The Guess Who: Current, former members battle in court, public opinion over band's legacy

Seeing The Guess Who in concert? Well, that depends on who’s telling the story. At what point does a band become just a brand? That’s essentially the question being asked in a very public war of words between current and former members of The Guess Who.

The Canadian rockers climbed to fame in the 1960s with songs like “American Woman” and “These Eyes.” Nowadays, the two camps — with principal songwriters Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman on one side, and bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson on the other — are in court over the issue.

In October, Cummings and Bachman filed a federal lawsuit, accusing the current group of misleading people into thinking it’s the classic lineup of the band — which broke up in 1975.

In a December filing, Kale and Peterson’s lawyers asked for the suit to be thrown out.

“Consumers who see an ad for a concert by The Guess Who would not reasonably assume that Bachman and Cummings are performing merely because they were in the band many years ago,” according to the defendants’ memorandum. “It is common knowledge that bands often undergo membership changes and that few if any bands formed in the 1960s still have the same lineup today. And of course, fans of The Guess Who — the advertising’s target audience — know Bachman and Cummings have not been in the band for decades.”

On Jan. 26, Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha scheduled a jury trial, set to start April 29, 2025, in California’s Central District.

In the meantime, the current iteration of the group is scheduled to play Friday at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg. The touring lineup includes Peterson, singer/guitarist Derek Sharp, lead guitarist Michael Staertow, bassist Greg Smith and keyboardist Teddy Andreadis. This will be the band’s third time playing the Palace Theatre in the past four years, with an ever-changing lineup besides Peterson and Sharp.

Locally, none of the announcements for the Palace Theatre shows in 2021, 2022 or this year included any mention of Cummings or Bachman.

While waiting for the wheels of justice to turn, Cummings is doing his part to spread the word about what he sees as the band’s legacy being tainted.

“They’re trying to rewrite history. They’re not paying any homage to the song. They’re not honoring the music,” Cummings said Monday in an interview with TribLive. “They’re using my voice, Randy Bachman’s guitar, our records that we did years ago, they’re using those records as bait to sell tickets, pretending that they’re the ones who created the songs and they’re just not.

“The band doesn’t own the songs; they didn’t write them or they didn’t sing them, and they basically hijacked the resumes of those of us who did and they’re using this history that others made to sell tickets to their fake shows.”

Cummings contended there are several ways for the current lineup to keep touring.

“The resolution is that they cannot use the name The Guess Who as if it’s the original band,” he said. “They can call it a Guess Who tribute. They can call it Garry Peterson’s Guess Who. They could call it, they cannot go around saying that they are the original people. And you know what, when the people show up at the Palace, the people that go probably they’re gonna think that some of the original guys are there, and it’s just not. It’s a completely fake band.”

Bachman, who is currently touring with Bachman Turner Overdrive, the band he formed after leaving The Guess Who, shared his frustration in October with Rolling Stone.

“The fans are getting ripped off over and over, and Burton and I lose because we can’t tour The Guess Who even though we want to,” he told the magazine. “We wrote the music for this band and want to give it to the fans. The clones that are up there weren’t even alive when these were hits, it’s kind of a joke.”

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But for Peterson, the current lineup is just an evolution of what the band’s always done.

“If you do your history, you realize that The Guess Who is kind of unique in the way that it’s had four or five successful versions with different members,” Peterson told Goldmine, a magazine that caters to music collectors, in an interview posted in January. “There was no one definitive band, unless you just want to say the people that recorded ‘American Woman’ are the definitive version of The Guess Who. I suppose you can make an argument for that, because that’s a huge song.

“But there were also other big hits, especially in Canada, that were quite successful. And so it’s a bit tough to categorize this as a one-hit wonder band. You might want to do something like you’re suggesting, but, really, we’re just a continuation of a long legacy.”

Sharp, who has been with the band since 2008, led the way on their latest album, 2023’s “Plein D’Amour.”

“When you talk to Garry (Peterson), he sees that there is a link. He sees how this band links with the past. He also sees himself as one of the links with the past,” Sharp told Spill Magazine. “This is a band that has been around a long time, and is an institution. … I have been with this band a long time now, so I am part of that link as well. Everyone has a favorite stage of The Guess Who, from Chad Allen to Bachman to Cummings.

“Having said that, I don’t see a musical link with this new album. Remember, those original hits were written by young guys, the new album is written by older, more experienced musicians. But it would be the same if the original guys were still in the band; bands change and evolve as you become a more experienced musician and writer.”

The fight between the sides has spilled into all corners of the Internet. The band’s Wikipedia page features a breakdown of the “American Woman” lineup members and the “current tribute band members,” with similar comments on YouTube videos.

“This is wrong. This is fraud. This is them pretending to be something they’re not and hijacking the history that so many others worked so many years to create,” Cummings said. “I can’t believe they’re using “These Eyes” and “American Woman” and all the big, big songs that we had to dupe people into coming to see them.

“This is a bar band, calling themselves, why don’t they call themselves the Beatles? And start singing ‘Day Tripper’ and ‘We Can Work It Out.’ It’s just so wrong. … With this lawsuit, we’re intending to correct the wrong that has been done and just let the final legacy of the band, the people who actually created the records, these guys are out there hijacking all of that. And basically, it’s a lie. It’s just a lie that they’re living.”