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Where is audio & music headed in the next 10-years? How artists are taking music to blockchain? How Web3 will impact the audio space?
🧬 many call us the downfall of humanity, the disappointment of the century with our worship rocks and our inability to use uppercase letters. But we are more like captain marvel with our heroic liberalism, so, I welcome you to our genz podcast network!
Season 3: Gen3 - Music in Web3 w/ Daniel Rowland
Hi everyone. Welcome to the latest season of Gen three. Today we're starting with an amazing guest, Daniel Roland. He is an Academy Award winning and Grammy nominated He worked on amazing projects with Pixar, with Disney. He. With Marvel, He worked on Star, uh, Star Wars tracks. Um, he's worked with some incredible, um, artists like David Getta, like One Stefani and a lot of others.
If I keep talking, honestly, the entire podcast will just be about, some of the amazing achievements he's done. Um, but I'll let him introduce himself. Hi Daniel. How are you?
I'm amazing. I can't introduce myself any better than that, so there you go. How are you doing?
I am good. I just got a new puppy, so he is growling
Nice. You'll have to make an appearance here.
he's gonna make an appearance soon.
is gonna make an appearance for sure. Um, but Awesome Daniel, so. wanted to invite you today because you've been very involved in the audio space for a long time.
You've worked with some of the biggest conglomerates in the world. you're very involved in the industry and you understand where the industry's going. with a couple of words to start with, can you summarize you think, you know, the audio in general is gonna be heading in the next 10 years?
Cause with podcasting, it seems like it's a little bit outdated and with audio it seems like there's a lot of. You know, technical evolutions that really is not involving the rest of the public or the long tail of the public. So where do you think, you know, music and audio in general is gonna go in the next couple of years?
Yeah, I think, not just my own view, but you know, consensus of a lot of people is it's kind of all about inclusivity and widening the number of people making music and the, you know, simplifying the tools. You know, the people use, you know, we look at, everyone's probably heard this before, but we look at what Instagram did for photography and video creators, right?
Where like everyone, nobody even thinks about it anymore. There's no barrier to being a photographer. And of course there's different levels, you know, and there's different tools you can use. You don't need to use Photoshop, you can just use filters. But everybody feels empowered to participate. Right? And music still.
Quite there. And there's some people who don't want it to ever be an inclusive kind of space. They want it to be, No, you need to know music theory and you need to, you know, really understand daws and pro tools and all of that. And I completely disagree with that. I think, uh, Yeah, that, that, that we should kinda widen that funnel as big as we can for people to participate.
And if they choose to go deeper into music or they choose to go into gaming, or they choose to just be casual creators of content, like that's, it's all good. It doesn't matter as long as people can kind of dip their toes. So that's where a lot of tech is, is going. I'm developing a lot of that technology or some of that technology.
I'm working with companies that are. . And, um, and not to be long winded, but even the biggest, most professional music technology companies are looking at this, right? They're saying, Okay, if we wanna be competitive, we can't just address, uh, 1% of the market, right? We need to kind of build products and workflows that that can appeal to lots of people, and that that's where we're headed.
And it's not, you know, there's been baby steps towards that, but really right now it's, it's, you know, e everyone seems to be focused on that, that.
So seems like is, you know, focusing towards making audio and, you know, music more inclusive. Creating more inclusive software. you think that is because of the bottom line? Do you think that, you know, a lot of the musician have, um, or like they've utilized, you know, the revenue and now they wanna grow into new markets? Or is it because they want to actually create innovative spaces because there are two different schools of thoughts and they see that them,
always fighting where,
Yep.
the artists who want to keep music exclusive and they think if they, you know, music becomes watered down. It's just, there's gonna be a sea of useless. know, music out there. And I think that happened with TikTok where a bunch of, um, artists won viral on TikTok and then they started going on tours and they got so much about how, you know, individual people who just go viral on the internet now are called And then you've got the other where you know where demand is or where who, whoever people wanna listen to, those are considered artists because it's a little bit subjective.
So what are your thoughts on.
Well that's, that's an interesting question. I mean, there's a lot the definition of artists like good luck with that. You know, Honestly, there's a lot of it. There's a definition. Does, does being signed for an example to to be to a major label, does that make you an artist? If you're signed, do you automatically get the badge of artists?
