Q Prime
The Zombies have enlisted Q Prime for label and distribution services, it was announced Tuesday (Oct. 22).
Under the agreement, Q Prime will manage marketing, manufacturing, distribution and licensing for the 2019 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees’ new imprint, Beechwood Park Records. The imprint includes the pioneering British band’s catalog, which the group acquired the rights to last year from Marquis Enterprises Ltd. “There’s a very narrow window in a Venn diagram where love, admiration and business overlap. That’s what the deal is all about,” said Q Prime co-founder Cliff Burnstein in a statement.
Starting next year, Q Prime will physically reissue four of The Zombies’ albums, remastered from the original tapes. This includes the band’s seminal 1968 album, Odessey & Oracle, in its original mono mix; the LP, which was recorded for 1,000 British pounds, includes the classic songs “Time of The Season,” “Care of Cell 44″ and “This Will Be Our Year.” Its release will coincide with a new Zombies documentary, Hung Up On A Dream, directed by musician and filmmaker Robert Schwartzman and co-produced by Schwartzman’s Utopia Films, The Ranch Productions and Tom Hanks’ Playtone.
Chris Tuthill and Cindy da Silva of The Rocks Management, who have represented the band for the past 11 years, oversaw the deal along with attorney Monika Tashman of Loeb & Loeb. “We went through a painstaking process to find a strategic partner who would truly understand the unique qualities of these beloved recordings,” said Tuthill in a statement. “Ultimately, we knew we had to stay true to the band’s history. They have always benefited from a non-traditional and independent approach to both music and business, which is one of the reasons their songs are continually rediscovered by new generations of fans.”
Trending on Billboard
After former publishing executive Rick Krim introduced the management team to Q Prime, da Silva added, “We were incredibly impressed by the team and infrastructure that Q Prime assembled with their long-term clients Metallica to nurture and grow their own catalog, and their genuine desire to collaborate with us and the band to do the same for The Zombies.”
The Zombies’ four surviving founding members are lead singer Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent, bassist Chris White and drummer Hugh Grundy. The band first appeared on the Billboard charts with 1964’s “She’s Not There,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Veteran artist managers Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch are joining forces with Aaron Frank for a new venture — Q Prime AF.
Announced today (May 3), the fresh division will sit under the umbrella of Burnstein and Mensch’s Q Prime, the artist management company through which they guide the careers of Metallica, Muse, Foals, Disturbed, Cage The Elephant, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Three Days Grace and more.
Through the alliance, Frank will bring his Nashville-based team, plus an artist roster that includes Greta Van Fleet, Marcus King, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Houndmouth and All Them Witches.
“Cliff and Peter are the reason I became a manager,” comments Frank. “They have always been the gold standard of managers in my eyes, and their independent spirit and savviness is unmatched. I’m so excited to join their amazing team to elevate our work, and excited for what we can build together at Q Prime AF.”
Picasa
The partnership is at least eight months in the making. Over lunch, “Cliff and I decided that we needed to move Q Prime past the normal standard of management company rating: Gold, platinum standard just wasn’t enough,” explains Mensch in a statement. “We wanted to establish a new standard. Tantalum, a rare earth precious metal found in eight countries and an absolute necessity in the digital world, totally fit the bill.”
Frank, with his group of “amazing artists, had a similar vision and, under the theory that the modern age needed a new standard of excellence, agreed to create the Tantalum standard of management companies.”
Frank cut his teeth in 2009 working for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s management company, Night Castle Management, in New York. In 2014, he relocated to Nashville where he co-founded ABI Management, and subsequently forming AMFM — nabbing GVF as his first client.
Q Prime also houses Q Prime South, founded 2001 in Nashville by John Peets; and Q Prime U.K., established 2007 in London and run by Steve Matthews and Tara Richardson.
-
Pages