Irving Azoff wants to preserve artists’ legacy in the age of music streaming—and his own.
The music industry completist has run several companies, including a concert promoter and a record label, and has managed some of the biggest artists of many generations…
“Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions, 1969-1971” explores a time of experimentation and reinvention for the band.
The quintessential American rock band of the ’60s, whose sun-kissed harmonies and string of girls-cars-and-surf hits
soundtracked the myth of California as paradise, had lost its lock on the charts. Brian Wilson, its leader, was
withdrawn and unstable after an attempt at a super-ambitious album, “Smile,” collapsed in 1967. Facing irrelevance,
the band even considered changing its name, to simply Beach.
“When you put out a record and it’s not successful like you’re used to, you start questioning yourself,” the vocalist Mike
Love said recently. “Are you doing things right? What do we need to change?”
Irving Azoff acquires music, photos and interviews in bid to restore the band’s once-epic cultural status.
Music mogul Irving Azoff sees the Beach Boys as an undervalued gem and thinks he can make the band cool again, profiting along the way.
Azoff, manager of the Eagles and Jon Bon Jovi, has acquired a majority interest in the band’s music, as well as an archive of photos, videos and interviews — the latest in a flurry of deals involving classic rockers. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but the total value of the assets is $100 million to $200 million, according to a person familiar with the situation.
When Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998, his sons Jonah and Justyn became heirs to their father’s estate. That meant joining with surviving Beach Boys founders Mike Love, Brian Wilson, and Al Jardine to vote on key business decisions, from archival releases to commercials. It wasn’t easy. “The dynamic changed a lot after our father passed,” says Jonah, who was in his late twenties at the time. “Not to say it was all negative, but we had a lot of challenges.” Adds Justyn, “In the beginning, it was just trying to navigate a very complicated group of individuals.”
These days, Carl’s sons are more optimistic. They recently came together with the founding members to make a major decision: The band has sold a controlling interest in the Beach Boys’ intellectual property — including their master recordings, a portion of their publishing, the Beach Boys brand, and memorabilia — to Iconic Artists Group, a new company run by longtime music business power player Irving Azoff.
