Peter Katsis, the veteran music manager who helped shepherd the careers of artists including Backstreet Boys, Korn, The Smashing Pumpkins, Bush and Snoop Dogg, has died of heart failure, a representative tells Billboard. He was 69.
“Peter was a force of nature,” Bush‘s Gavin Rossdale told Billboard. “He lifted me up personally like no other and he drove our band towards the stars at all times. He will be deeply missed.”
The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan paid tribute to Katsis on his Instagram: “Heartbroken that Pete is gone. He meant a lot to Chloe and I as a dear friend and extended member of our family. He will be missed and I’ll always cherish his intense candor and deep love of great music; which was infectious. And he deserves immense credit for helping to usher in the alternative revolution of the 80’s and 90’s and beyond. He was truly one of a kind. One of a us. And Chicago royalty through and through.”
Katsis kicked off his music business career at age 23 in Chicago, his hometown, when he discovered and managed the industrial band Ministry.
The band posted about Katsis on its Instagram following his death: “He was our first manager in 1981. May your next journey be as prodigious as this one. We (Ministry camp) loved you. Safe travels my friend.”
He later went on to work as an A&R executive at the city’s Trax Precision Records, where he served as a booking agent for influential Chicago house artists including Marshal Jefferson and Adonis just as the dance sub-genre was in its nascent stages.
“Peter was one of the good ones. Fought the good fight,” says co-founder/co-CEO of Advanced Alternative Media Mark Beavan, who was friends with Katsis for more than 40 years. “Cared and stood by those around him. Showed up. Always loved music. Saw the world from many angles and just made it better. A true friend who will be missed.”
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After moving to Los Angeles in 1990, Katsis began working with artists including The Cramps, Material Issue and Tuck & Patti. Between 1997 and 2008, he became a partner in The Firm, where he helped launch artists like Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias and Thirty Seconds to Mars to stardom. While working on the Backstreet Boys’ Millennium arena tour in 1999, the run sold 765,000 tickets in just one day, the vast majority in the first hour; the tour also won Katsis a Pollstar Award for most creative stage design. The massive success of that run resulted in the boy band moving up to stadiums on its Black and Blue tour the following year.
While at The Firm, Katsis scored another major success with the rock supergroup Audioslave, helping secure the band’s 2005 performance for tens of thousands of fans in Havana, Cuba, as part of a cultural exchange between Cuba and the U.S.
“My first introduction to Peter was a VHS tape I was shown in college about a day at The Firm!,” recalls Lucas Keller, president/founder of Milk & Honey music + sports + ventures. “And the stories went on for years as I got into the business. Fierce advocate for talent, integrity for miles, a gentle giant. I think sometimes he would scare people into a deal just by walking into the room. The management business is less today for losing Peter. The next gen won’t have him as a mentor. I love that we were alive at the same time and got to spend real time together. We will miss him forever.”
In 2008, Katsis, along with ex-The Firm partner and CEO Jeff Kwatinetz and former Disney executive Rich Frank, launched Prospect Park Entertainment, where he continued managing Backstreet Boys, Audioslave and Korn along with acts including the The Smashing Pumpkins (which he signed in 2012), Jane’s Addiction and Ice Cube. After leaving Prospect Park in 2014 following an alleged dispute with Kwatinetz, Katsis continued laying the groundwork for successful tours for some of those same artists, as well as acts including Bush, Liz Phair, Morrissey, Pentatonix and 5 Seconds of Summer, at firms including Deckstar Management and YM&U.
In May, Katsis told Barrett Media in an interview, ” I bet most people, including myself, would like another shot at things. In a lot of ways, a lot of it was going by so fast it was impossible to do anything but go along for the ride. The start of House and Industrial, while growing up in Chicago, was amazing. But fresh out of college in those days, I was just learning the biz when I should have been looking to find a way to control a bigger piece of those genres for the future,” he said. “Some of those early trips to NYC, Manchester, London, and Ibiza to cover shows in the early ’80s were simply mind-blowing. The nights at the Paradise Garage in NYC or the Warehouse in Chicago were simply legendary. Who wouldn’t want to re-live that again?”
Katsis is survived by son Ian Katsis and sister Anastasia Katsis.
