Peter Grant (5 April 1935 – 21 November 1995) was an English music manager, best known as the manager of Led Zeppelin from their creation in 1968 to their breakup in 1980. With his intimidating size and weight, confrontational manner, knowledge and experience, Grant was able to procure strong and unprecedented deals for Led Zeppelin, and is widely credited with improving pay and conditions for all musicians in dealings with concert promoters. Grant has been described as "one of the shrewdest and most ruthless managers in rock history".
Born and largely brought up in the south London suburb of South Norwood, England by his mother, he worked variously as a stagehand, bouncer, wrestler, bit-part actor, and UK tour manager for acts such as Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and the Animals, before getting involved briefly in band management with the Nashville Teens and the Yardbirds.
He was also a record executive for Swan Song Records.
Grant was born in the south London suburb of South Norwood, England. His mother Dorothy worked as a secretary. He attended Sir Walter St John School in Grayshott, Hampshire, before the Second World War, and completed his schooling at Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, after the evacuation. After the war, Grant returned to Norwood until leaving at the age of 13, when he became a sheet metal factory worker in Croydon. He left that job after a few weeks, and then obtained employment on Fleet Street delivering photographs for Reuters.
Grant was soon attracted to the entertainment industry, and worked as a stagehand for the Croydon Empire Theatre until 1953, when he was called up for national service in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, reaching the rank of corporal. He worked briefly as an entertainment manager at a hotel in Jersey before being employed as a bouncer and doorman at London's 2i's Coffee Bar, where Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Tommy Steele and others got their start. Co-owner of the 2i's bar, professional wrestler Paul Lincoln, suggested Grant appear on television as a wrestler under the titles "Count Massimo" and "Count Bruno Alassio of Milan," using his 6 ft 2 in frame to good effect. This kindled his enthusiasm for acting, and he was hired by film studios as a bit part actor, stuntman and body double.
Between 1958 and 1963, Grant appeared in a number of films, including A Night to Remember (1958), playing a crew member on the Titanic; The Guns of Navarone (1961), playing a British commando; and Cleopatra (1963), playing a palace guard. He also appeared in television shows such as The Saint, Crackerjack, Dixon of Dock Green, and The Benny Hill Show. He was Robert Morley's double on many of the actor's films. The money he made from these ventures was invested in his own entertainment transport business. As the acting roles dried up, Grant made more money taking groups such as the Shadows to their concerts.
In 1963, Grant was hired by promoter Don Arden along with John Schatt to be the British tour manager for artists such as Bo Diddley, the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Brian Hyland, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and the Animals. By 1964, Grant had started to manage his own acts including the Nashville Teens, an all-girl group called She Trinity, the New Vaudeville Band, The Jeff Beck Group, Terry Reid and Stone the Crows. His management was established in the same 155 Oxford Street office used by his friend, record producer Mickie Most, who had previously worked with Grant at the 2i's Coffee Bar. Most and Grant together set up RAK Music Management, an offshoot of Most's Rak Records.
In late 1966, Simon Napier-Bell asked Grant to take over management of the Yardbirds, who were constantly touring yet struggling financially. Mickie Most had suggested to Napier-Bell that Grant would be an asset to the Yardbirds, but as it happened his arrival was too late to save the band. The experience, however, did give him ideas which were put to good use later with Led Zeppelin. As he explained:
When I started managing the Yardbirds, they weren't getting the hit singles, but were on the college circuit and underground scene in America. Instead of trying to get played on Top 40 radio, I realised that there was another market. We were the first UK act to get booked at places like the Fillmore. The scene was changing.
Grant's no-nonsense approach to promoters and his persuasive presence were influential in the Yardbirds making money from concerts for the first time. Grant travelled closely with the Yardbirds, ensuring that all costs were kept to a minimum, that members were paid on time, and that the band retained artistic control. Unlike most other managers at the time who rarely set foot in a music venue, Grant's approach was hands-on.
The Yardbirds dissolved in 1968, all band members departing except guitarist Jimmy Page, who constructed a new group consisting of himself, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones to fulfill a contractual agreement to tour Europe, and were allowed by the other Yardbird members to use the name "The New Yardbirds". After the tour, the agreement to use the name expired, and Chris Dreja wrote Page a "cease and desist" notice, so the group chose the name Led Zeppelin, with Grant assuming the role of their manager. His trust in and loyalty to Led Zeppelin was such that his managerial arrangement with the band was via a gentlemen's agreement.
It is doubtful whether Led Zeppelin would have been as successful without Grant as their manager. He negotiated the group's sizeable five-year record contract with Atlantic Records, and his business philosophy would eventually pay off for the label. Grant strongly believed that bands could make more money, and have more artistic merit, by focusing their efforts on albums rather than singles. Live performances were deemed more important than television appearances – if one wanted to see Led Zeppelin, one had to experience their performances in person.
Led Zeppelin's particular success in the United States can partly be credited to Grant's keen sense of US audiences and the vast underground movement that was sweeping the country. It was his knowledge of the American touring scene that thrust Led Zeppelin into the forefront of the burgeoning American rock market, and under his stewardship the great majority of Led Zeppelin concerts were performed in the United States, resulting in massive profits for the group. He ensured that the vast bulk of ticket profits wound up in the hands of the band rather than in the hands of promoters and booking agents, and is reported to have secured 90% of gate money from concerts performed by the band, an unprecedented feat. By taking this approach he set a new standard for artist management, "single-handedly pioneer[ing] the shift of power from the agents and promoters to the artists and management themselves."
Grant's determination to protect the financial interests of Led Zeppelin was also reflected by the sometimes extraordinary measures he took to combat the practice of unauthorized live bootleg recordings. He is reported to have visited record stores in London that were selling Led Zeppelin bootlegs and demanded all copies be handed over. He also monitored the crowd at Led Zeppelin concerts in order to locate anything which resembled bootleg recording equipment. At one concert at Vancouver in 1971, he saw what he thought was such equipment on the floor of the venue and ensured that it was destroyed, only to later learn that it was a noise pollution unit being operated by city officials to test the volume of the concert. On another occasion, at the Bath Festival in 1970, he threw a bucket of water over unauthorised recording equipment.
Grant had complete and unwavering faith in Led Zeppelin. Unlike some other managers of the era, he never compromised his clients by exploiting them for short-term profit, instead always putting their interests first, and being a manager that split the profits five ways, between Grant and the other members of the band. This was demonstrated by his decision to never release the popular songs from Led Zeppelin's albums as singles in the UK, out of respect for the band's desire to develop the concept of album-oriented rock. As was explained by Jones: