PoolTogether Community Podcast #31 with Lyrah

This is the PoolTogether Community Podcast. PoolTogether is the world's number one no-loss prize savings account. You can visit pooltogether.com to deposit. You're listening to the PoolTogether Community Podcast, and I'm your host, Hot Mike, AKA it's hot as blazes here on Long Island, AKA Tim. And we are here with Lyra, music NFT singer-songwriter rock star. We have a rock— listen, this is the first time we've had it. I, like, I call people rock stars, like, hahaha, you're a rock star, whatever. No, we have an actual rock star on the podcast today. Lyra, thank you so much for being with us here.

Wow, what an intro. Well, thank you for having me. This is great.

This is so good. So, so I, I always love to hear people's origin stories. I think it's very helpful for people who are just getting into crypto, who listen to the Pulte Gallery Community Podcast, to hear as they're having their own crypto origin story, hearing other people's origin story. So could you just walk us through your story as far as like getting into music and then getting into music NFTs?

How about first I can talk about how I got into music? I've been in music longer than I've been in anything. Played piano when I was 3. I was actually too young to be taken on by any teacher, but my dad convinced this one piano teacher that if she took both of us on, then she was okay with that. So we'd do lessons, my dad and I, which is probably the best decision my parents ever made for me. And then growing up, I played piano for my chorus and I sang at everything. I also went to Catholic school, so I sang at church every weekend. Yeah, one of those small town stories. And then in high school, I started a band with my brother. I sang at everything I could, like funerals, skate parks, motorcycle rallies, you name it, I was singing at it. And then I went to college, and I always thought that I would do music full time with my life, but I didn't see how to make that happen. So I was like, okay, well, I guess this is when you get realistic about things. And so I applied as a bio major and thought, so I'll become a doctor. I absolutely hated it. And so I was soul searching. And because I grew up in a small town, I loved finally being around so many musicians. And so I just wanted to make a site for them that would connect empty venues and artists. It was like you'd be sitting in coffee shops and nobody's playing. And there were all these spaces for artist to be. And yeah, because I was finally surrounded by really talented people, I just wanted to make a site to make that happen. But I had no tech experience. So this was my first step into tech. And I was very academic with my approach to it, like created a binder where I was writing out definitions of HTML and CSS and just trying to wrap my head around this of figuring out how all these systems work so that I could start building this. But through working on that, I started meeting other students that were actually building things and then helping them because I was excited about what they were doing. And so that was what got me into tech. I was doing marketing for startups because that was like the easiest thing for me to do to add value for them. And then I dropped out of school after my freshman year. to work on a startup. And we all went out to the Bay Area and, and then I saw what it was really like to be in tech and know what you're doing. And so by seeing other people build products, I realized that I wanted to be building those, doing marketing for them. And so that was when I started teaching myself design. Then I went back to college, continued to teach myself design and front end. I started hackathons at my college, so I was often going to other universities for hackathons on weekends and doing that at my own. And along all of this, I was still making music. So my time was trying to become better at design and front end and trying to become better at production. Because in college, that was when I first started teaching myself Ableton and Was absolutely terrible at it, but was at least just trying to figure out how do I get my piano into it and record vocals on top so I can start collaborating with more people. But yeah, I'll pause there because that is how I even got tech side of it, which I can then talk more on that. And also while I was in college, I then started writing top lines for EDM artists. So I worked with this one label. Called Axetone, which, if you know Swedish House Mafia, so this is Axewell's label. And that helped me become a better writer because they'd send over instrumental demos and then I'd have to come up with things to send back over it. Yeah. And then I said I was going to pause, but maybe I can just quickly summarize afterwards.

Yeah. What's a top line?

Oh, okay. So a top line is, as a vocalist, you'll get an instrumental, you know, demo production, and then you write vocals over it. So your verse, pre-chorus, chorus, any ad-libs, anything for the drop, and you send it back over, fingers crossed, and you hope that they use it.

That's awesome.

So top line, it's just, it's the main vocal melody.

Okay, keep going. But now I'm gonna look up top line jobs.

It's not very lucrative.

Okay, never mind. Not looking up top line. But I loved it. I loved it just like over telephone hold music. I'm like, you know, like scatting over it and stuff. It's so fun. I just feel like it's a natural extension of that.

Exactly. Okay, maybe you're naturally talented for it then. Um, but the weird thing with this is that it's not like somebody's seeking out to collaborate with you, because back then I wasn't putting out music. I was just a no-name artist writer. So things would get sent to me, um, and only through, you know, years of like collaborating with other people and having word out that I was somebody to work with. Like, I didn't have anything out there, you know, so it was all word of mouth. And then you send vocals over and you're probably one of 20 vocalists that are sending back, you know, your track of ideas, hoping that that's what they use. So it was strange because it showed me pieces of music that I didn't enjoy, like the aspects of— Kind of felt like American Idol in a way. It's like it didn't tap into the joy of making music with other people. And, and having that true collaboration, it was like you often wouldn't even know who the producers were. You'd just get the demo track of it, email it back. Um, and, and yes, it was— I'd categorize that as great writing experience, but it wasn't fulfilling on the music side. So it showed me that I didn't want to just be a writer. And weirdly, through putting out music as an artist, I've had more writing experiences offered to me than I ever had before. 'Cause then people wanna collaborate with you as an artist and not just a writer. Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah.

