Robert Jeremy Hugh Lascelles (born 14 February 1955) is a British music industry executive and occasional musician. He is a second cousin to King Charles III.
Life
Lascelles is the third child of
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood
George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood (7 February 1923 – 11 July 2011), styled The Honourable George Lascelles before 1929 and Viscount Lascelles between 1929 and 1947, was a British classical music administrator and author, and ...
, and
Marion Stein
Maria Donata Nanetta Paulina Gustava Erwina Wilhelmine Stein (18 October 19266 March 2014), known as Marion Stein, was an Austrian-born British concert pianist. During her marriage to George Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, she was known as Mario ...
, who later married
Jeremy Thorpe. He is a great-grandson of
King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
George was born during the reign of his pa ...
. He was educated at
Westminster School
Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...
, Westminster in London.
He is a former
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization.
CEOs find roles in variou ...
of
Chrysalis Music plc. He has been involved in the music industry since the early 1970s. This included playing percussion for the Global Village Trucking Company, for whom his older brother
James Lascelles played keyboards.
He then became a tour manager in the 1970s for bands including
Curved Air before moving to Virgin in 1979. He rose to Head of
A&R under
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400.
Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...
at
Virgin
Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...
where he worked for 13 years with acts such as
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and later became the lead singer of the rock band Genesis (band), Genesis and had a successful solo career, ac ...
,
Culture Club
Culture Club are an English new wave music, new wave band formed in London in 1981. The band comprises Boy George (lead vocals), Roy Hay (musician), Roy Hay (guitar and keyboards), and Mikey Craig (bass guitar), and formerly included Jon Moss ( ...
,
the Human League
The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic music, electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their t ...
, and
Simple Minds
Simple Minds are a Scottish Rock music, rock band formed in Glasgow in 1977, becoming best known internationally for their song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" (1985), which topped the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' Billboard Hot 100, Hot 100 ...
and set up his own independent label (Offside Records - named after his favourite cricket shot) before being hired by
Chris Wright
Christopher Allen Wright (born January 15, 1965) is an American government official, engineer, and businessman serving as the 17th United States Secretary of Energy, United States secretary of energy since 2025. Before his appointment, he was th ...
of
Chrysalis
A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages the ...
in 1994 as CEO.
He is known for his ambivalence to being related to the royal family (his godmother was
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was al ...
).
Lascelles stood down as CEO of Chrysalis Music in March 2012 and was subsequently named as a visiting professor at
Leeds College of Music (LCoM), a role which commenced in October 2012.
As Chief Executive of the Music Division and later CEO of Chrysalis, he signed or oversaw the signings of acts including
Portishead,
David Gray,
OutKast
Outkast (sometimes written as OutKast) was an American hip-hop duo formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1992, consisting of Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin, formerly known as Dré). Widely regarded as one of the greatest an ...
,
Ray LaMontagne
Raymond Charles Jack LaMontagne (; born June 18, 1973) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. LaMontagne has released nine studio albums: '' Trouble'', ''Till the Sun Turns Black'', '' Gossip in the Grain'', '' God Willin' & the Creek Don ...
,
Feeder,
Cee-Lo Green,
Laura Marling
Laura Beatrice Marling (born 1 February 1990) is an English Folk music, folk singer-songwriter. She won the Brit Award for Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist, Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2011 Brit Awards and was nominated for th ...
,
Bon Iver
Bon Iver ( ) is an American indie folk band founded in 2006 by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Vernon had originally formed Bon Iver as a solo project, but it eventually became a band consisting of Vernon (vocals, guit ...
,
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes are an American indie folk band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 2006. The band currently consists of Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar), Skyler Skjelset (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Casey Wescott (keyboards, mandolin, backin ...
and
Rumer. Lascelles was elected to the council of the
BPI in 2003 and from 2004-2007 he served on the board of
AIM as Vice-Chairman. He was shortlisted for the Orange Business Leader of the Year award in 2010. In 2014 he started
Blue Raincoat Music
Established by music industry professionals Jeremy Lascelles and Robin Millar, Blue Raincoat Music began as an artist management company based in West London in 2014. In 2016, the company diversified into music publishing, starting Blue Rainc ...
, and presently heads up the company.
In 2016 Blue Raincoat Music acquired full ownership of the British independent label
Chrysalis Records
Chrysalis Records () is a British independent record label that was founded in 1968. The name is both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders' names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis. It started as the Ell ...
, including the rosters of
The Specials
The Specials, also known as the Special AKA, were an English 2 tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, J ...
,
Sinéad O'Connor
Shuhada' Sadaqat (born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor; , ; 8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023) was an Irish singer, songwriter, record producer and activist. Her debut studio album, ''The Lion and the Cobra'', was released in 1987 and achieve ...
,
The Waterboys
The Waterboys are a rock band formed in 1983 by Scottish musician and songwriter Mike Scott (Scottish musician), Mike Scott. The band's membership, past and present, has been composed mainly of musicians from Britain and Ireland, with Scott re ...
,
Ten Years After
Ten Years After are a British blues rock group, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, the band had eight consecutive Top 40 albums on the UK Albums Chart. In addition, they had twelve albums enter the US ''Bi ...
,
Fun Boy Three,
Ultravox
Ultravox (earlier styled as Ultravox!) were a British new wave band, formed in London in April 1974 as Tiger Lily. Between 1980 and 1986, they scored seven Top Ten albums and seventeen Top 40 singles in the UK, the most successful of which wa ...
,
Generation X
Generation X (often shortened to Gen X) is the Demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort following the Baby Boomers and preceding Millennials. Researchers and popular media often use the mid-1960s as its starting birth years and the ...
,
2 Tone Records
2 Tone Records was an English independent record label that mostly released ska and reggae-influenced music with a punk rock and pop music overtone. It was founded by Jerry Dammers of the Specials and backed by Chrysalis Records.
History
J ...
, and much more. He is also an ardent
Leeds United
Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league system.
Leeds United have won the League Championship th ...
supporter. Lascelles thinks himself very fortunate to have worked for 50 odd years at what he considers his hobby.
Marriage and children
On 4 July 1981 in London, he married Julie Baylis (born 19 July 1957 in
Droitwich Spa,
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...
) and divorced in June 1998. They had three children.
On 7 January 1999 in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
he married Catherine Isobel Bell (born 25 April 1972 in
Lewisham
Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...
, London). They have had one daughter.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lascelles, Jeremy
1955 births
Living people
English people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Jeremy
Musicians from the City of Westminster
People educated at Westminster School, London
People from Bayswater
Younger sons of earls