Eric Greif - Entertainment Career

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 Leon subsequently introduced Greif to Tommy Lee, whom Leon had played in a band with, and this led to Greif's management work with Mötley Crüe. 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, 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, 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 pioneer Chuck Schuldiner and his Florida band Death, did some campaigning against US heavy metal media censorship, and produced bands such as Acrophet,Num Skull, Morbid Saint, Realm, Invocator, Viogression, Jackal, Twistin' Egyptians, Transmetal, Cyclone, Dr. Shrinker, and Morta Skuld. In September 1990, Greif held one of the first North American death metal festivals, Day of Death, in Milwaukee suburb Waukesha, Wisconsin, at the Expo Center and featured 26 bands including Autopsy, Hellwitch, Obliveon, Revenant, Viogression, Immolation, Atheist, Broken Hope, and Cynic.

Greif also managed LA band London, who at one time featured his former client Nikki Sixx, before their final break-up.

In November 1991, Journal Sentinel 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.