Cuz there's a lot of people sign a major labels that suck. Like they are not, they're not, they're not bad people, but they're not, they're not musicians, they're not singers. They're just like personalities. And those aren't even people who came from TikTok and social media. So I think. I don't know. It's tough for me, right?
Because, okay, so I have a music degree, right? I am a trained musician. I can play a lot of instruments. I can, I can do a lot of that stuff, right? So there was a period of my life where I really looked down on, you know, people who didn't have much musical skill and, but, you know, but I, I, I'm not that way anymore at all.
I really think, and I think I've seen enough to realize that you are an artist. If somebody else likes what you. , that's the definition of an artist to me, right? So if, if you're putting something out, whether it's authentic or whatever you're doing, and other people are attracted to that you are an entertainer or an artist or however you wanna define it.
So I do understand Backlashed, Oh, you know, somebody leapfrogged me in my career cuz they went viral on TikTok. But ultimately that's how shit works, right? That's how the entertainment industry has always worked in one form or another. So whether it's fair or not, Yeah, so I, I tend to be less, uh, grumpy about that stuff than I, than I used to be.
Um, so yeah, I don't know. Every artist would love to go viral and TikTok, even if they, they get mad about that kind of stuff. They're just mad that they didn't probably.
Do you think it's, it's, it's fair when it comes to, you know, again, people who spend years studying music, um, and trying to create a craft, and then someone doesn't know music goes viral and they're the new hit. you think
Yep.
creates an imbalance in the artist community?
Uh, I think it does. Um, ultimately though, again, that's no different than a bubble gum pop act in the 50 fifties becoming successful over a virtual, so cello player. Right? It's why classical? Classical, you know, if you look at different. Eras of music. There is always this kind of battle between what's popular or what's kind of, you know, a quick hit and somebody who is, is a trained virtuoso level musician, whatever you wanna define that as.
So this is not a new, by any stretch of the imagination, a new thing there. There's the immediacy of it is, is new, right? With which people can, like, there are no gatekeepers anymore. TikTok, you, you can just immediately go through and potentially gain fame. So I, I don't know, It's, it's a tough. Question because I understand why people can, would say, you know, Oh, I studied forever and did this.
I, I don't know. That's not how pop music works necessarily. Like, you know, you can't, for instance, go on TikTok and be a crappy cello player and become really famous as a virtuoso cello player. You have to be talented and like it, right? You can't do that as a jazz saxophonist. But if you are, when it comes to pop music, you can make a little beat or have an AI make a beat and talk over it, and potentially people are gonna think that's cute and you'll go viral for a minute.
Is that gonna lead to you having a long term career necessarily? We're not seeing that, right. We're not seeing a lot of these artists have sustainability. So you can also look at that. It's like what is, What is your goal as an artist? You wanna be a flash in the pan? Or do you wanna build something that you can sustain for the rest of your life and support your family with?
Right? So I think it's a blessing of this TikTok virality stuff is a blessing and a curse for a. Artists who maybe weren't prepared. Just like, it's just like a startup, right? A startup, if you're not prepared to scale, when scale hits, you're probably gonna fail. Same thing with a lot of these artists, right?
They may not have the talent or the infrastructure to really sustain, uh, a long career. And we're kind of seeing that in the public's appetite for them may, you know, it may not be more than that one little, you know,
Yeah. Just one song
thing that they had. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. What do you think about the new integration of music and metaphor and that amazing of, you know, artists hiding behind their metaphor characters and
Yep.
artists? It's a whole new world that I just got into and it's, it's, amazing the,
Yep.
that's within.
It's nuts. And of course, you know, I, I've said this before, I'm shocked that it took us as long. You know, in the west to adopt this, right? We've seen
type of stuff, you know, in Japan as an example for 15 plus years, more than that, right? Where we have the hologram selling out stadiums and stuff like that.
I always thought when I used to go to tour in Japan, I was like, Okay, this is coming back to the states in a month. It's gonna be a big thing here. And outside of like gorillas. And we had a couple of things that were similar but not really the same on the pop star side of things. So it. Yeah. It's finally kind of coming over this way, whether artists are just having digital representations of themselves, right?
Or it's an artist with a kind of a pseudonym, virtual avatar, or what have you. Or it's a, it's an, a band of board apes, you know, signed a universal music group. It doesn't really matter. I, I think it's, I think it's interesting. Now, this is another thing though, we could totally apply the same question that you asked before, is like, what do artists feel about this?
