My Chemical Romance is bowing out of a legal fight with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, reaching an agreement to stop dressing its backup dancers in costumes resembling the squad’s iconic royal blue and white uniforms during a mock gun battle onstage – at least for now.
The cheer team, arguably the most famous in the world, filed a lawsuit against the rock band late Friday in Texas, accusing it of infringing on its trademarked uniforms during a provocative stage skit at the Hollywood Bowl last week. The band has two more shows scheduled at the venue for Oct. 30 and Halloween, marking its celebration of the 20th anniversary of its 2006 album, The Black Parade.
An emergency restraining order hearing was scheduled for today, Oct. 28, in Collin County, Texas, but online records confirm the showdown didn’t happen because an “agreement [was] reached.” While a lawyer for the cheer squad attended the hearing, no lawyer for My Chemical Romance was there, the records confirm. Sources tell Rolling Stone that My Chemical Romance agreed to stop using the costumes while the case remains pending.
A minute order posted online said the judge directed the parties “to confer regarding [the] relief requested given that plaintiff has narrowed [the] requested relief.” It wasn’t immediately clear what had changed in terms of the cheer squad’s demands, but its lawyers filed a notice Wednesday dropping concert promoter Live Nation as a defendant. Live Nation, however, had already filed a notice seeking to move the case to federal court. Representatives for the parties did not respond to requests for comment.
The kerfuffle started at the band’s show last Wednesday, when dancers wearing supposedly infringing star-spangled uniforms stormed the stage with rifles drawn, aiming at black-clad troops representing a fictional dictatorship. A mock gun battle followed, according to video of the performance that circulated online and was cited in the lawsuit.
“The brand DCC built on dedication, character, and community, and on decades of entertaining American troops, was thus put on a stage in a gunfight, its uniform worn by performers shown shooting and being shot,” the lawsuit filed by attorney Alex Spiro and obtained by Rolling Stone reads.
Other videos posted on social media from the Friday night show depicted the dancers still dressed in the outfits at the center of the lawsuit.
Pro Silver Star, the parent company that owns the cheer group’s trademark, said in its lawsuit that it “does not ask defendants to change their setlist, narrative, politics, choreography, or even their decision to put gun-toting performers on stage. Silver Star asks only that those performers not wear the DCC Uniform while doing it. The universe of alternative costume designs is effectively unlimited.”
After its final shows at the Hollywood Bowl, My Chemical Romance is due to begin the Asian leg of its Black Parade anniversary tour on Nov. 7 in South Korea, followed by concerts in Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
