have done it indefinitely just to stop that fake band from taking over our history,” Cummings tells Rolling Stone. “They took over streaming sites; they were using old photos of me and Randy. It gets me going thinking about it, but that’s over. It’s a painful success. It cost a lot of money with lawyers and I gave up a lot of publishing money, but we finally won this terrible battle.”
Details of this new settlement were not released, but Cummings and Bachman confirm that shared trademark rights have now been worked out with Kale and Peterson after a lengthy mediation process in Los Angeles. Cummings and Bachman both expressed relief that this ugly standoff was over. Cummings is even talking about touring again.
“If there is a group out there calling themselves the Guess Who, it’s going to have the lead singer who wrote the songs and the guitarist who made the riffs,” he said. “It’s going to have Bachman and Cummings in it. I say ‘if’ because we don’t know. Randy has a lot of bookings and I’ve got solo gigs. What we do know is that Randy and I are happy because there isn’t a fake Guess Who out there anymore.”
Who Owns the Guess Who Trademark?
The Guess Who apparently never filed a trademark for the band name during their turn-of-the-’70s glory years. Kale belatedly secured one in 1986, then began mounting tours as the Guess Who. Peterson rejoined him in the late ’80s, though the rest of the lineup regularly changed. Then Kale retired in 2016 and Peterson began playing more infrequently, leaving the Guess Who without any direct connection to the past.
It was a bridge too far for Cummings. “We’re trying to preserve the history and the legacy of the Guess Who for our fans all over the place who have followed the real band and the real songs,” he said.
What becomes of the group that had been calling themselves the Guess Who is unclear. Their Facebook page has vanished. The band’s official account on X has been scrubbed of all content except a screenshot and link to coverage of this settlement – and an older post promoting their most recent album, 2023’s Plein D’Amour. Cummings said the LP is going to be removed from the Guess Who’s official discography, though Plein D’Amour remains on Spotify.
“I’m not concerned with the other band. Don’t even know who they are. It doesn’t matter to me,” Bachman said. “When you’re a football player, you’re not thinking about who gets traded for you when you get signed by a team. As far as I know, they’ve been earning a living for decades, trading off the Guess Who names and playing the songs that Burton and I wrote, pretending they were us.”
Bands With No Original Members
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
