Supernova, Indeed

So another Canadian gets to fulfill his rock star dreams. For the first season of "Rock Star: The Series," JD Fortune, born in Mississauga, raised in Nova Scotia, was picked to be INXS' new lead singer. This season, Goth-glam singer Lukas Rossi from Toronto, Ontario won the chance to be the front man of the band that was supposed to be called Supernova.

And will it ever be called Supernova again?

According to ChartAttack. com, a band that claims to be the original Supernova had already voiced out their objections and their lawyers had already issued cease and desist letters to CBS and Mark Burnett's production company as early as June. The band, according to the same website, is "a pop-punk trio from California (that) have been recording and performing under that name since the early '90s." They have several albums to their name, and have been on several tours. A quick search in online forums told me that the band is best known for their song "Chewbacca" in the soundtrack of the cult movie "Clerks."

And what does the original Supernova have to say about "Rock Star: Supernova"? A mouthful. In their June media statement, they lashed out with the following barbs: "It's kind of like if that 1980s Top 40 nightmare Rick Astley was performing around town under the name The Jimi Hendrix Experience. A living block of has-been cheese trading on the name of legitimate talent… What a thing to have to battle over, the fight to keep your hard-earned band's name from being sullied by the spectacle that is reality television. It'd be something like waking up hung over in a Tijuana alley, naked, bloody, your wallet and ID missing and a long ugly line of stitches on your belly from where persons unknown shanghaied one of your kidneys."

The original Supernova has since taken legal action, claiming, according to Billboard.com, that "it owns trademark rights for the name under the so-called common-law so there is no federal registration for that name that a database search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would have revealed." The show's producers countered that they had purchased the rights to Supernova from someone else who held a registered federal trademark, and that the band had abandoned its rights several years ago after it stopped writing or performing. However, on the day of the finale, a Californian judge ruled in their favor and ordered the reality show's producers to come up with a new name.

Does it get any more real than lawsuits? The Supernova vs. Supernova battle is still on, and while it rages, Tommy Lee, Gilby Clark, Jason Newsted, and their new singer Lukas can't use the name for their band. I remember my first column piece on "Rock Star: Supernova." I wrote, "The obvious early leader is Lukas with the heavy eyeliner, who says that what you see is what you get, that rock n' roll is a way of life for him, yada, yada. He blew everyone away."

In the same piece, I also said that I found the name "Supernova" peculiar, and even quoted the American Heritage Dictionary in defining supernova as: "a rare celestial phenomenon involving the explosion of most of the material in a star, resulting in an extremely bright, short-lived object that emits vast amounts of energy."

Apparently, short-lived is the operative word here-at least where the band name is concerned. I'm actually not surprised that a band named Supernova already exists. It's not exactly original; in fact, it's bordering on cheesy. It actually makes the show's name, at least for this season, redundant: "Rock Star: Star." I really think the producers should have done a more detailed Google search at the least. The original Supernova is based in the same city, for heaven's sake!

Nevertheless, I am still looking forward to their album-even if they have to change their name. Tommy Lee is still Tommy Lee, as Jason Newsted is still Jason Newsted, and Gilby Clarke is still Gilby Clark. And even if Lukas won his shot at fame and fortune in a reality show that's basically called "Rock Star: Star," as far as I'm concerned, the operative word here is rock.

I was rooting for Magni, but I believe without question that Lukas will rock.

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