The fashion brand Chrome Hearts have dropped their lawsuit against Neil Young and his backing band The Chrome Hearts.
Last September, the Los Angeles-based high-end brand, known for luxury clothing, jewellery and accessories, filed a trademark infringement suit against the musicians over the use of the ‘Chrome Hearts’ name.
Young debuted his new group – made up of Micah Nelson, Corey McCormick, Anthony Logerfo and Spooner Oldham – in 2024 and has recorded and toured with them ever since, including at their headline set at Glastonbury last year.
The fashion group alleged that they never “granted a license” or gave Young “any form of permission to use intellectual property belonging to Chrome Hearts”, with the complaint adding: “Defendants have copied Chrome Hearts’ federally registered trademarks in an effort to exploit Chrome Hearts’ reputation in the market.”
Now, in a court filing on Thursday (May 14), Chrome Hearts said they were voluntarily dismissing the case against Young and the band. It is not known whether the case ended in a settlement agreement or has simply been dropped.
They had claimed that by making and selling merchandise bearing the name “Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts”, the singer and his band would “likely cause confusion” in the marketplace, and had been seeking an injunction to force Young stop using the name.
In other news, Young has said his new album with The Chrome Hearts is now finished, and it reportedly includes three songs that he wrote 63 years ago.
He had previously revealed that he was channelling anger at the Trump administration into the new album. “Politics today is sad and depressing for me. I can’t do it anymore. I can go out and demonstrate my feelings about it. We have the worst president in the history of our country. Every day a bad TV show produced by DJT is what we get,” he wrote.
In addition, he shared a song criticising Trump called ‘Big Crime’, where he hit out at the Republican party leader, and he also told his fans earlier this year that Trump was “out of control” and “we need a real president”.
More recently, Young cancelled his entire UK and European tour and said “this is not the time” to be playing shows.
He later provided some clarity on his reasons for axing the tour. Replying to a fan who was checking “everything is OK”, Young wrote: “All is good Michael. Just needed a break. Listening to my body.”
