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Red Hot Chili Peppers sell recorded music catalogue to Warner Music Group in deal worth more than $300 million
Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold their recorded music catalogue to Warner Music Group in a deal worth more than $300 million.
Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold their recorded music catalogue to Warner Music Group in a deal valued at more than $300 million (£220 million). The move hands Warner control of the band’s master recordings, with future income from streaming, radio play, sales and licensing now going to the label.
The band have been signed to Warner since Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991, so the sale marks a major shift in a relationship that has stretched across most of their career. It also follows an earlier deal with Hipgnosis, now known as Recognition Music Group, in which the band sold the publishing rights to their music for a reported $140 million (£102 million).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the latest transaction was financed through a joint venture between Warner Music Group and investment firm Bain Capital. Bain Capital launched a $1.2 billion (£880 million) fund last year aimed at buying high-profile music catalogues.
The Chili Peppers’ catalogue is thought to bring in around $26 million (£19 million) a year, and until now the rights have been controlled by the members of the band themselves. That kind of annual return goes some way to explaining why these catalogues have become such coveted assets across the industry.
The band’s most recent studio albums, Unlimited Love and Return Of The Dream Canteen, both arrived in 2022 and both performed strongly commercially, reaching the top three in the US and UK album charts.
They are far from alone in taking this route. In recent years, a long list of major artists has sold off back catalogues and publishing rights, from Bruce Springsteen’s roughly $500 million deal for his entire music library in 2021 to similar arrangements by Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, Deftones and Jack White.
More recently, Slipknot sold their catalogue to HarbourView Equity Partners for $120 million. Other high-profile deals have included Pink Floyd for $400 million, alongside catalogue moves involving Queen, KISS, Britney Spears and Tame Impala.
Outside the business news cycle, the band have also been in the frame for a Netflix documentary, The Rise Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel, which premiered last month and focuses on the group’s early years, especially original guitarist Hillel Slovak. The band were interviewed for the film, though they made a point of distancing themselves from the project. Even so, Flea spoke warmly about it, calling it “a beautifully made film” that “filled my heart right to the top, not without a good dose of lifelong melancholy”.
Frontman Anthony Kiedis’ girlfriend Eileen Kelly also recently wrote about the benefits of their age-gap relationship, describing him as “one lucky bastard”.
