Neil Young’s Chrome Hearts Trademark Fight Ends as Fashion Brand Drops Lawsuit

Chrome Hearts has dropped the trademark lawsuit it filed against Neil Young over the name of his new backing band, bringing to a close a dispute that had hung over a group he has already used on records and on tour.

The fashion label filed the case last summer, arguing that Young’s band name, The Chrome Hearts, infringed on the company’s trademarks. The brand said it had used the name since the late 1980s for apparel, jewelry and accessories, and framed the issue as a matter of protecting a long-standing identity built around the name. In a court filing Thursday (May 14), however, Chrome Hearts said it would voluntarily dismiss the case against Young and the other members of the band. The filing did not say whether the matter had been resolved through a settlement or simply abandoned.

Neither side immediately responded to requests for comment.

For Young, the naming dispute was always tangled up with a familiar band-history pattern. He spent decades touring and recording on and off with Crazy Horse, often billed as Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Then, in September 2024, he debuted The Chrome Hearts at FarmAid, making the name public before any lawsuit could really settle the question of whether the fashion company had a meaningful claim. The band’s debut album, Talkin to the Trees, arrived in June 2025, and the group later set out on a world tour.

Chrome Hearts, the Los Angeles-based brand, said in its suit that it had sold goods under the name, frequently rendered in Gothic script with a stylized cross, since 1988. “Defendants’ continued use of the confusingly similar [Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts] name in commerce violates Chrome Hearts’ valuable intellectual property rights,” the company wrote in the complaint.

At the time, the lawsuit looked like a difficult one to win. Trademark law does not give any company absolute ownership of a word or phrase, only protection in situations where consumer confusion is likely, especially across similar goods or services. Whether anyone would actually assume Neil Young’s band had some connection to a fashion label was always the central question, and it was not an especially obvious one.

Young has also shown no sign of retreating from the name. The Chrome Hearts is set to release a live album later this month, and the band has recently finished recording its second studio album, both still under the full Chrome Hearts name.

Neil Young performs onstage at the Greek Theatre on April 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
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