Rock band Cheap Trick fires back at drummer with lawsuit

By Tom Hals (Reuters) - U.S. rock band Cheap Trick has been around longer than many of the biggest U.S. corporations and now a lawsuit is making them sound more like bickering board members than one-time hit makers behind songs like "Surrender" and "I Want You to Want Me." Richard Nielsen, Thomas Peterson and Robin Zander have sued founding drummer Bun E. Carlos, asking a judge to confirm he was validly removed from the board of Cheap Trick Unlimited Inc and two other band-related corporations. The lawsuit filed on Friday in Delaware's Court of Chancery, a venue more accustomed to high-stakes business spats, follows a July lawsuit by Carlos. Carlos, whose real name is Brad Carlson, along with former band manager David Frey claimed they were short-changed hundreds of thousands of dollars by the band's three other founders. Carlson said in documents filed in an Illinois federal court that the band refused to honor a 2010 agreement that allowed him to stop touring with the band while remaining an active member in terms of management. Cheap Trick was founded in Rockford, Illinois, in 1973. In 2011 the band escaped unharmed when a storm blew down much of the stage they were performing on during a rock concert in the Canadian capital Ottawa. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Lisa Shumaker)