JACK RUSSELL Slams GREAT WHITE's MARK KENDALL For 'Acting Like A Concerned Old Friend'

August 2, 2012

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE singer Jack Russell, who is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with his former GREAT WHITE bandmates over the rights to the group's name, has posted the following message on his Facebook page:

"A friend of mine just showed me an interview with my former guitarist Mark Kendall [of GREAT WHITE]. In this interview, he insinuates and/or alleges that I am not sober. Ordinarily I do not let such idiotic and slanderous comments bother me, as I must consider the source, but at this point I have had enough!

"My A.A. sponsor, who has been sober for twenty six years, will verify along with anyone else in my life that I AM SOBER. I will take my one-year cake and coin on August 10th.

"[Addressing Kendall directly] Do me a favor, worry about your own sobriety and quit taking cheap pot shots at me in the press while acting like a 'concerned old friend.'

"Remember, Mark, you were one of my dear old friends who never even called me once while I was in a coma for five days in the hospital. So for you to come off now like you are seriously concerned about my welfare is insulting. You are not fooling anyone, certainly not me.

"I wish you would stop 'wishing me nothing but the best' after doing your best to throw me under the bus.

"I propose from now on, if we don't have anything good to say about each other, let's just not say anything at all."

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE recently took part in the "America Rocks" tour alongside FASTER PUSSYCAT, BULLETBOYS, PRETTY BOY FLOYD and LILLIAN AXE.

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE is not to be confused with the other touring and recording version of GREAT WHITE, which features Mark Kendall, Scott Snyder (bass),Audie Desbrow (drums),Michael Lardie (guitar, keyboards) and Terry Ilous (lead vocals).

When asked if he has heard the new album, "Elation", from the "other" version of GREAT WHITE, Russell said, "I haven't. I have no need to. I know what it's going to sound like, it's not going to sound like what I'd want to hear anyway. It would just kind of make me feel bad because it's not going to sound like GREAT WHITE. Good, bad or indifferent, it's not going to be a GREAT WHITE album. . . You can't take a lead vocalist out. That's the one thing that distinguishes each band from another. Every guitar kind of sounds the same, every guitar player that is decent can play another guy's riffs. There have been a couple of bands that have been successful after changing lead singers — like you look at VAN HALEN when they got Sammy [Hagar]. He's a great singer and a friend, but I don't want to hear him sing the songs of David Lee Roth. They should have changed the name of the band to VAN HAGAR. That's the way I feel about any band. There's been talk from some people that Ronnie James Dio went in after Ozzy and BLACK SABBATH was still great. Well, okay, great, he did but it still wasn't BLACK SABBATH to me. . . . You can have a guy, like the guy that is now singing for JOURNEY. He sounds like Steve Perry, but it's still not the same. Not everybody feels that way, but whatever they do, I wish them the best."

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE is:

Jack Russell - Vocals
Robby Lochner (FIGHT) - Guitar
Matthew Johnson (DOCTOR M, JACK RUSSELL) - Guitar
Dario Seixas (FIREHOUSE, STEPHEN PEARCY) - Bass
Derrick Pontier (GREAT WHITE, SAMANTHA 7) - Drums

Russell filed a lawsuit against his estranged bandmates in March claiming that they fired him and stole the group's name while he was recovering from surgery to repair a perforated bowel. Named in the complaint were Kendall, Desbrow, Lardie and talent agency Bigg Time Entertainment. Kendall, Desbrow and Lardie responded with a 30-page counterclaim, filed on April 24 in a federal court in Los Angeles, accusing their former frontman of, among other things, "miss[ing] 80 performances in 18 months" before leaving the band; "irreparably damag[ing]" their "market reputation" by putting on performances that "are not up to the standard of GREAT WHITE; and misleading the public by stating that the musicians in Jack's new band "were once full members of GREAT WHITE." They also accuse Russell's new bandmates of "profit[ing] from their wrongful affiliation with the GREAT WHITE brand."

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