Lukas Rossi selected as the winner of 'Rock Star: Supernova'

Rock Star: Supernova crowned its winner last night, with Tommy Lee, Jason Newsted, and Gilby Clarke selecting Lukas Rossi to serve as the lead singer for their suddenly untitled newly formed rock band.


Rock Star: Supernova's season finale began with four finalists (who also just happened to represent four different countries) remaining in the running to be the band's lead singer -- Lukas, Magni Asgeirsson, Toby Rand, and Dilana Robichaux.

After revealing that Magni, a singer from Reykjavik, Iceland, and Toby, a singer from Melbourne, Australia, had received the fewest home viewer votes after Tuesday night's final performance show and allowing each of them to perform one more time, Gilby announced that the band had decided to eliminate Magni.

"Magni, man, it's been a great ride but one of our questions has always been you're such a talented musician and you play so well with the band and even with a song like 'Fire' I don't even know if you're fronting the band as much as you're part of the band," Gilby told Magni. "So with all that being considered, Magni, you're the next to go."

After Magni was eliminated from the running, Rock Star: Supernova's three remaining finalists performed for the final time. Finally, once all three solo performances were over, Jason announced that the band had decided to eliminate Toby -- the other member of the final performance show's bottom two vote-getters -- from the competition and Lukas, a singer from Toronto, Canada, and Dilana, a singer from Houston, Texas, were the competition's final two finalists.


"'Tob,' your vocal ability has never been in question, you have this range -- more than any other person that has competed here -- that cuts through no way how loud the guitar gets your voice still cuts through, that's awesome," Jason told Toby. "Each performance has been 'another notch, another notch, another notch,' ... everyone's been able to see it, [it's] been visible just like that, absolutely, no question about it...[but] you are going to be the next one to go home from this competition. We love you, you know that."

Finally, after one more commercial break, Tommy broke the news that although it had been a tough choice, the band had selected Lukas to be their lead singer. "As any good band would do, they would listen to their fans and... this person that I'm talking about had the highest number of votes last night... so obviously we agree with our public -- Lukas you're our boy, welcome!," Tommy told Lukas and Dilana as they anxiously awaited the announcement of the band's final decision.

Despite losing the competition, Dilana isn't walking away empty handed. In addition to receiving huge praise from both the band and Rock Star co-host Dave Navarro, Dilana -- similar to Marty Casey, last summer's Rock Star: INXS runner-up -- was invited to perform with the house band on the new group's upcoming world tour. But Dilana also received a couple of other "consolation prizes" that Marty didn't get -- Gilby's offer to help her write and produce her own solo album and Dave and Tommy's offers to also perform on the album.

Conspicuously absent from Rock Star: Supernova's finale were any references to calling the new band "Supernova." On Tuesday, a federal judge granted a pre-existing Orange County, California, punk band of the same name a preliminary injunction that keeps the newly formed CBS reality show group from "performing rock and roll music, or recording, or selling rock and roll music recordings" under the Supernova name "pending a trial of this action on its merits, or until otherwise ordered by the court."

Back in June, the members of the original Supernova -- bassist Art Mitchell, drummer Dave Collins and guitarist Jodey Lawrence -- had filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit claiming CBS's Rock Star band was stealing their name. According to the trio, which formed in 1989 and released four studio albums, they contacted Rock Star's producers and informed them of the name conflict as soon as CBS announced that this season would form a new group called Supernova (and well before Rock Star: Supernova premiered in July) but the show's producers willfully ignored the fact that the Supernova name was already taken. After settlement negotiations continued to drag out, the pre-existing band filed their request for a preliminary injunction in August.


With the preliminary injunction in effect, instead of continuing her season-long practice of referring to the new band's first three members as Supernova, Rock Star co-host Brooke Burke referred to the group as "Tommy, Jason, and Gilby" throughout the live finale broadcast.

The missing band name references continued even after Lukas was revealed to have won the competition. "And here they are as the first time ever as a complete band -- Lukas how does it feel?," Brooke awkwardly announced prior to the newly formed group's live first performance. After they performed, viewers were urged to "be sure to catch this supergroup" when the new band's world tour begins in January 2007.