So how'd you go? So how'd you go? How'd you get into this music NFT thing?

Yeah. Okay. So I'll continue on with the story 'cause it, of like the tech music side, because it really all converges with NFTs. So I was doing that in college of writing toplines and also working with other producers that I went to college with, which, fun fact, so Josh Pan, he is— but we went to college together and we were in the same EDM type scene. Yeah, which it's been awesome to see his career absolutely explode with music and now NFTs as well. So definitely go check him out. If you don't know, it's music. But yeah, so I graduated and then I wanted to do design because I realized I couldn't make money as an artist. Like, I didn't see a realistic pathway of how that would actually happen. And looking at it realistically, I taught myself a skill set, product design, which paid very well. And so it was like, well, I can go take a design job and support myself that way. And then it's probably the easiest way for me to then support myself to make music. So I wanted to make sure that where I was working related to creators in some way and could help other musicians because I still wanted to remain as close to music as possible. And so I graduated and I then worked for a company called Gumroad. But did you know?

Totally no Gumroad.

Nice. Okay. So yeah, I worked there and I did product design and front end. This was back when we were seeing more of the use case of product designers doing their own front end, like Stripe was one of the main examples of this. But with Gumroad, it made it really easy for creators to sell to their audience. So Often you'd have the use case of an author and they're deciding, do they sell their book on Amazon and maybe get more distribution through that, but not know any of those people who buy it? Or do they sell it on Gumroad and then they have that direct connection because they would see the info, every single person who downloads or buys there. And so it's a really great platform for letting you be in control of that audience and your relationship with them. So while I was there, I worked on a lot of things like email analytics, making it easier to send out discounts to existing customers so you could build off of that customer base. I thought some of the coolest stuff we worked on was related to reading analytics. So you could, if it was consumed within Gumroad, you could see when people dropped the off and reading your novel or consuming anything. And yes, I worked there. This was back in 2014, which there wasn't this hype around a creator economy. So we didn't get our Series B and then we all got laid off, which it's interesting now because Gumroad is considered a success story. But back then, People were like, oh, it's more of a mom-and-pop business. And I thought it was pretty cool that— so there were about 20 of us that worked there, and we knew that we weren't going to get our Series B. And there were offers for other companies to buy it, but it meant that it would have been more of an acquihire, and the product may not exist. So we instead decided to all stay on until our last day together. And we focused on automating it as much as possible so it could continue running. So then it was just the CEO, one engineer, and then I think they had one person stay on for support. So yeah, it was really sad because I love that team so much. Like, we all collaborated so well together. Just at that point, there wasn't any excitement around creators. Um, and now look where we are. Yeah. Um, which, uh, do you want me to talk about the steps following that?

Yes, please. But I wanna— oh, Gumroad. I'm just looking at all the stuff I've purchased on Gumroad and it's like, I'm into like modular synthesizers and stuff. So I've got like VCV Rack plugins and Ableton plugins and like, uh, loops and sound packs and like some YouTubers. Yeah. So I, it's, it's really interesting to just everybody, if you have a Gumroad account, let's all please pull that up and look at your dashboard and see just all of the wonderful things that you've purchased that you may not be using. Uh, I'm just looking at this right now. It's beautiful.

Also, if you're curious, which, oh my God, I haven't updated my design portfolio since, uh, let's see. I see my copyright is 2017 Kathleen's Cat. So yeah, 2017. But I posted, so if you're curious just to see like, what does somebody work on when they're doing product design at one of these companies? Um, I have some examples.

Oh yeah.

