"Years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us led to our decision”: Six ex-members of Cradle Of Filth sue frontman Dani Filth

Cradle Of Filth mainman Dani Filth is being sued by six of the many ex-members of the band.

The action, which has been filed in Arizona, seems to be led by ex keyboard player Zoe Federoff and guitarist Mark ‘Ashok’ Smerda, both of whom quit the band at the end of the summer, criticising what they described as “unprofessional behaviour”, “relatively low pay” and “high” stress.

Now they have been joined in the suit by Paul Allender, who served as guitarist from 1992 to 1995 and again from 1999 to 2014, and Richard Shaw who followed him as guitarist from 2014 to 2022, ex keyboard player Lindsay Mattheson, and Sasha Massacre, who appeared in videos to the tracks To Live Deliciously and Malignant Perfection.

Together they allege copyright infringement of their likenesses in merchandise, defamation, unpaid royalties for live shows and other alleged unauthorised uses of intellectual property.

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Dani Filth (real name Daniel Lloyd Davey) is the only original member of the long-running metal band, who have almost as many ex-members as The Fall. Davey hasn’t yet commented on the lawsuit, but back in September in the wake of Federoff and Smerda’s departure, refuted their accusations of ‘theft’ and ‘exploitation’ aimed at the band and their management.

Writing on Instagram, he said: “These allegations are false and damaging. We maintain clear records that show otherwise, and any dispute will be dealt with properly - not through trial by social media.”

At the time, he seemed to conciliatory towards the departing pair, saying: “To Zoe and Ashok: despite everything, I do wish you well. We shared great times together, and I’ll always be grateful for those memories.”

Federoff and Smerda – who are a married couple – left in August, writing on Instagram: "We simply do not feel like Cradle can provide for our future, and in fact hinders it. Among other reasons, it is a lot of work for relatively low pay, the stress is quite high, and we haven’t felt for a while like this band actually prioritising/caring about members.”

"It has been years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us that led to our decision."

The guitarist also, pointedly, asked that all his compositions be removed from the band’s upcoming releases, which would include a high-profile collaboration with fellow Suffolker Ed Sheeran.