Eric Greif obit

Former DEATH Manager ERIC GREIF Dies

 The Canadian-American also worked with a young Mötley Crüe, Obituary, Cynic and more

He was not on the list.

Eric Greif, former manager of DEATH and president of Perseverance Holdings Ltd., which manages Chuck Schuldiner's (DEATH, CONTROL DENIED) legacy, has died. Greif also worked as an entertainment lawyer, representing bands like OBITUARY and MASSACRE. He was 59 years old.

Greif was reportedly an insulin-dependent diabetic for much of his life, which was briefly cured by a pancreas transplant, but it failed a few months later and health continued to be a struggle for him.

In recent months, Greif was desperately searching for a kidney donor but was unable to find one.

Eric met Chuck at the Milwaukee Metalfest in summer 1987 but didn't start managing DEATH until a bit later. "In '88, Chuck and I began speaking directly about management as we got along immediately like brothers," Greif told the Empty Words web site in 2002. "He was looking for a manager who would go beyond the standard business role and instead fight alongside him in the trenches. Chuck fed off what we called 'channeled brutality', and he liked the way I raged on his behalf."

For more than a decade, Eric had worked with Relapse Records to make DEATH's storied catalog available as part of a meticulous reissue campaign.

Seven years ago, Greif discussed his efforts to preserve Schuldiner's legacy in an interview with Metal Underground. He stated at the time: "The partnership with Relapse was something that the Schuldiner family and I felt good about from day one, and the last five years have only proved that our instincts about them were correct. They are a fantastic bunch of dedicated people, and without each of them, these reissues could have turned into cranked-out schlock. I owe them everything. Plus I'm a little fanatical about my work, especially when I hold it so close to my heart as I do Chuck's music, and the Relapse people have been able to deal with me. I feel that we're totally united in what we’ve tried to achieve, and we've done it.

"When I travel on the road with DEATH TO ALL, which is the tribute band made up of former DEATH players that we use to publicize Chuck's music, I meet so many young fans whose introduction to DEATH has been through the reissues," he continued. "For them, it is all alive, new and exciting, and the reissues have done that. In many ways, DEATH is as happening and vital as it was back in the day, and that's been the goal.

"I've said many times that I want DEATH to be as iconic and groundbreaking a brand as METALLICA or SLAYER, and when I travel the world meeting the cool fans of DEATH, I believe it has been achieved. Chuck would think it is awesome."

Greif was raised in Calgary, where he performed in and recorded with local bands while also writing column "Teen View" for The Calgary Herald. A dual citizen by birth, he shared in a 2007 interview with Sleaze Roxx that upon his final year of high school in Alberta, he "knew...that I wanted to get the hell out of Calgary and do something in music."

"As a U.S. citizen it was easy to contemplate a move to a big American city, and I chose [Los Angeles] because I knew that it was where all the record labels were. So, during the summer of 1980 after grad, newly turned 18, I headed for the States in my tiny Fiat X19."

Arriving in L.A., Greif enrolled at the now-defunct University of Sound Arts in Hollywood, with the intention of becoming a recording engineer, but was soon encouraged to become a producer by then-instructor and record executive Ron Fair.

"He flattered me that I had a decent ear for producing, and that fed my ego in dangerous ways," Greif recalled to Sleaze Roxx. "But it did give me added ball size to try and push myself to carve out a career. I wanted to produce, or manage, or do something cool in the music biz, and that's all I knew."

Greif would go club-hopping in West Hollywood in search of bands to work with, becoming exposed to the nascent hard rock and metal scene beginning to take over the Sunset Strip. Work with the Greg Leon Invasion led to Greif meeting Tommy Lee, drummer of a young Mötley Crüe.

The coming months would see him become assistant to band manager Allan Coffman, who would place him in charge of organizing Mötley Crüe's first-ever tour of Canada in 1982, shortly after the release of their 1981 debut album Too Fast For Love.

"The tour was hysterical, ridiculous, dramatic and hilarious. The idea on paper was to get the guys out of California, give them some road experience, and make some news," Greif shared with Sleaze Roxx. "At that point, the farthest away they'd ever travelled to gig was the area near Lake Tahoe where Allan lived."

Greif would explain just how ridiculous things got before the Crüe had even landed in Canada, recalling how, "As rock stars in training, they decided to wear all their stage gear on the plane, which is the exact opposite of what they would do nowadays. Instead of trying to be inconspicuous, [Nikki Sixx's] hopes were to draw as much attention to the band as possible."

However, the band's glam-metal get-ups prominently featured "custom-made spiked bands of leather" worn on wrists, arms and necks, which Canadian customs took issue with. Greif explained, "They were detained...there was talk of pressing charges, and in the end after a long wait they were let into the country, sans much of the stage wear. Then, once they obtained their bags, [singer Vince Neil] was lectured at length when one of his small suitcases was opened up by a customs officer revealing dozens of hardcore porn mags, all confiscated.

"Weeks later I found myself in a hassle with the Canadian government trying to get the spiked leather stuff returned, but by the time I got a positive ruling, they informed me that, following procedure, unfortunately they'd all been destroyed."