Okay. How about, okay, so we all got laid off. It was very sad. Um, and, and then, so I worked at a company, um, as the only designer. And so I was really grinding everything. And so I wasn't having as much music time when I was then. In that role. And I worked there for a year and a half, and I just realized I love design as a way to sustain myself, but I'm not having enough time for music. And I wasn't getting paid at the level where I could support myself doing music, paying for any studio time or anything beyond what I could do. Yeah. So it's like my skills weren't where they're at now. Like right now I can record myself in my bedroom and make things sound great. But back then I wasn't at that point. So I still would've needed to rely on going into the studio and working with an engineer to just get everything that I needed just to make the songs in my head, make the song in my head. Not that I have multiple heads. Yeah. So I realized, okay, that startup wasn't where I needed to be. And I then went big company. And so I went to Facebook after that, and I was then able to afford studio time. And I eventually got it to a point where I was balancing my time really well between design and music. It didn't happen for my first 2 years. Like, I was often working weekends while at Facebook, which some people talk about joining the FAANG companies and you can just chill, but it It's very dependent on what team you're on and then how fast you can get the work done, which after a few years of being there, I was just really fast. So then I eventually got into a schedule where I would just sprint on work from Monday through Thursday and was able to keep Friday as my buffer day of doing nothing. And then being able to do music on nights and Fridays. But yeah, it worked out well. And it's like all of my reviews remained the same. I think I even had way more impact at that point than I did my first few years. But yeah, so I was at Facebook for about 5 years. And then I quit in February. And it's something where I had been Planning to quit for a long time to finally focus on music. But then the pandemic happened, and you're like, okay, well, I guess this should make it easier to balance work and my actual love, music. But it was weird because I actually got less productive with music during the pandemic. So I needed this, like, forcing of fully committing to it. And I'm making more music now than, yeah, I've ever made before. And I guess to touch more on how I got into the NFT side of it. So I was doing some freelance stuff while at Facebook. I basically just take on projects that were too cool to say no to. And one was called the Record Deal Simulator, which I'll post this in the chat. And originally I wasn't even planning on working on this. I thought, oh, I'll just help connect them with some other designer. But They told me about the concept of it and I was like, all right, this is too cool. I can't pass this up. And so what it does is the core idea they pitched me on, they said, all right, what if you could just input all the aspects of your record deal and then see how many streams you actually need to break even? Because what happens is people often think when you sign a record deal that that is the success. But that is just the starting point. And a lot of artists don't recoup, and they aren't making money from their deals. And so you could put in, you know, what the standard deal would be like. So I'll give an example of this. You could say, let's say we've got a solo artist, and they're entitled to 20% of their royalties, which is pretty standard. And that they have taken on a $1 million advance. So in that case, you would then need 1.3 billion streams just to make $1. And actually seeing the math of this and the numbers in front of you made it so clear to artists who, you know, like they sign these deals, but unless you actually run the numbers of what the percentages are, how much you have to recoup, and then how many streams you need. It isn't always clear to people. Like, I think most artists, if you ask them, they wouldn't know how many streams they need just to reach their deal. But I just posted that in the chat if anybody wants to play around with it. But yeah, so this came out last November, or last, last November, and kind of had a viral moment. A lot of big artists were using it, and then— Yeah. Talking about how unfair label deals were. And the person that I designed this for is Grimes' manager, Dioda. And so this was the first step into music NFTs for me, like, of course, because he manages Grimes, who has been one of the leading artists within the NFT space. But it was actually through working on the record deal simulator that I, I started seeing this pathway that you didn't need to go through a label just to get funding to support your art. That instead you could go to the people who are listening to your music directly and have them back your art and even have them invested in your art as equal owners of it. And so, yeah, just seeing all the examples of people using this tool and, and what that reality looks like, you started seeing that Label deals are not as exciting as they often sound. Like we see the PR headlines of it, but then run the numbers on it and it looks a lot different.

Yeah. It looks like you want a distribution deal by far.

Yep. Yeah. And so it took this really complex deal structure and then you could finally see, okay, what do I even need to break even? Yeah.

Yeah. Just by seeing how I'm sure it's impossible to get a distribution deal. I mean, this is the thing with the music business. It just the same thing with Like publishing poetry or fiction, children's books and stuff. It's just such a behemoth. It's like a David and Goliath type moment of like, ah, you gotta learn all this stuff and then you gotta learn. It's just, you know, so why not just put a voice note to SoundCloud? You know, like that's basically my, my strategy so far. I understand you're not gonna make it that way, but maybe you could.

Yeah. And I think one other thing that I really like about this tool is Even for artists who want a label deal, this at least helps them understand how it's going to look realistically. And so I think it can be used in their negotiation of how they're talking about things. Because if you just look at a blanket statement of, we're going to sign you, you'll get a deal, that sounds great. But, you know, if you start running the numbers and seeing that this is going to cost billions of streams just to break even, then it's like, okay, well, what fire are they providing to this? How much distribution support? What does the marketing support look like? Because often what happens is a label will sign somebody and they're really excited about them for the first year. But if they're not performing well in that first year, then they might not get continued support after that. Like, you're just then not a priority. And this is the common use case, or the common story we hear with NFTs, that you have artists that used to be on deals, now independent. And they know what it's like to be in that cycle of being the favorite child and then, yeah, fighting just to get any support with a deal that they're locked into. And then they're independent and can just build that direct connection with all the people who listen to their music.

So then how does—

again, that's the alternative.

So you're on sound.xyz, right? How does that experience compare? Have you, have you done the label thing? Like, have you pursued it? I don't think in your story you just kind of like saw that.

No,

you saw this site and you're like, why, why pursue it? Like, this is garbage. And so, yeah, go for

it. Well, okay, so I don't think a label deal would come on my table and make sense right now because it's like, realistically, I'm not popping off on TikTok and I'm not Putting out tracks with millions of streams that are getting their viral moments. So it's like, I'm not the cookie cutter case of what's being signed and given good deals right now. But if it was a situation like that, then I think you just have to compare how much faster can this get me to the point that I want? You know, it's like pouring gasoline on the fire. So if you're okay trading off X percent of your royalties, and knowing that you have to recoup X amount, does it make sense? Because it might get you to that point faster. But if you're looking at things in the long-term sustainable way, then more of the NFT pathway might make more sense there, you know?

Yeah, so why, this has been my experience as a musician and I'm like, oh, I can create my own NFTs on OpenSea. And then I saw sound.xyz and there's some other platforms where as an artist you can apply, I think, or, Something, you basically apply to be an artist on these NFT platforms and then they choose you and then, but so how is this better? How is sound.xyz better than say like minting your own NFT through Zora or OpenSea?

Okay, so I guess first to give context on it with my NFT journey. So I first dropped on Foundation. Do you know that platform?

