Peter Katsis, a co-founder of the management companies the Firm and Prospect Park who over the course of a 35-year career managed an unusually wide wide variety of artists including Backstreet Boys, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube, Jane’s Addiction Morrissey, Ministry and more, died Thursday due to complications from congestive heart failure, a rep confirms to Variety. He was 69.
A native of Chicago, Katsis got his start in his early twenties during the 1980s, managing the alternative band Ministry, who were a synth-pop group at the time but would soon be among the leaders of the genre known as industrial. An active figure on the Chicago dance-music scene of the era, he also worked as an A&R executive at Trax Precision Records booked many of those acts, including Marshal Jefferson and Adonis.
In 1990 he relocated to Los Angeles and worked with such artists as English Beat spinoff General Public, the Cramps and jazz duo Tuck and Patti. In 1997 he became a partner at the powerhouse management company the Firm, where along with partner and Firm CEO Jeff Kwatinetz, he played a pivotal role in the careers of Backstreet Boys, Korn, Enrique Iglesias, 30 Seconds to Mars, Snoop Dogg, OneRepublic, Audioslave, Limp Bizkit and others. His touring background helped guide the Backstreet Boys, at the time one of the biggest groups in the world, from arenas to stadiums. He won a Pollstar Award for Most Creative Stage Design for the group’s “Millennium” tour.
