On August 19th, the Daily Variety surprised the Vandals and further exposed their true motives by filing even more papers asking the Delaware Federal Court to require bass player / lawyer Joe Escalante to “associate with Delaware counsel.” Most opponents would love to battle against defendants representing themselves. However, after looking at our motions and briefs, Variety now understands that they aren’t going to win in court, so they are going to have to drive up the price tag to get us to quit. Forcing us to hire Delaware attorneys could cost us tens of thousands. They are also trying to force us to give unnecessary oral arguments for a venue change motion. So sad. In addition, they asked the court to prevent the Vandals from mocking them on our web site.

At this point Variety has to be figuring out that every thing they file against the Vandals makes them look like bigger and bigger monsters. They want to censor a band’s artwork on albums for no reason, they want to force independent artists into bankruptcy by demanding outrageous sums of cash for no reason. They want to prevent a band from representing themselves in Federal Court, Delaware of all places. And now they want to shut down a comedy punk band’s ability to make comedy. Their brand is getting more and more tarnished and they are paying more and more to the law firm Fullbright & Jaworski.

J.Paul Williamson and Fulbright & Jaworski, we believe, sold this lawsuit to their clients by claiming that if the Vandals were allowed to parody the precious logo of their magazine it would “harm” their brand. So Variety, and their parent company Reed Elsevier, pay and pay to prevent this harm. However, the joke is that the more they pay Fulbright & Jaworski to prevent “harm” from coming to their brand, the more “harm” comes to their brand. Variety, Reed Elsevier: Why don’t you get this? How long are you going to pay these guys to bring more and more harm to your brand?

When this is over, we think you are going to be responsible for some serious liability in connection with this savagery and your brand probably doesn’t have enough life left in it to ever recover from the taint. We have only just begun to fight you and show the world what you think is OK to do to artists.