I definitely do. Yes, Foundation. That was another exclusive like, to be an artist, you had to get an invite and people were like, does anybody have a Foundation invite? Yeah.

Also, if anybody needs an invite, I do have one.

Oh yeah. I mean, I'll take one.

Okay, amazing. Yeah, you can just— by the way, I'm so bad at Discord messages. So if anyone wants to message me, maybe just message me on Twitter. But yeah, so I'm finding the tweet that I can post in our chat about this. But by the way, one piece that I'm realizing I'm missing. Okay, so I worked on the record deal simulator, and because that was for Grimes' manager, they then were hitting me up about other projects. And so there was an NFT project for Grimes that I worked on. This was last, last March. And so this was the first thing to really push me into NFTs. And I'll say this project didn't end up going out. She got more selective with what she was putting out, which I think makes sense. And yeah, she's very intentional. And that's kind of work goes into any drop that actually comes out. And, and so there was that experience. And then I started getting added to calls with other artists, just to give them ideas of what they could do with NFTs. So it was kind of like I became this go-to design brain tech person that could be added to calls to give people help. I was like, okay, now I actually have to figure out what the space means. So I was giving other people advice about the space, and I never thought about it for myself while any of that was happening, because I was like, oh, I'm just like a small independent artist. Who would even buy one if I did it? It's like it didn't click at all. But then I started seeing cases of artists like Verité. Do you know Verité?

I'm gonna Google Verité right now.

Yes. So she did a drop where she auctioned off ownership of one of her songs, of the sound recording of it. And so that was the first instance of a music NFT that I saw. It's like, okay, now that's cool. And not, not so much from the conversation we were talking about of like the label versus the NFT collector of who you want as a backer, but more because that's an experience that not a lot of people get to have. And you could extend that one of your listeners, because right now the people who know what it's like to listen to a song that they own a percent of, that's artists, writers, producers, managers. But when does that happen where a listener can actually put on a song that they own a piece of? So that storyline is what really drew me more to that music NFT case. So I'm finding the tweet right now, the first one I did. Let's see, I'm posting this in our chat. Oh, okay. I'm catching up on the other messages, which also shout out Smart investor. And they have one of my NFTs. Okay, so I just posted, which I check out this thread, like not just the first tweet of it, but yeah, so I did my first drop in November and it was a one of one. I auctioned off 25% of the sound recording, which is actually a lot. Like if you look at something like Royal, you're getting, you know, Like pieces of a percent. And so yeah, I did this one and just framed it as an experiment that I wanted to experiment with the idea of sharing song ownership with a listener. And, and yes, I laid out the splits of this. And one thing that I did kind of as an afterthought, did you ever see the contract? That I designed.

There's the NFT contract and Dropbox link that you have on here on the, on the Foundation app. Is that what you're talking

about? Well, I'll, okay. So I just posted the tweet of it. So with the NFT, yeah, I put it out on Foundation. I think it got 1 or 2 bids. I can't remember. And then it was that night that I Then posted this contract of what it looks like for the NFT. And I had designed this and I did it kind of as an afterthought. It was like, hmm, if I'm giving a percent of the song to somebody, they should have some kind of visual contract. And from my experience, I'm so used to being sent legal docs that I don't understand. And then I either hope it doesn't screw me over and sign it, or I pull in my lawyer who is $400 an hour to review it. Um, and, and so the music legal side has always bothered me because sometimes you can have a song that you end up, you know, operating in a loss before it even comes out because of the legal fees around it. Um, and so I wanted to make sure if I'm bringing somebody into Being an owner in my song, I want the experience to be as easy as possible on them. Like, they shouldn't have to hire a lawyer just to understand any kind of terms that I'm throwing their way. So I just made a— it's almost like comically simple. I made this contract and laid out the splits of it, showing all of the artists and their percentages of it, laid out what's next for it. And this tweet had, which I don't know what makes, like, at what point is something viral? I don't know if I can call this viral, but it got, let's see, 677,000 impressions. And a lot of people were talking about it in the music community. And even artists that I love were favoriting it, like Doc Green. I don't know if he's such a fangirl. But yeah, I freaked out.

Sorry, say that one again. You cut out. You're a big fan.

Oh,

I

was saying that even artists that I like, like that I like listening to, had liked the tweet of it, like Jack Green. And so that was kind of a cool experience to have.

But very cool. Yeah.

So I, I tweeted this out before, I think it's before 10 PM. And this exploded even more than any of the NFT stuff I put out. And the person who ended up buying that NFT found it because of this contract.

That's so cool. And it's paper. It looks like it's, it's like a What is it, Paperclips? Where do I have so many tabs open right now? But it was like paper, it looked like almost like an investment fund or something that bought it.

Or maybe not.

Yeah,

yeah. Yep. So they're, they're in Canada. It's, I think, probably like developer team is the best way to frame it, that they work on a bunch of different projects. Yeah. And so they were interested in this NFT because of It auctioning off a percent of the sound recording of it, and because of the collaborative aspect of it, which I when I put this out, I didn't expect that to be a point that people would actually be interested in. But they love to see how many artists came together for this. That it was a remix from two incredible artists, Madge and Lexi Stacy, and my friend Danny Jones. Gasly is his. Twitter name. He was the one that did all of the visuals for it. Let me drop a link to the one that we did. Yeah, so all the NFTs that I've put out on Foundation, he's done all of the visuals for it, and I have to just hype him up. He is the best 3D designer that's at the intersection of art. And so we actually worked together at Facebook. And I mean, I've seen a ton of 3D designers, but he is, his work is really unique.

