Boyzone have been banned from the using the voice of the late band member Stephen Gately on their next album.
Band member Shane Lynch said a dispute with representatives of Gately’s estate means they can’t include new material featuring the singer who died in October 2009.
The album was to commemorate the band’s 20th anniversary.
Lynch told the Irish Independent that Gately had been working on new material with Boyzone at the time of his death, but now there was a dispute over who owned the rights toi his recordings.
“We’d love to use his vocals, but it’s not so simple. Apparently, even though we were in a band with him for 17 years, we can’t use his voice,” he said.
“When Stephen died we were in the middle of making an album. The last thing we could have done was continue after losing him. But he is very much alive on those songs.”
Gately died suddenly in October of 2009.
But Boyzone have their fingers crossed that Gately’s representatives will allow them to use a hologram of the singer on their anniversary tour, planned for later this year.
Solicitor Gerald Kean, who represents the Gately family, said his clients “were unaware of any dispute” and had not been contacted regarding the use of Gately’s voice on the next Boyzone album, or the use of him as a hologram in live concerts.
But sources close to Boyzone have spoken of tensions between the band and Gately’s husband, Andy Cowles.
On their last tour, Boyzone members Lynch, Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy and Mikey Graham asked the audience to sing the part once performed by Gately on Boyzone’s ‘No Matter What’.
