Eric Greif
Encyclopedia
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
musical genre in the 1980s and later within the legal profession. He is the nephew of deceased writer and publisher Martin Greif
Martin Greif
Martin Joel Greif was an American editor, lecturer, publisher and writer...
.
Youth
Greif was teen columnist with Southam NewsCanwest News Service
Postmedia News is a national news agency with correspondents in Canada, Europe, and the United States and is part of the Canadian newspaper chain owned by Postmedia Network Inc.-History:...
daily Calgary Herald
Calgary Herald
The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in the Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta.- History :The paper was first published on August 31, 1883 by Andrew Armour and Thomas Braden as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser. It started as a weekly paper with only...
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
Ron Fair
Ron Fair is a veteran A&R executive, record producer arranger, recording engineer and songwriter. In a career that has spanned over 30 years at major record labels he has produced and arranged hits for several artists, but he is best known as a "guru/mentor", guiding the careers of unknown artists...
.
Entertainment career
Greif's first production work was with the Greg Leon Invasion, who he met after their show at The Troubadour and later managed. Greg LeonGreg Leon
Gregory Jay Leon is a Los Angeles hard rock guitarist notable for his stints in Quiet Riot and Dokken. He was also in a band with Tommy Lee called Suite 19....
subsequently introduced Greif to Tommy Lee
Tommy Lee
Thomas Lee Bass , best known as Tommy Lee, is an American musician and founding member of glam metal band Mötley Crüe. As well as being the band's long-term drummer, Lee founded rap-metal band Methods of Mayhem, and has pursued solo musical projects...
, whom Leon had played in a band with, and this led to Greif's management work with Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil...
. 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
Too Fast for Love
Too Fast For Love is the debut record of American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe; 900 copies were released in November 1981 on the band's Leathür Records label. Elektra Records signed the band the following year, at which point the album was remixed and partially re-recorded...
, had signed contracts with the vast majority of bands Greif brought to them with production deals, 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
Enigma Records
Enigma Records was a popular rock and alternative American record label in the 1980s. It was initially a division of Greenworld Distribution, an independent music importer/distributor, which it split-off from in 1985 to become its own company...
, 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
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
pioneer Chuck Schuldiner
Chuck Schuldiner
Charles Michael "Chuck" Schuldiner was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist.Schuldiner was the singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the band Death, which he founded in 1983, initially under the name Mantas. He also recorded as guitarist and songwriter with his other band, Control Denied...
and his Florida band Death, did some campaigning against US heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
media censorship
Censorship of music
Censorship of music is the practice of restricting free access to musical works. This censorship may stem from a wide variety of motivations, including moral, political, military or religious reasons. Censorship can range from the complete government-enforced legal prohibition of a musical work, to...
, and produced bands such as Acrophet, Morbid Saint
Morbid Saint
Morbid Saint is an American thrash metal band from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, active from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. The band opened up numerous concerts for Florida's Death, one of the progenitors of death metal, as they shared a manager...
, Realm
Realm (band)
Realm is an American thrash/progressive metal band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that formed in 1985.-History:Realm formed in 1985 in Milwaukee. They released two underground demo tapes at first; Perceptive Incentive in 1985 and the landmark Final Solution in 1986...
, Invocator
Invocator
Invocator are a Danish technical thrash metal band featuring Esbjerg-based guitarist/singer Jacob Hansen, founder of the band. They are considered influential on the European thrash metal/heavy metal scene, and known for incorporating elements from death metal, thrash metal, groove metal and...
, Viogression, Jackal, Twistin' Egyptians, Transmetal
Transmetal (band)
Transmetal is a thrash metal/death metal band formed in Yurécuaro, Michoacán, México in 1987 by Javier and Juan Partida. Transmetal have been one of the most important bands in Latin America....
, Cyclone, Dr. Shrinker
Dr. Shrinker (band)
Dr. Shrinker was a death metal band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that formed in 1987. Being obscure, the band only came to wider attention with the release of a posthumous split EP with Nunslaughter and a discography CD, released in 2004 by Necroharmonic Productions...