Right? Some artists are gonna think this is,
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Other people are gonna feel like, no, this is not what music is supposed to be. It's supposed to be authentic. It's, I'm supposed to present myself, not necessarily through this digital medium. So I understand how this is a whole thing for people as well. But ultimately, you know, if you look at, I, I look at it through this lens.
Like I look at what the, what a, how much of a grind it is to be in artist, right? And the content shred mill that they're on, and all these different things to try to get engagement and to sustain a fan base. I. There is a lot of opportunity on the metaverse side of things, on the digital performance side of things.
Again, whether it's in Fortnite or it's in, you know, the sandbox or pick your, pick your platform for artists to really extend their brand and be able to connect with fans, you know, in a way that doesn't involve constantly touring, you know what I mean? Or being in front of a camera constantly, you're having to be on in that way.
I don't know, I'm rambling a bit about it, but I, I think it's, I think it's super intriguing and I think it's, if, if anybody. Dismisses it or doesn't think it's going to be, We're not gonna have a number one single by an artist that's not an actual person in the next two years. You're crazy because that's gonna happen, let's say five years to be, to be generous.
But yeah, I mean, that's gonna be a thing.
That's awesome. Yeah, I think I've, I've seen a lot of them, even the music, though they hide behind what they call like an alias, the music is still as authentic and it's still as connecting
Yeah.
as someone I see live or someone who's face I know, right? It's just you're depending on a character or you're relating to a character rather than a
Right.
you know real life. which I think is the concept that people are still trying, like having a hard time relating to,
Well, it's interesting. I mean, people do that. People relate to. Digital characters and movies, right? People relate to cartoons. People, you know, of course this was such a big thing in Japan because he or, uh, you know, anime characters are so massive and people relate to them as they would to, to, you know, a real person, right?
So the, to extend that into music or to extend that into art or into fashion is not a massive leap. Maybe we are a little bit less that way over here, but, uh, but that's certainly changing.
Yeah, and I see a whole different community as well that is connecting with these aliases online where, because that they, because you're, you know, a character that you create, essentially, you can create a character from, you know, from another and
Right.
know, that is, that, that does not fit into this world that has, you know, struggled with mental health like you create.
Picture and you're able to literally mold your character to an entire that, you know, maybe I as an individual cannot, know, maybe relate to because I've never been through those experiences. But as a character, you can literally mold your, the character towards your audience's
Right.
creates a stronger fandom, which I found interesting and unique, that you know, in real
Yeah. And there's a flip side of that. I would say that you can also. Express things that are authentic to you, whether you've had mental health struggles or block, you know, pick your, pick your thing and you might be more comfortable representing that through some fasim or some, you know, virtual idol than you would necessarily directly yourself, right?
So I'm hoping that it also opens up avenues to be for people to be even more authentic in the presentations of themselves, outside of just throwing money up in the air and doing kind of some of the bullshit that we're used to in, in the pop music world. Uh, because. They feel like they can be a little bit more vulnerable that way, and it just depends on the person, obviously.
Are there any up and coming, you know, IND or independent artists that maybe the public have not heard of that you know you really love and you think should start listening more to
I'm the worst person to ask that question. like, I mean, there's, there's artists doing really interesting stuff in the, uh, like the metaverse space and the, you know, NFT and crypto space and all that stuff on the music side of things, whether it's Sammy Taber, you know, people like that. But no, I, you know, surprise, shockingly, like I don't listen to a ton of music these days.
I work on a lot of music. But unless it's something I'm working on, like today, I gotta, I'll be either mixing or mastering for probably, let's say eight hours today. Not a lot, but I'm doing a bunch of other business stuff too, obviously for, for different things that I do. But, um, when outside I'm mostly didn't do a podcast when I'm done with music, like, you know, So it's crazy.
ask, do you have that paradox where like, you know, chefs who cook all
Yeah.
they see food and they're like, Oh my god, don't, I don't wanna cook at home. Do you, do you find the same paradox where now you cannot listen to music or enjoy music as much?
I, I mean, I still enjoy it definitely. But it is J it is different because, you know, I'm constantly, like, for instance, today I'll be listening to a lot of music, some of which I've never heard. Now some of that's music I'm working on and some of it's music I'm referencing to make sure the music I'm working on is on par.