Okay. A couple questions based off this one. Would you, would you disclose how much that song has produced for their 25%? How much has it earned?

Let's see. Actually, we should talk about this. Okay. So, okay. So with this one, They got 25% of the sound recording, which in music, you've got 2 different aspects of this. So you have the sound recording and then you have the publishing side. So sound recording, that's mainly like, just to generalize all this, the streaming side that you see, that would be the sound recording. If your song gets placed in a TV show and you get sync payment from that, that's factoring into the publishing side. And so it was just the sound recording that I auctioned off with this. They purchased it for 2.2 ETH. Let's see what the song has streamed at. And in general, like you can see from the record deal simulator, it's $0.0039 per stream.

Yeah, streams earn ETH. Yeah.

Yeah.

No bueno.

Yeah. So let's see this song. What is this at right now? This song is at 8,000 streams, which I'll be real, this is one of my— like, it feels weird to talk about music this way, but least performing songs. So yeah, they're not, they're not making good money on that. And so with the next song that I put out, I actually gave them a percent of it. Because I felt bad that they weren't making money off of that existing remix. Like they paid 2.2 ETH for it. And it wasn't streaming anywhere near my other songs. And not that I'm— not that I have like millions of streams, but normally, you know, like it should be hovering more around anywhere from 20 to 50K after a few months. So then I—

Let's be, let's be real, 25% of the promotion is their job. Like it's in their best interest to like You know, shout it from the rooftops, you know, share those, share those links and, and pump it, which I love. I just love the idea, especially if somebody who's like an influencer buys your track and that, I mean, there's, there's some strategizing there. That's really great.

Yeah. But I think this is like, just to speak from the artist's point of view with auctioning off your royalties, this is the one piece that's kind of weird because if somebody pays a lot for it and it doesn't stream well, You feel bad. Like, you know, it's one thing to put out a song yourself that doesn't hit like your other songs. But if you sell a piece of it and somebody else then owns that percent, you feel like you have a responsibility to make it even more successful for everyone. And you know what I mean?

Yeah, no, I totally get that. I mean, also, you're a very nice person. And, you know, I think there would be other people in the business that would be like, too bad, so sad. But no, no, I totally get that. Like, you put out art, Yeah. You, you see somebody who invests in it and that's really a compliment. Like, wow, somebody just like bought this NFT and believes in my music so much that they paid 2 ETH for it. And then when it doesn't perform. Yeah, I totally get

it. Yeah. But okay, so I just, I posted a tweet in the chat, which, so with the next NFT that I did where I auctioned off my song ownership of it, I gave them 10% of that. And this is something that I didn't tell them about before. They found out that I did it whenever I posted the splits of all the songs, or of that song, you know, with all the like NFTs that I was doing. And so this felt cool because I knew that this remix would do a lot better. So I worked with Autograph on this. And also that last remix, like the, the Mad one. I think it's so fucking cool. It's just not my sound lane. Like, it's more hyperpop. And so it's definitely more of a risk since I'm indie pop, indie dance, you know, and it's not the same genre that all of my listeners listen to. But on its own, I think it's an incredible remix. Yeah. And so I think that's part of why it didn't pop off. But this most recent one, so the remix that Autograph did, see, So this has 367,000 streams. So that song has brought in, and that's just on Spotify. I don't know how much across everything, it's just Spotify is the easiest to quickly reference. So this song has brought in $1,432 as of right now, and that just came out in February. So actually the person who bought, you know, that NFT, the Paperclip Labs, They've made way more off of this surprise gift that I gave than the first one. So they've already made $143 from this one. That's so good.

I cut out, my internet cut out and I dropped off, but you guys don't need me. But what I was saying is, take it as like, it's my favorite track and it's so great that you would give 10%. To them and it's your top track. You got like 400,000 streams almost. It's, it's so good. So we all need to listen to this track, by the way. So we'll pop it in the— pop it in. Where should they listen? Spotify?

Spotify's the main place that I focus on. Yeah. And because it kind of helps on like just looking at things from the indie artist side, I like Spotify the most because it does the best at promoting my music through the algorithm. So things like Discover Weekly, Radio, Your Daily Mix. I actually get more streams from that than people coming to my profile. The songs of mine that do best are when they start to catch on more recommended Spotify playlists. And even I've had songs get playlisted by Spotify and it's always nice and you hope that it happens. But my songs do better long term from things like Discover Weekly than from getting on any playlists like Fresh Finds.

So as a songwriter,

Spotify,

as a songwriter though, how do you, like, is there a genre or a type of song that you like to do? And then there's a type of song that does well. Are they the same thing? Are they different?

Okay. I've noticed that songs of mine that people can work out to tend to do better. Like the remixes always do. Pretty well because of that. And within Spotify, you can go in and actually see what playlists are people adding it to. I

love that.

