Concord acquires Fearless Records, Wind-Up

Concord Bicycle Music has acquired both Fearless Records and Wind-Up Records today, giving the company a reported $140 million+ in annual revenue.

The independent music company now owns the 150+ album catalogue from Fearless Records, as well as up to 30 albums from Wind-Up. This adds to Concord’s impressive portfolio of 10,000 albums and a music-publishing catalogue of 60,000 songs.

The $10 million deal with Fearless is part of Concord’s continuing buying spree, having acquired the rights to Vanguard and Sugar Hill record catalogues last month. The terms with Wind-Up Records were not disclosed.

“Teaming with Concord provides operational backing and an experienced, committed support team which enables Wind-up to focus entirely on artist development, A&R, marketing and promotion,” said Wind-Up’s CEO Ed Vetri, in an official statement released today.

“Fearless and its roster of artists will be able to obtain a higher level of success, and still preserve our important role in the independent music community,” added Bob Becker, President of Fearless Records. “I am looking forward to a long and successful relationship with Concord Music Group.”

Concord’s CEO Glen Barros said he was “extremely proud” to welcome the two music labels into the Concord family.

“The addition of Wind-Up and Fearless illustrates our commitment to expand within the rock genre, a process which we began over the last couple of years.”

Concord was originally launched as a jazz and blues label in 1973, before branching into the rock genre with its’ Hear Music label in 2007. Since then, Concord has released albums by artists including Paul McCartney, Carole King and James Taylor.

Wind-Up Records’ roster includes a number of alternative and rock artists, such as Civil Twilight, The Grisworlds, and The Virginmarys. The acquisition of Wind-Up follows Concord’s purchase of their core catalogue in 2013.

Fearless Records is best known for launching the careers of punk rock acts including Plain White T’s, The Aquabats and Sugarcult. Its current roster includes Pierce The Veil (pictured), Mayday Parade and Breathe Carolina.

Concord’s acquisition of Fearless also includes the rights to Fearless’ Fearmore Music Publishing. Concord will own the evergreen copyright Hey There Delilah, along with all of Fearless’ merchandise operations.

As part of the deal, Vetri and Becker will remain as heads of their respective labels, while staff members from both labels will also remain largely intact. 

In Australia and New Zealand, Fearless will continue to be distributed by Melbourne-based independent company Unified.

At the time when Fearless announced its partnership with Unified, Luke Logemann, Unified’s Head of Recorded Music told TMN: “We have a lot of great relationships in the States. We love to help people out when they need us, and when it makes sense financially for both parties.”