In October, it was revealed that Guns N’ Roses had issued a lifetime ban from all future shows to a longtime fan. The fan, Rick Dunsford, has carved out the reputation as being a hardcore GN’R devotee over the years. As an active member of the band’s online forums, with a knack for tracking down as much hard-to-find stuff as possible.
However, this penchant for tracking down rarities came back to bite him. A while back, a slew of demos from the band’s Chinese Democracy era were leaked online.
The blame was placed on Dunsford, who obtained the demos from a 19-disc collection that he, amongst others, had purchased. Dunsford purchased the vault of music from a storage unit auction that was conducted by Guns N’ Roses former A&R guy, Tom Zutaut.
The unit featured a slew of unreleased recordings from the band. Upon discovering that the recordings had been auctioned off, management paid $15,000 to Dunsford and others to sell the recordings back to them.
UMG allege that Dunsford violated this agreement, and have accused him of leaking the recordings in the month following the transaction.
As TMZ report, Dunsford has been hit with a cease-and-desist and is being threatened with monetary damages. He is accused of leaking 97 recordings. However, Dunsford insists that he isn’t to blame for the leaks.
“About two and a half months ago, I drove to Virginia, and there was a storage locker that belonged to Tom Zutaut,” Rick Dunford explained to Greg Dwyer and Bill Michaels this past October. “He didn’t pay his bills or something and it was auctioned off. The individual that bought the locker, there was about 20 CDs in this locker of unreleased GUNS N’ ROSES music from around ’99 to 2000 or 2001.
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“I know the seller that I bought them from was continuing to sell to other individuals,” he said, “and there was a massive leak. So pretty much, I’ve been blamed for this.”
