Red Hot Chili Peppers Reportedly Trying to Sell Their Catalog

Red Hot Chili Peppers are reportedly looking for a big payday and are trying to sell their music catalog.

Billboard reports the band is shopping around its 13 studio album catalog for about $350 million. The catalog, itself, reportedly makes around $26 million per year. A buyer hasn't officially been named, but Warner Music Group is one of the reported entities interested in the Chili Peppers' catalog.

Back in May 2021, RHCP sold the publishing rights to their catalog to Hipgnosis Songs for an estimated $140 million. At that time, Billboard reported, "The Red Hot Chili Peppers song catalog generates $5 million to $6 million in net publishers' share (usually known as gross profit -- although in this case it's likely to include all revenue from the catalog), sources say, and it traded at a about a 25 times multiple, which calculates to about $125 million to $150 million total."

Red Hot Chili Peppers would be just the latest in still active legacy artists to make big bucks for catalog sales. In 2024, the band that made the biggest splash in catalog sale news was Queen, who sold their catalog to Sony Music for the whopping price tag of $1.27 billion. As previously reported, the Queen/Sony catalog deal omits revenue rights for live performances, which will be retained by Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Another band to cash in on this trend last year was KISS. In April, KISS sold its catalog, name, logo and makeup rights to Pophouse for a reported $300 million. Pophouse, a Swedish entertainment and music investment firm, already had a relationship with the band and is the creative force behind the creation of the KISS Avatars.