Right? So other professionally done music, so I'm enjoying it, but I'm also picking it apart. , right? With like a
criticizing
pick apart a movie. Yeah. And I I, Or criticizing it or appreciating it, but appreciating it, not necessarily from an artistic standpoint, from a technical standpoint about like, Oh man, the compression that they used on that snare drum is dope.
Or the, you know, the way that they pan those guitars is amazing. Or the tamber, this vocal or the harmonies. So it's going through a lot of other things beyond just the initial, you know, like, Oh, this is a great song. You know, so, and that honestly, some people don't struggle with that. But I have for 20 years since.
Really started to do music professionally as either an engineer or a producer or whatever. Really separating myself from that technical analysis side of things. Or even just, you know, writing the sheet music for the song in my head as I hear it. Right. You know, writing a melody out and like, okay, how is that harmonizing?
All that, Even the music theory stuff, I can't separate that. So, long story short, it has taken away a little bit of my like visceral. Enjoyment of music, you know, Cause I'm not able to put some of that stuff to the side. But I have friends who are way smarter than me and way better at music theory and way better producers who can and can just shut that side of their brain off and dive in.
So I need to be better at that. I don't know
Do you miss it? Do you miss listening
of, Of course,
enjoying it?
of course. It's funny if I'm gonna listen to music that I just wanna enjoy. You know, without thinking about it, sometimes I have to go back to classic songs that I was listening to before I got like, smart on the music side of things. Yeah. Because I, there was a time where I listened to that music and I didn't know anything about it.
So I'm able to kind of reconnect with that part of myself, um, and, and, and listen to that music and not necessarily pick it apart, but modern music of music I haven't heard before. Let's just say that I, I tend to, to dive in on anyways, it's, I'm also weird, so it could just be that, but
No, I, I, I find that struggle as well, not with music, but I work in podcasting and, um,
I started, I, I loved listening to podcasts, but more recently I started, you know, just completely criticizing podcasts and knitting it apart and, and yeah, it's a, miss just enjoying podcasts, you know, just listening to them
Yeah. Like sometimes you just wanna be a fan of other people's work and not make it about your work. Right. But that's, There you go. It's a similar thing, right?
Yeah. Do you, do you think that you'll ever retire from music, or do you think that's something that you'll always do?
No, I don't think I ever will.
Mm-hmm.
I'll always do it. And, you know, the, my involvement in music has, has changed so much over the years. Like, do I, you like, do I ever think I'm gonna go. Like, you know, play music professionally again, live, probably not, but I used to do that. Right? So like that's changed.
Do I think the thing that I guarantee you I will do in, in music until the day I ke over until I can't do anymore is teach. So like
Okay.
My, And there's a variety of different ways to teach. Right? I actually, you know, I have a hundred college students that start this week, so I'm doing that, like literally teaching, but also working with startups and working with other companies that are, you know, just kind of coming up and like sharing some of my knowledge with them.
I look at that kind of as teaching and mentoring as well. So that side of things is, is probably more fulfilling to me these days than anything else I get to. Like I don't need more credits in music. I got a bunch of those, you know what I mean? So like that side of things isn't, is appealing to music, used to be when I was coming up, but there's still cool shit I get to work on and I, it makes me excited of course, but I kind of get fulfillment through other people's excitement and their wins these days.
Mm-hmm.
so yeah, that'll be doing that until I'm irrelevant or I can't do it anymore. I dunno.
So you find more fulfillment in just helping others or support others
percent.
transition.
A hundred percent. Like I've, I've gotten, I feel like I, I got to do like stuff so far beyond anything I ever thought I could do, You know what I mean? Like, I'm cool at this point. So it's, it's like if I can pay it forward a little bit or, you know, whether it's my students or other people in the industry, you know, blah, blah, blah.
It's, it's, yeah. That's kind of where the juice is for me. These.
What is your coolest tour story?
Oh God, I don't know if I have, uh, okay. So I dunno if this is my coolest, I dunno why this popped into my head, but we were in Sardinia off the coast of Italy.
Okay.
and at this cool ass amphitheater, like right on the water. Right. So, and I, I'd only been to Italy a couple of times at that point, and me and the bass player I was touring with, uh, artist Adrian Belu from, uh, King Crimson and David Bowie and all this whatever.
