|
|
|
|
Eric Greif
|
| |
|
| |
Eric Greif (born 1962) is a lawyer and entertainment personality known first for a management career within the heavy metal musical genre in the 1980s and later within the legal profession. He is the nephew of American writer and publisher Martin Greif.
f was teen columnist with Southam News daily Calgary Herald but, wanting to be "where all the record labels were", left when he turned 18 for Los Angeles.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Eric Greif' Start a new discussion about 'Eric Greif' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
Eric Greif (born 1962) is a lawyer and entertainment personality known first for a management career within the heavy metal musical genre in the 1980s and later within the legal profession. He is the nephew of American writer and publisher Martin Greif.
Youth
Greif was teen columnist with Southam News daily Calgary Herald but, wanting to be "where all the record labels were", left when he turned 18 for Los Angeles. He attended the University of Sound Arts in Hollywood studying to become a recording engineer but soon switched to production when it was suggested to him by mentor Ron Fair.
Entertainment career
Greif's first production work was with the Greg Leon Invasion, who he met after a show at The Troubadour and later managed. Greg Leon subsequently introduced Greif to Tommy Lee, whom Leon had played in a band with, and this led to Greif's management work with Mötley Crüe. Among his arrangements was Mötley Crüe's eventful 1982 tour of Canada.
By the mid 1980s, Greenworld Distribution, who had worked with Greif on the marketing and distribution of Mötley Crüe's first album Too Fast for Love, had signed contracts with the vast majority of bands Greif brought to them, including Kansas City's Vyper, who he produced and managed. John Hughes, writing for the Kansas City Star, noted that "Mr. Greif hopes that Vyper will follow the pattern of last year's heavy metal meteor, Mötley Crüe, for which he was assistant manager and which recorded its first album with Greenworld...Billboard magazine announced the news in this week's issue". Quoting Greif, Hughes wrote "I'm going for millionaire status rather than blue-collar status. I'm marketing a product. The '80s is image, a look. The '80s are MTV". Greenworld's 1986 bankruptcy caused problems for Greif as Enigma Records, Greenworld's largest creditor, refused to return any of the master tapes and was not interested in promoting anything that Greenworld had been working on.
Greif moved into concerts as co-promoter of Milwaukee Metalfest, described by MTV as "one of the largest celebrations of underground heavy metal in the country". He managed death metal pioneer Chuck Schuldiner and his Florida band Death, did some campaigning against US heavy metal media censorship, and produced bands such as Acrophet, Morbid Saint, Realm, Invocator, Viogression,Twistin' Egyptians, Transmetal, Cyclone, and Dr. Shrinker. Greif also managed LA band London, who at one time featured his former client Nikki Sixx, before their final break-up.
In 1991, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel music writer Terry Higgins stated: "At 29, Greif has become the kingpin of a steadily growing rock empire by becoming the kind of tough businessman who is as much at home in the courtroom as in the boardroom". Although client Schuldiner had said about Greif "we just came to the conclusion that it was stupid just fighting all the time, taking each other to court and all that stupid shit", by the mid 1990s Greif decided he'd spent enough time in court to know he wanted to become a lawyer.
Legal career
Eric Greif is a member of the Canadian Bar Association; after completing law school in Canada, from 1998 he studied postgraduate law at Lancaster University in England, and was twice awarded its Iredell Fellowship in Law, a national teaching fellowship for law PhD candidates.
Within legal practice, Greif was a co-founder of the Association of Restorative Practitioners of the UK and Ireland, delivered victim-offender mediation training to the Czech Republic Probation and Mediation Service (PMS) in Prague, and was a State Prosecutors facilitator at a conference of the European Forum for Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice in Belgium. In entertainment endeavors, Greif represented guitarist/songwriter Paul Masvidal.
Personal life
Greif says that he has always opposed the abuse of hard drugs, especially after seeing it "destroy" a few lives, including a former business partner. Greif has been an insulin-dependent diabetic for most of his life, which was briefly cured by a pancreas transplant, but "it failed a few months later and health continues to be a struggle for him", although he still lectures.
|
| |
|
|