And you'll see the context. So it'll be like, run to this, working out to this, or boat party. And, and yeah, so in general, the more upbeat things tend to do better for me. But that said, my best streamed song is Like a stripped-down version of one of my songs. And I can see the context that people listen to that one in. They add it to things like Guilty Biz, Coffee House. I mean, sometimes the names are really funny and it just cracks me up to look through and see what people are naming their playlists. But, but yeah, so.

What's great about that, that's a song from 2019. So that's like, yeah. pre-COVID track that's like still topping the charts. That's really good.

Yeah. And that one has done so well because of Discover Weekly. Um, so let's see, I'll pull it up. Spotify data. Uh, actually, if you're curious to see what this looks like, I'll screenshot it in there.

Yeah. Ooh. I'm just basically gonna link to Discord in the podcast description. I'll link to this very chat because there's so many links.

Okay. So I'm pasting in a screenshot right now. You can see from Discover Weekly. That playlist alone has given me 273,000 streams. And so that song never got added to any editorial playlist, which, let's see, I can—

The AI loves you. Do you get to see the demo of the people that are listening? Like where they're listening from, that sort of

thing? Say that again.

Do you get to see the demo of where people are listening from, who they are, kind of things like that?

Yeah, let me, let me see what I can pull about that. But, but this one, just to show this comparison, which if anybody is an artist in here, it's probably helpful to see like long-term where you're getting streams from. So if a song is getting picked up on Discover Weekly, you get way more streams than the playlists that you pray to gods you get on, like Fresh Finds. You know, I had a song get on that, but that only gave me, you can see, 25,000 streams total. Hold Me, a song that I put out a few months ago, got on Fresh Finds Indie playlist that only gave me 8,000 streams. So it's like, yes, it helps to get on those playlists because any exposure like that helps. But if I had to choose, of course I would want it to be on Discover Weekly instead of one of those playlists. Yeah. And I'm looking at demographic. Let's see, is there any song that you're curious about the demographics of?

Oh, song by song. I was just thinking your general listener or even your Discover Weekly playlist, like who they are. Who's discovering you weekly?

Taken first, the US, Mexico, Taiwan, Australia. And so then you can see stats, playlists of it. Let me see. I'm curious if the remixes are any different. You can also see top cities. Like, for instance, this is now the remix. So you can see for this one in the last 28 days, my top cities were Sydney, LA, Melbourne, New York, Brisbane, Vancouver.

This is great. It's really cool. Thanks for showing us the dashboard. So Lyra, they're in the chat. We've got some suggestions of, or a question for you. So in your Twitter, you link to all of your streaming platforms, but there's not necessarily a link to any of the NFTs. Is there a strategy behind that? What you're

thinking? So one thing I've thought about within music NFTs is I always want to make sure that music is still first. Like, I'm excited about music NFTs, but I don't want it to ever become like the prominent thing above music. I've even realized that around times when I'm planning a drop or, you know, doing a lot of Twitter Spaces, I consciously try to post more music because it's like I don't want it to be music NFTs above everything else. And also, when you think about the type of artist you want to be, like, I want to be an artist first who does music NFTs and not a music NFT artist, you know what I mean?

Yeah, totally.

'Cause I feel like if you don't have that artist piece, like if that foundation isn't there before everything else, the other pieces can't make sense to me.

So when you're thinking about being an artist in the crypto space with like music NFTs, I know that I love that, that like you're an artist first. And you've innovated for sure with the contract and the split of the streaming. Are there other innovations or other things that you want to do with the tech? Like anything with DeFi, anything that like kind of intrigues you, like music plus something else? Or how do you see the music NFTs innovating in the future?

Well, definitely we need a lot more innovation around the royalty side of it. Yeah. Which I wouldn't do another drop where I auction off the NFT or where I auction off the royalties of a song. Because it's all like, you're doing all the work yourself right now. It's not like there are easy platforms for this. So it's a lot of accounting. And so I think tools around that would be really helpful, but it's kind of dependent on the distributors building them.

What's your advice for somebody who is a musician who is looking at NFTs and thinking like, this might be the way I'm going to get paid? Like, this might be the way that I can make a living as an artist.

Okay. I love this one. Advice I've often given people that are musicians and trying to figure out how to get started within NFTs is rather than thinking about what this NFT will be, just think about what experience you want to give somebody. I have seen artists do NFTs that I myself wouldn't collect. But by the way, I've collected a bunch of NFTs, like I own 15 on Sound. And often the ones that I collect there are more story of it, how much I love the artist's music. And I think Sound is a pretty different use case than other platforms. Well, one, it's like the speculative value of it. Is a lot different. Like, you look at— which I haven't looked at it too much lately, so I should probably check it out— but the floor prices of things on Sound versus other platforms, I think because of that scarcity of what exists there, it's like you definitely have more of the ability to make the NFT liquid if you want. Whereas if you bought something on Catalog or OpenSea, that buying community doesn't necessarily exist there. Have you seen that?

The buying community not existing where?

So if you look at where people are dropping music NFTs and like, if you sell a music NFT on Sound versus Catalog versus, you know, even Foundation like I did, you see a lot of the buying activity happen from Sound. Like, even if it's on OpenSea, it's a Sound NFT, whereas you don't see as much of that happening on other platforms. Like, I've never seen other bids on the NFTs I've sold on Foundation, but I've had secondary sales on Sound.

