Red Hot Chili Peppers Sell Recorded Catalog to Warner in Deal Worth More Than $300 Million

Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold their recorded music catalog to Warner Music Group for more than $300 million, according to Billboard. The package covers the band’s entire recorded output, including all 13 of their studio albums, which are said to bring in roughly $26 million a year.

The sale lands a year after the band had owned the recordings independently, and comes after reports that they were looking for $350 million for the catalog. Even so, Warner makes a pretty direct fit here: the label was the original home for Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Californication, two of the group’s most defining records.

This is separate from the 2015 deal that saw Hipgnosis Songs Fund acquire the band’s publishing rights for about $150 million. That ownership could still shift again, too, with Sony Music currently pursuing Hipgnosis, now called Recognition Music Group, as part of a multi-billion-dollar acquisition attempt.

The Chili Peppers’ most recent full-length releases are Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen, both released in 2022. With this latest catalog sale, they now sit alongside a long list of major artists who have cashed out catalog rights in recent years, from Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Justin Bieber to a growing countercurrent led by artists like Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa, who have chosen instead to buy their music back.