Diehard Guns N’ Roses fan Rick Dunsford has been banned from attending the band’s concerts for life after he allegedly uploaded the GnR’s unreleased tracks to the Internet. Additionally, Dunsford is facing legal action from the band’s representatives, who are seeking monetary damages.
According to Dunsford, when he attended a recent Guns N’ Roses show in Wichita, KS in October 2019, he was refused entry into the concert and was informed that he had been banned for life from all future GnR performances. This was a rather unfortunate revelation for Dunsford, as he is a self-described “diehard” fan of the band who has seen them perform 32 times and just recently named his newborn son Axl after singer Axl Rose.
Related: Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest Announces 2020 Lineup: Guns N’ Roses, Maroon 5, More
It has been speculated by Dunsford that his ban arose from accusations from Universal Music Group (which owns the rights to Guns N’ Roses’ previously-released music) that he leaked tracks from a 19-disc collection of unreleased demo sessions from the band’s 2008 comeback album, Chinese Democracy. Dunsford, along with a group of fellow Guns N’ Roses fans, came into possession of the demos when the band’s former A&R representative Tom Zutat auctioned off a storage unit containing digital copies from the band’s studio sessions.
After Universal learned that Zutat had sold off the unheard recordings to Dunsford and company, they bought the recordings back for $15,000, hoping to end the matter once and for all. However, according to TMZ, Universal has served Dunsford with a cease-and-desist order and has threatened to sue him for monetary damages for allegedly violating the agreement after tracks began showing up online a month after the deal, an action for which Dunsford denies responsibility.
Meanwhile, Guns N’ Roses continue their Not In This Lifetime Tour that began in 2017 as they recently added more international dates for 2020. Tickets are available on their website.
[H/T Consequence of Sound]