And, uh, we were getting ready for the show. So we decided to go swimming, Julie Slick and me, and this, you know, the ocean basically. And we're sitting there chilling out and she's got her GoPro and we're hanging out in a flock. Big ass pink flamingos flies over our head and lands in the water right next to us and are just kind of chilling out.
And I just, at the time I had never, I didn't realize flamingos like hung out in Ardini. I was pretty ignorant of that.
Yeah.
Uh,
seen the Flamingo before.
I've never seen a flamingo before or since, but this is my one time where I was like, There's Is that a flock of flamingo? Oh, it is. And they just came and hung out. So, uh, that's a
didn't even know they flew
thought they just chill like
They were like turkeys. I don't know, but, uh, Or ostrich or something. No, it was, that's a random story, but No, I was, man, the touring thing, that is something I miss a little bit, uh, being on the road. It's not the, at least for me, it wasn't the healthiest lifestyle in the world, but like, you know, I got to see every, you know, 50 plus countries probably touring and have been around the world a whole bunch of times and got paid to do it.
And it's like, I would've never thought of that coming up, you know, Especially as a, I wasn't touring as a musician, I was touring as like a producer and an engineer and somebody who designed a lot of the stuff. So I cert I didn't even know that was a job when I was a kid, you know what I mean? So, so it was cool.
So yeah, I've been lucky to do some, some fun stuff in that.
and who's the, who's your favorite artist or band to tour with?
Just friends, honestly, like, Yeah, people that, I have to say blue, which most people listening to this won't know who he is, which is totally cool. He's kind of like people who are musicians in the industry who are like hardcore, especially guitar players will know aid, but like, He's, he's just somebody that helped get me into the industry and the fir, he's the first person I went touring internationally with.
So I have such a soft spot for those memories, if that makes sense. Because that was like my first time going to, you know, Japan or Australia or all these Norway and these places where, you know, everyone else had been there and I hadn't. So they were kind of showing me around and kind of giving me, you know, like tour guides basically for, you know, for me who was fairly new, new to the game.
So I, I have a, again, a soft spot for Adrian and for the, for, for the tours that we.
We have a lot of young people listening, so, you know, Gen Zs who are looking to tap into the artist world. World or like they've been listening to music and producing their own.
Oh, cool.
a lot of them don't know how to break into the industry. They, you know, a lot of them do it from their bedroom. A lot of them
Yep,
set.
too. Yeah,
Exactly. They don't know what to do or how to go about it. They don't even know if they should study it or go to school for it. So what is the most natural next step for someone who has a DJ set or is producing music from home
you know what, Touring is cool. Doing this stuff with companies is cool and they wanna do it as a, you know, that lifelong career.
What was, what, what, what would you advise them to be the next step?
Oh, that's an easy question. Wait, no, . That's a very hard question. Well, so, okay, so let's, I'll tackle p tackle in pieces here. So the first thing, let's say you mentioned school, right? So people should, people go to school, to whatever it is to learn how to play guitar, to song write to dj. You can go to school for anything related to music these days, right?
So my, now I, this is gonna seem like. It's weird for me to say cuz I'm a college professor teaching music technology to a lot of people. Right. I've had thousands and thousands of students over 15 years and I teach, I've taught privately and all that. I went to school for music. Okay. So I went to school to learn music technology, to learn how to mix, to learn how to master, to learn how to produce.
I did it for seven years. I went and got a bachelor's in a master's degree in that, had I not done that okay For me personally, , I would not be wherever I am today. Right? I, I needed that structure in my life. And it wasn't even about necessarily the knowledge so much, but just about like me maturing and like getting my social skills together and that whole college experience that some people need.
Lots of people don't, honestly. So like, if you're sitting around right now and you're like, Man, I'm a, I'm a decent dj. What should I do? Should I go spend $50,000 or a hundred thousand dollars to go to school? No, you should not do that. Right? There's a million resources out there. Where you, that you can learn more about the craft.
