BMLG, VARVATOS PAIR UP TO ROCK OUT

Big Machine Label Group topper Scott Borchetta and fashion trailblazer John Varvatos today announced a JV imprint, Big Machine Records/John Varvatos Records, an opportunity for the pair to focus on increasing the profile of rock on the cultural landscape. The first act touted on the newly minted label is hard-charging Cali band badflower.

Borchetta and Varvatos, who first met some years back at an Aerosmith show with Big Machine’s Cheap Trick opening, bonded immediately over their passion for rock. (BMLG is also working with Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler.)

“Combining our two brands,” Borchetta declares, “will help us achieve our goal in finding and enabling the next great rock artists.”

“We are looking for artists with passion, angst and a soul, and those that have a voice to be heard during these troubled times,” adds Varvatos. “People say rock is dead. We say, ‘Long Live Rock!’ Also, ‘Skinny jeans forever!’”

The two entrepreneurs previously collaborated on the #1 album Jekyll + Hyde by Zac Brown Band. Cheap Trick has spent 12 weeks atop the Classic Rock Chart, meanwhile, with “Long Time Coming.”

To seal their new pact in true rock fashion, Borchetta and Varvatos hurled a TV set out a hotel window. It cleared the pool.