Lawrence ‘Larry’ Mestel is the Founder and CEO of Primary Wave Music, headquartered in New York, NY.<\/p>\n
Mestel previously held positions at Island Entertainment Group, Arista Records, and Virgin Records.<\/p>\n
Mestel has produced and\/or co-produced films including the critically acclaimed documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\nLarry Mestel<\/b>: Career History<\/h6>\n
During the 1990s, Larry Mestel was Chief Operating Officer of Chris Blackwell\u2019s Island Entertainment Group, which included Island Records, Island Music Publishing, and Island Pictures.<\/p>\n
After nine years with Blackwell’s company, Mestel moved to Arista Records in 2000 to become the label’s Executive Vice President and General Manager.<\/p>\n
In this role, Mestel managed<\/a> sales, international and strategic marketing, A&R and marketing administration, finance, and business affairs. He also helped develop some of the label’s major artists including Outkast, Usher, Pink, Avril Lavigne, and Carlos Santana.<\/p>\n Four years later in 2004, Mestel jumped ship to Virgin Records to become Chief Operating Officer and General Manager.<\/p>\n At Virgin, Mestel oversaw the company\u2019s marketing, sales, and the general day-to-day business operations. He continued to work with historic artists such as The Rolling Stones, Jermaine Dupri, Lenny Kravitz, and Janet Jackson.<\/p>\n At the beginning of 2006, Mestel founded Primary Wave Records. He quickly struck a deal with Courtney Love, the widow of Kurt Cobain, to purchase 25% of her share of Nirvana\u2019s publishing catalog for over $50 million dollars.<\/p>\n He continued by purchasing portions of catalogs<\/a> from John Lennon, Chicago, and Steven Tyler, just to name a few.<\/p>\n As Primary Wave Records continued to acquire music rights, Mestel expanded the firm to include talent management, marketing, and television and film development.<\/p>\n In October 2022, Primary Wave inked a $2 billion deal<\/a> with financial giant Brookfield. The agreement saw Brookfield commit\u00a0$1.7 billion<\/strong> into a new \u201cpermanent capital vehicle\u201d \u2013 essentially a fourth fund<\/a> \u2013 in which Primary Wave itself was also a minority owner.<\/p>\n Today, Mestel and Primary Wave control songs from legendary artists including Bob Marley, Prince, Smokey Robinson, Whitney Houston, Bing Crosby, Luther Vandross, Ray Charles, and Aerosmith.<\/p>\n In an October 2022 interview with Music Business Worldwide<\/em>, Larry Mestel said: “When you buy the right music assets and you truly add value to those assets, you keep your partners happy,\u201d smiles Mestel. \u201cThere is typically a good outcome that comes from that strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: “We\u2019ve had a successful growth strategy in place for 16 years now \u2013 enhancing value not only for us but for our artistic partners as well [Primary Wave often strikes deals where the songwriter\/artist\/estate involved keeps a minority interest].<\/p>\n “Primary Wave has a history of being friendly to artists, plus artists know we close deals.”<\/p>\n Larry Mestel, speaking in 2022<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cPrimary Wave has a history of being friendly to artists, plus artists know we close deals \u2013 we don\u2019t walk away from signed letters of intent.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at the enhancement of streaming for iconic artists [Primary Wave has achieved], when you look at the marketing and then the podcasts, documentaries, brand opportunities that we\u2019ve implemented, you understand why our revenue has grown dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before founding Primary Wave in 2006, Larry Mestel held positions at Island Entertainment Group, Arista Records, and Virgin Records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":140420,"template":"","class_list":["post-99125","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/99125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/people"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/99125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLarry Mestel<\/b>: Professional philosophy<\/h6>\n