You can practice, you can spend some of that money on gear and invest in maybe recording or promotion of a release that you're gonna do or a tour or whatever. Like there's ways to, I, I don't recommend lots of people go to school for music, so I'll just shoot that down right now. Um, though college can be good for, for some people, blah, blah, blah, but all the information you ever need is out there on the internet.
hearing back from the college
I know they're gonna go, Geez. But, but, but I, but I'm, I'm a dichotomy there because for me it worked amazingly well because it also let me network through my professors. I, they gave me access to my first gigs, my my biggest, and not trying to make this about me, but it may help somebody else. My biggest hindrance, and one of the reasons why it helped me is that I was, Terrible at networking, at talking to people.
I was super shy. I had a lot of anxiety. Right. So I needed, I went to school and like by doing well in classes, right? My professors recommended me for jobs and that's how it got me in the industry. I would've never been the person to go like into a room full of people and shake hands, or go talk to managers and meet with a and r.
I just wasn't that person at that period of my life. I am now. But I had,
and many
Yeah, and it's, That's hard.
Yeah.
So now, so more broadly to your question of what the hell do you do, right, if you're trying to get into the music industry? Great question. I mean, there's, there's a million, You've mentioned a few things so far.
I mean, it, it's so different now because you really do have to. You know, if you go, if you hit up an a and r at a label right now and you send them your stuff, what's the first thing that they're gonna do? They're gonna go look at your social media presence. Yeah. Well, they're, they're gonna go look at your social media presence and then they're gonna reject it.
Right. So they're gonna, they might, they might listen to your music, right? But odds are a lot, not everybody, but a lot of them are gonna go see, have you been the way that the industry works now, have you been out there hustling before you brought them this piece of amazing art that you think is amazing?
Right? So, That's a challenge right outta the gate, unless you have a, you know, you've been on the road and you've been touring and developed some kind of a base, or you have digital fandom, whether that's through Twitch or TikTok or you're doing metaverse shows or whatever it is, right? You're dip dabbling in Web three and NFTs.
I mean, there's a lot. The beauty of the way the world works these days is there's so many freaking avenues you can chew, choose, excuse me, to go try to. Some engagement with a community. Um, the, the challenge is a picking one and dividing your time between actually trying to be an artist and all this other stuff that comes along with it.
Unless you can align yourself, you know, some people that I know that have been successful. They, you know, they didn't do it on their own. You know, even as an independent artist, they, I'm trying to be an artist. Well, my friend is trying to be a manager. They might not be up here yet, but they're gonna help hustle and we're gonna rise up together.
This friend of mine is trying to be a mix engineer. Well, let me bring him into the crew too. So, as if you know all. Tide lifts all ships, right? So a lot of these people look at Kendrick Lamar and how he came up and all the teams, the team members of his, that that rode with him and they all came up together, right?
That's not uncommon as a story. So I think that's one thing is to find people that compliment you, your needs and that you compliment what they're looking to do and, and then your network just expands that way. So don't be so isolated. It doesn't mean you can't be successful that way, but you know, you'll raise your odds by working with other people.
Do you think it's a little bit more about influence or geared towards influence than artistry or necessarily artistry these days?
Uh, I wanna say that it's not, but um, it's definitely a hybrid of that, right? So for better or worse, um, it is. Uh, though I, you know, I'd like to believe that artistry wins out at the end of the day. Like, if you put two things on an equal playing field and one ha has a lot of artistic integrity and has some originality behind it, that that's always gonna win.
That's, of course, not always the case.
Mm.
but yeah, it's, I think it's, It's tough for an artist who just wants to be insular in an artist and does amazingly creative stuff to, to catch the ear in the eyes and the attention of the wider industry if you're not playing the game a little bit when it comes to the social side of things.
For better or worse. Yeah. And I, I'm not the best person to even answer this question, so just so everybody, you know, listening or watching this nose, like, this is just my opinion on this. I'm not, I don't, I work with record labels. I'm not sitting in a record label, but you don't need a record label. Right.
That's the other thing. The beauty of all of this is,
Today with NFTs, you don't even need the record label
well, even with, with that, with, with, you know, Distribution being everywhere, right? Readily available to anybody. You certainly don't need to go through a label for that. Um, you know, you get into, labels are valuable for certain things, right? But you can kind of piece those things together yourself, um, at least to kind of get yourself up and running, to give yourself more leverage.
Were you ever to go work with a label, right? Cause then you're established and you've shown that you can, I don't need a label. I can do this shit myself. Um, to some degree, at least, like that, get that puts you in a better position. To negotiate if, if that's the direction you wanna go. But yeah, the NFT thing is interesting.
