BEACH BOY: In an unusual move, one...

BEACH BOY: In an unusual move, one of the music business’s hottest young executives is getting off the corporate fast track.

Jim Guerinot, vice president and general manager of A&M; Records, was reportedly offered the presidency of Columbia Records recently. Not only did he turn down that plum job, but he also decided to resign from A&M; as well. He will turn his attention to his “side” career managing Social Distortion and one of the most-touted bands in Southern California, Offspring. Guerinot won’t confirm the Columbia offer, but he tells Pop Eye that, at 35, he re-evaluated his priorities.

“I want to be involved with cutting-edge technologies and I want to be integrally involved with a handful of artists’ careers rather than running a big company,” he says, adding that both the bands he manages are from Huntington Beach, an area he abandoned for his Hollywood career. “And I want to live at the beach again.”

Guerinot doesn’t rule out returning to the corporate ladder some day--he’ll continue to work as a consultant to A&M; for the next year. But he’s convinced that in the music world, smaller will become better.

“We’re now in the business of digital information,” he says. “And the smaller, more entrepreneurial companies are going to be more poised to deal with that than the big companies.”