Oh,

yeah.

Yeah.

So that gets— A lot of that appeal is, it's to be part of that community with the artist. And so I'm curious to see how that can be deepened over time. Like, what does that access to that artist mean? And, and yeah, so when you look at NFTs, which maybe it would be helpful just to lay out how I see them, I think there are 3 main buckets. There's one that's purely support, one that's access, like you just want access to the artist. One where— and with that support one, it's like you just want to support the artist, you dig what they're doing, you want to throw some money their way. That access one, you love their work, you just want closer access to them. Third bucket being maybe there is a unique experience, like they're auctioning off, you know, even giving up ownership of the sound recording. I'd bucket that more. in the experience, because that's a really unique experience that the artist is giving. And then you've got an additional bucket, which is the speculative value. So I think when people are buying, it's going to fall into one of those— well, I guess I should say one of those 4. So it's like the patronage of it, access, experiences, or speculative value. And one thing that I didn't understand from a collector perspective over the last few months is when I saw people dropping on platforms like Catalog where there isn't that speculative value and they would list the song at like 1 ETH and the song already exists on Spotify. So it's not like you're getting anything unique. I, I just didn't understand those drops as much and I don't think we'll see a lot of those long term. Like, because we've seen a market correction in general, demand for music NFTs has gone down. And I think there was a period of time where those NFTs that didn't get you anything and didn't exactly give access to the artists and, and were pretty highly priced. I don't think we'll see cases like that continue as much.

So let me try 2 things on here. based on your category. So you have supporting the artist, access to the artist, and then unique experience. Generally, like these are the valuable things. So I do silly songs for an NFT project called the Wazees. And I do these songs just 'cause it's fun to exercise my improv skills. Yeah. It's, people think what I do is good, which is rare for me. I mean, it's nice to, that people like the stuff, so it's great. But generally, like I put them on Polygon as NFTs and it's a mainnet NFT project. And it's just really funny that people don't even like know how to use Polygon in this project. So I kind of missed there. But it's been really fun and it's been really fun to like actually create music NFTs onto an already existing community. And the second thing is I actually did a presentation at NFT NYC along with like 27,000 other people. I thought I was special, but anyway, I did a a presentation for 10 minutes. And I had a synthesizer and I made a patch, I do modular. And then I ran out into the crowd as this patch was going. And I was telling them basically, I think that music NFTs can also embrace a live performance situation. And I ran around and everybody like started like yelling stuff into my phone. And I'm in the process of creating like a live performance NFT, but I wanna see. Yes, we have track, album, mixtape. We have that already. But like, what are other experimental music, live kind of things that we can get involved with? Like even like a songwriting session, you know? Like I'm just trying to see like, what can an NFT medium bring to us that's different from track, album, mixtape, that sort of thing?

Actually, which by the way, I love that idea of Incorporating more live performance in it and letting people have, you know, their little moments within it of what you're recording. One NFT that I did, so I called it the Future Experience, which with this collection of NFTs that I did, I said, so I called this the Taken Experience. This was for the Autograph Remix, which with each of them I was giving a percent of the sound recording and experience. And this is partially because that first NFT I did, I gave just the sound recording, but, you know, it didn't perform as I had hoped. So it felt like the way to counter this of like half of it is the percent they get of the sound recording and then some experience attached onto it. And one of the ones that I did, I called it the Future Experience. And actually, the person that bought this, he created Royals, another music NFT platform. And so this gives the experience to be part of a future song, which I'm still figuring out with him what this means. So I'm actually working on an NFT release for the fall. So getting all those songs ready, and I'm thinking maybe like a voice memo where I can chop that up. He joked around that I could make his face the COVID art for one of the songs, which, if that's what he wants, I'm down for it. I think it's pretty hilarious. But in general, I really like this idea, even though I'm still figuring it out, of how do you not just have a collector be this person who, who gets the thing after it's all done, but how do you bring them into the creation experience of it? And, and yeah, so running this as a trial just to see how it goes. But yeah, ask me in a few months and we can see it.

Yeah, for sure. And also like the visuals, I feel like matter. And like, you know, NFTs starting out with JPEGs, right? It was a visual medium. And then music now, 2022 is the year of the music NFT, but there still needs to be, I feel like, and same thing with Spotify. Like Spotify is basically becoming a video platform now too. So, I mean, there's always, there's so many, different ways to collaborate and such.

Yeah. Also, one note on that of just like high-level music NFT thoughts that I want to drop in here. I just posted it in the chat, but this contains a longer thread that, you know, it's like we're in a different time of music NFTs right now than we were a few months ago. I personally feel Pretty much the same about it. I had posted this tweet back in November 2021 saying you can be both skeptical and excited about the future of NFTs. And so I would encourage everyone to be skeptical and excited. Like, yes, of course I'm excited about the future of what this can be. But at the same time, like, you're taking real people Which on a personal note, I, I do feel a little weird about that lately because it's like everyone's portfolio is in red. Inflation is very real. People are struggling just to put gas in their cars. And knowing that economic situation that everyone's in, it just makes me feel less excited to put out an NFT that somebody would, you know, pay 1 ETH for. And so, yeah, I haven't seen a larger conversation around this, but it's just, it affects my excitement to put out a drop. But it doesn't affect my excitement about the space long-term.