Right. So that's another
Yeah,
where that, where that's gonna play out for music specifically, uh, is still very much up in the air.
There's this use case that I love. Um, it's with a startup called Sound
Yeah.
Sound Z.
Yes.
Yeah.
first beta was seven indie artists, and in the first minute, Everything sold out and they made like within the first hour much money as they would've made with 21 million streams
Yep.
is completely mind blowing.
And I think it showed that I was with the argument that influence, you know, influence and artistry is more important than just artist on its own. I think that showed that if you just have a small fan base that loves your artistry and is willing to support it, can make more money than necessarily. on Spotify streaming platforms,
a hundred percent yes. Yeah. , So that's,
like this new world is amazing for individual artists.
Yeah, that's the dream, at least of the web three space for music, right? Is that you can, maybe not, maybe not a thousand fans, right? The whole, you know, but maybe 10,000 fans, right? You could have a, a pretty nice income over the long term if you can keep those people engaged, and that's totally doable. For everybody.
The music space has not settled. I mean, the whole NFT web three space hasn't settled period. But especially for music, right? It's music. We tend to be last to the game when it comes to new technology on the music side of things. Uh, and it's not been, it's been the same when it comes to, to Web three and NFTs.
So we're, we're gonna see. How all of that plays out. But I think it's in a, you know, I've, I talk about it. You talk about it a fair bit, right? I try. I work with some companies in the space and I think there's a tremendous opportunity, but fir first things first, we're probably gonna have to take the term NFT and throw it in the trash can because I think it's got so much baggage that comes with it.
Yeah. Digital collectibles.
much baggage.
Yeah, call it whatever you want. Um, tokens, I don't care what you call it, but NFTs is not the thing that we're gonna call it anymore. And then, you know, for artists, and for people listening to this too, like if you don't know a lot about that space, it's, it's not that hard to at least get started, whether it's sound X, Y, Z, or it's.
Medallion or look at, uh, you know, seren aid or, So there's so many companies doing interesting stuff and it's only gonna get easier over the next year to two years, is, I mean, everyone is working to drop the barrier of entry so everyone can get involved in this space without needing to know anything about cryptocurrencies or wallets or any of that stuff.
Right. So you're not too late. It's, it's an interesting time as we kind of figure out what this is gonna be. And the, the, the thing I think that will really blow the space up is when an artist. That as an example, uh, you know, fractionalized royalties, Let's just pretend to one of their songs or had a fan club or something like that and got famous after that, right?
So somebody who built a small community that's a web three native artist, blows up to the public at large. Then I think a lot of people are gonna see, Holy crap, I can do a lot more with this. And there's money to be made and there. You know, there's equity to be shared with fandom, right? It's like people who are supporters of an artist win when that artist wins.
It's, and I don't look at that as a pyramid scheme. I look at that as like, yeah. It's like, no, it's like the, what you would want your community to be. So anyway,
I think. I'm, I'm hopeful about this artist called Teflon Seka. He's
uh,
has one of the biggest,
Yeah,
heard of him?
of course.
Yes.
got a huge following.
he's got a huge following and I'm, I don't know, I'm hopeful that one of his musics is gonna go mainstream one day because it's, it's very, you know, r and b, very pop.
It's, it's very, Relevant to, you know, today's r and b. So I'm very hopeful that he would be the, you know, potentially the first use case. Um, but another very big question, you know, the centralization versus decentralization or privatization of music, I think that's one, been one bit, been one of the.
Biggest backlashes from the, um, music community of if every single artist privatizes their music, go back to the days of pre Spotify, which is the entire reason that Spotify came to be, is everyone wanted music accessible to them. Right. what are your thoughts on that?
Right. So basically how the public accesses music if everyone's kind of siloing themselves. , right? Yeah. I think that's interesting. I think the way that this is all gonna play out, um, and if Web three Maximalist will probably throw stuff at me for saying this, but there is not gonna be, and I think this is just rash.
I think most people agree with this. There's not gonna be like Web two evolves into web. It's going to be, you have web two solutions that integrate some, you know, pieces of Web three and web three solutions that incorporate some pieces of Web two, and they're gonna live in parallel alongside each other, um, and, and mingle.
And that means by the way, that you could have your music potentially on Spotify while also having limited digital additions that you're selling on band camp or whatever. Right? So I think.