, and Morta Skuld. In September 1990, Greif held one of the first North American death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
festivals, Day of Death, in Milwaukee suburb Waukesha, Wisconsin, at the Expo Center and featured 26 bands including Autopsy
Autopsy (band)
Autopsy is a death metal band, founded in 1987 in the United States by Chris Reifert. They disbanded in 1995, but have reunited as of July 2009.-Biography:...
, Hellwitch, Obliveon, Revenant, Viogression, Immolation
Immolation (band)
-History:The band formed in May 1986 by Andrew Sakowicz and Dave Wilkinson under the name Rigor Mortis . The name was changed to Immolation in April 1988, after the Warriors of Doom demo which was recorded as Rigor Mortis and Demo I which was recorded as Immolation...
, Atheist
Atheist (band)
Atheist is a technical death metal band from Florida, founded in 1984, whose music combines metal riffs with subtle Latin music arrangements and jazz fusion.- History :...
, Broken Hope
Broken Hope
Broken Hope was an American death metal band that was founded in 1988. They were known as an accomplished mid-paced style death metal band with low-pitched growling vocals...
, and Cynic
Cynic (band)
Cynic is an American progressive rock band, incorporating experimental music, alternative, metal and jazz fusion elements, founded in Miami, Florida and currently based in Los Angeles, California. Their first album, Focus, released on September 14, 1993, is widely regarded as a landmark release of...
.
Greif also managed LA band London
London (heavy metal band)
London is an American heavy metal band, based in Hollywood, California. The band is perhaps most notable for featuring members that would go on to play in more famous bands such as Mötley Crüe, Guns N' Roses, W.A.S.P...
, who at one time featured his former client Nikki Sixx
Nikki Sixx
Nikki Sixx is an American musician, songwriter, author, fashion designer, radio host, and photographer, best known as the co-founder and bassist of the band Mötley Crüe. Prior to forming Mötley Crüe, Sixx was a member of Sister before going on to form London with his Sister band mate Lizzie Grey...
, before their final break-up.
In November 1991, Journal Sentinel
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. It is the primary newspaper in Milwaukee, the largest newspaper in Wisconsin and is distributed widely throughout the state...
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
University of Calgary Faculty of Law
The Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary was officially opened in 1976 with a first-year class of sixty students and nine faculty members. Currently, there are 21 faculty and approximately 300 students in total, giving the school one of the smallest class sizes of the Canadian law schools....
and is a member of the Canadian Bar Association
Canadian Bar Association
The Canadian Bar Association represents over 37,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers, and law students from across Canada.-History:The Association's first Annual Meeting was held in Montreal in 1896. However, the CBA has been in continuous existence in its present form since 1914...
. 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 has represented American guitarist/songwriter Paul Masvidal
Paul Masvidal
Paul Albert Masvidal is the guitarist, singer and a founding member of the progressive band Cynic and previously led the alternative rock band Æon Spoke. Born in Puerto Rico, Masvidal grew up in Miami, Florida and currently resides in Los Angeles...
, Danish heavy metal guitarist Hank Shermann
Hank Shermann
Hank Shermann is a Danish heavy metal guitarist. He began playing guitar in 1977.Shermann is best known for his work with Mercyful Fate, a band influential on Metallica. He has also played with the groups Brats, Fate, Zoser Mez, Gutrix, Virus 7, and his last main focus, Force Of Evil...
, and the band Cynic
Cynic (band)
Cynic is an American progressive rock band, incorporating experimental music, alternative, metal and jazz fusion elements, founded in Miami, Florida and currently based in Los Angeles, California. Their first album, Focus, released on September 14, 1993, is widely regarded as a landmark release of...
. He is the legal rep for the intellectual property of Chuck Schuldiner and has submitted copyright claims to YouTube, on behalf of Mutilation Music BMI, for postings of Death live footage.