Def Leppard and Primary Wave have expanded their partnership to include additional stakes of the band’s publishing and master royalty income. Although the deal expansion does not include the band’s entire share of their catalog, it does encompass every song in the Def Leppard discography, ceding shares of master royalty income and publishing of their most beloved hits “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” “Rock of Ages,” “Love Bites,” “Hysteria,” and “Photograph.”
The independent publishing giant began its relationship with the rock band back in 2009 when Primary Wave started to administer and market the band’s catalog. In 2019, some publishing administration for the band was picked up by Sony Music Publishing (then, Sony/ATV) while Primary Wave continued administering other portions.
During the last decade or so in partnership, Primary Wave has landed placements for Def Leppard tunes on Cobra Kai, Hit the Floor, The Simpsons Guy, and American Horror Story 1984, the company tells Billboard.
The publisher also facilitated Def Leppard’s late entry into the streaming era. After years of dispute with their former label, Universal Music Group’s Mercury Records, the rock band finally reached a deal, regarding licensing and compensation, in 2018, and their entire catalog was brought to streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music shortly thereafter.
But during their years-long battling with UMG, the band retaliated by recording what lead singer Joe Elliott called “forgeries” of their biggest hits, beginning in 2012. According to a representative from Primary Wave, the company was “not involved,” in taking the re-recordings to digital service providers.
“When you’re at loggerheads with an ex-record label who…is not prepared to pay you a fair amount of money and we have the right to say, ‘Well, you’re not doing it,’ that’s the way it’s going to be,” Elliott told Billboard at the time. It was one of the first known instances of a band re-recording their songs to gain ownership of the master recordings — something Taylor Swift is working on today with her catalog.
Primary Wave declined to state the price of the deal. Billboard estimates that, in 2021, Def Leppard’s share of their catalog brought in about $4 million in global publishing royalties and $2.8 million for their share of overall master recording royalties. It remains unclear how much of Def Leppard’s share of publishing and master recording royalties Primary Wave received in the expanded deal.
Def Leppard is managed by CSM Management co-founder Mike Kobayashi and they release records through the band’s self-owned label, Bludgeon Riffola.