Yeah,
You know, Spotify is a whole other discussion as about whether they're screwed or not as a company, but, but some version of that will exist, right?
There will be some aggregator of music that the average person can go to and engage with that, and then I think there will be tiers of digital collectible stacked and on top of that, that have utility via experiences or whatever. Artists wanna incorporate in that to make them attractive. And that's how that's gonna work.
So there are some artists that will get, I mean, look at Snoop Dog, right? So he great example of somebody taking death row and saying, Screw this, I'm making an NFT label. Uh, and I'm working with his team on some of that stuff, right? So it's like, no, he's, he's, he's trying to completely wall garden his stuff and he's got a strong enough brand where he can do that, right?
Not every artist will be able to do that.
Mm-hmm.
but I think it'll be an.
at one point, if KA
Yeah, true. Totally true.
Yeah, I think, I think it's gonna be a mix of both.
Yeah,
we're focusing a little bit too much on web three versus web two, and no one in this space in terms of, you know, the startup world. No one is looking at it web three versus web two.
Even the VCs that are looking at it at as how can we provide both solutions at the same time for. Everyone, you know, who wants either privatization or they want exclusivity or people who want, you know, general music or they want general access.
I think, yeah, we're focusing a little bit too much on that privatization topic, in my opinion, at least on Twitter,
Yep. I completely agree.
awesome. Okay, Daniel, any last words for the audiences who are fans of your work or of music production, is, you know, one advice that you would tell them?
Um, well, certainly not anybody that's fans of my work. Right. I'm lucky to get to work on the stuff that I get to work on. I'm fans of the people I work with. I would just say on the, you know, on the, you know, in closing, right? Kind of on the topic, for anybody that's aspiring to do anything where in the music, let's just take the music industry or the web three space, right?
So, you know, I I said it's, it's much easier kind of if you ride with friends and as if you ride alone, right? You'll go farther,
uh, with other. Then you will on your own, like go through channels and, and meet people, whether that's on Discord or whether it's, It's easier to say than do I realize, but there's so much cool, even though Discord is a total shit show, you go on Discord, get on Twitter, also a shit show.
There's, uh, you know, No, I, I, I say this on almost every podcast I'm on, so if you've heard me talk before, you're gonna, you know, laugh. But like LinkedIn, you know, everyone's on TikTok, everyone's on Discord, everyone's on Twitter. There's a lot of noise on all those platforms, depending upon what you wanna do.
right? There's other platforms you can go to where don't have a lot of that noise that a lot of your peers probably aren't on, and LinkedIn happens to be one of those. I mean, I, I say list to all my students. I make 'em go make a LinkedIn account. I don't care if they wanna be an artist, a producer, a music business cat, a web three founder, whatever, because that's probably the best place to go to directly reach out to people who would take you seriously, even if you don't know anything and you just wanna meet them and talk and chat.
That's how we met, I think. Right? Did we not meet on LinkedIn?
Yes. We met on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has been personally my secret weapon for so much stuff for the past 10 years, and I, I didn't even think anything of LinkedIn. I just randomly stumbled on it. But I do recommend, you know, if you're trying to, if there's somebody that you wanna get to right regard producer, doesn't matter who it is.
Web three founder, try 'em on Twitter, hit him on Instagram, hit him on LinkedIn as well, and you might be surprised that you'll get, you know, they might be more open to chatting with you and kind of helping support whatever you're working on. So I I, people do that for me, I do that for them, and that's kind of the, the arena that I've chosen to play in.
Yeah, is an amazing place. I also teach at university and one of the courses I teach is literally how to create a LinkedIn profile.
you serious? I didn't know that. Okay. You should teach something
I literally teach like a group of like maybe 80 students or 50 students, literally how to create and I just tell them, I'll create LinkedIns right now.
We're gonna go through it. is how you do everything. And so they go out of like their first year at least to the LinkedIn and the hope
That's cool.
they've built a little bit some of their LinkedIn experience it's amazing. It's amazing. A lot of people I think, um, are blindside to its benefits.
Yep. I completely agreed.
Daniel, thank you so much for, for, for hopping on and chatting with us. hope he enjoyed this as much as I did and I hope we can have you again very soon.
Most definitely. I really appreciate the invite.
Thank.