Late last year, the veteran UK rock keyboardist Martin Duffy died after suffering a brain injury from a fall at his home. Duffy was 55. He’d played with bands like Felt and the Charlatans, but he spent most of his career in Primal Scream — first as a contributing musician and then as a full member of the band, starting in 1989. Duffy was still playing in Primal Scream shortly before his death, and frontman Bobby Gillespie wrote movingly about Duffy after his passing. But now Duffy’s son Louie has written a detailed statement, claiming that the band economically exploited Duffy for years and that they showed no concern for his wellbeing.

As The Argus reports, the 19-year-old Louie Duffy has written a long personal witness statement in response to an inquest into Martin Duffy’s death. In his seven-page statement, Louie writes that his father’s 30 years in Primal Scream “might lead people to believe that he was a wealthy man but this is not the case at all. My Dad died in debt and I know how badly this affected him in the last year of his life.”

Louie says that Martin Duffy was once an “equal member” of Primal Scream but that the band — really just Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes — “gradually cut out from getting any songwriting credits, then touring and merchandise profits, eventually just being paid per gig.” Louie writes that his father struggled with alcoholism and battled prostate cancer, and he writes about his father’s difficulty when returning to the band post-lockdown while recovering from cancer treatment, performing while “in agony” because of a malfunctioning catheter.

Last year, Louie Duffy writes, Martin Duffy learned that Primal Scream cut him out of a huge financial windfall:

He read in the press that the band had sold half of their back catalogue to BMG — for what turned out to be five million pounds — and he didn’t receive a penny. He wasn’t consulted or even told about it. Dad had played on every Primal Scream album — had songwriting on at least two — but still the band chose not to offer him the opportunity to get his share, at a time they knew he really needed financial help.

Although he only had a comparatively small amount of publishing, if he had been included in this sale it would have been life-changing for Dad. He could have cleared the debt he had built up during lockdown and been able to pay off some of the mortgage, relieving him of all of his money worries. When he asked about it, he was told by his manager — who is also the band’s manager — that “it wouldn’t be worth his solicitor’s fees pursuing it.” It is clear that Dad’s interests were never properly managed on his behalf.

Louie Duffy claims that his father’s health declined catastrophically after he was forced off of a Primal Scream tour for drinking, and that he believes his father “just gave up.” After Martin Duffy’s death, Louie says he heard from Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes a few times but that communications had stopped. He goes on to point out the disconnect between Gillespie’s stated politics and his treatment of Duffy:

I’ve seen on Instagram how Bobby Gillespie is always urging everyone to support the strikers — fair pay for the workers — and there is nothing wrong with that, Dad supported the strikers too, but not if at the same time you aren’t paying your own bandmate of over 30 years even a small share of the tour profits to make his life easier. As the band got older they did less touring and more one-off gigs which meant Dad was getting paid less and less, only earning around £40k a year for playing with Primal Scream, not a lot for someone with his talent and experience.

The whole account is pretty devastating, and you can read it here. Primal Scream have not publicly responded yet.