Okay. So how do we get on sound.xyz? Because that's the, that's apparently where it's at right now. Do you have any tips?

Yes, I would say Sound is definitely the best one. Let's see. Oh, which one other thought I just wanted to mention in that little tangent for a second. I'm dropping another one in here too, is I think this is how I'm going to continue thinking about it, that even if music NFTs in their current form fail, that it's okay, because it should be the things you're pushing on that should be the focus. Like, the piece that I'm most interested in seeing what it's going to turn into in the next year or 2 is, what does that relationship between the listener and the artist look like? That right now, as an artist, it's really hard to know who your top fans are. Like, often you don't know until people post their Spotify Wrapped for the end of the year and tag the people that they've listened to the most. And I've just had really, like, even emotional connecting experiences with people that have bought my NFT, you know, like sharing early demos of the next, getting their feedback, and sharing more about the inspiration behind a song. Even 2 people that I, I actually gifted them NFTs for the last drop, I wanted them to be part of it. But I have a little chat with them and, and we check in almost every day. And like, it's just NFTs in general have really changed the way that I've thought about having a relationship with my listeners. And I think music can be really isolating in the creation process. But Yeah, it's actually become more rewarding then to have these people along with it and, you know, along the journey with you. And it makes me want to make this thing as big as I can for all of us. So yeah, it's, it's been a surprising motivation. And I think we'll see that relationship continue to deepen and like imagine the tools that will be built. Like right now it's hard to know who all these people are that buy it if their social identity isn't tied to their wallet. But imagine once all the messaging platforms or tools are built on top of that so that you can have a direct line of communication with all of those people, not just tied to Discord and Twitter. But anyway, does that answer your question? What was the question?

Just wanted to know how to get on, how to get on sound.xyz. Yeah.

I think the best way is start joining the Twitter Spaces that they have. I know that they look at who's in there and who's participating in the community. And I'm in the Telegram group of all the artists that have dropped on it. And I've seen that a lot of people who have just continued to pull up to the Spaces and supporting the other artists, and I don't mean like buying the NFTs, you don't have to do that, but Just showing support for the artists that have their drops is probably the fastest way to get on their radar. Somebody who's supporting the community. Let me see. I don't know if they have the ability to like directly apply yet. But what I would then do is message. Let's see. I'm just seeing if there's a way to. I don't believe so. But yeah, Europe is a handle. Or I think Cater. See if I can. The tips. This is another person. So step 1, we have to do a playbook here, is joining all the Twitter Spaces and even like being active on Twitter, supporting the other artists that have drops. Because there's a ton of work that goes into it. And like, you never know if a drop's going to be successful. And it's nerve-wracking on the artist side and just seeing people show up with support will mean a lot for them and Sound will notice it. And then as for people to message, I would message Aman or Katrina. I see a question. Am I part of a music artist collective? Like a specific one or just in general?

Just in general.

No, but in a way, music NFTs kind of feel like an informal artist collective.

Yeah, it sounds like the Sound community is that artist collective. You got that Telegram group going. With the artists.

Yeah, yeah, it really does feel like that.

I love that. I've learned so much today, Lyra. I mean, I like— shoot for the workout playlist on Spotify, right? Shoot for your demo for Discover Weekly.

Yes. Um, which I'm gonna link this in, uh, the chat. I've gotten very into working out the last few months, so basically went all pandemic without moving. And I guess a lot of life things happened in the last few months that have caused a lot of internal rage. And I've just channeled that into the gym. And it's been the best thing. Like, I know this has nothing to do with music or NFTs right now. But it is surprising how much working out makes every other piece of your life better, like mental clarity, energy. just overall happiness. Um, so yeah, uh, do work out, but I just dropped this playlist in here. Um, I made this yesterday. Uh, I just called it Protein Shake, um, of the 20 songs that I listened to at the gym.

That's great. And so when you have that inner rage, I actually have a friend, my barber actually was like, wanted me to be in a black metal band. And, and I've studied classical singing in, in college and He's like, oh, you'd be a perfect black metal vocalist. I'm like, dude, I don't know how to scream. And he's like, watch some YouTube vids. And the way to do a black metal scream, Lyra, is you just kind of like sigh. You just kind of go like— but then you just push all the air through that sigh. So you're like, like that. And that also— I practice this in my car. I practice this in my car and I'm like, it feels really— so exercising in my black metal screams are how I do, how I channel the rage. And, uh, you know, maybe we can see a black metal, uh, track from Lyra. Maybe in the future.

Maybe a feature. Maybe we have you on it. Yeah.

And it'll totally be on everyone's exercise playlist. Protein shakes. Well, cool. Lyra, thank you so much for being here. The chat is elated with how much alpha you shared with us and just spending time with our community. I know you've made some new fans here today from the listeners of the podcast in the Discord chat. Thank you so much for joining the Pool Together Community Podcast.

Yeah, and I'll go through— I'm realizing I missed a lot of the messages in the chat, so I'm gonna go through afterwards and read through them. And also feel free to message me on Twitter. I'll, like, please don't feel intimidated or anything. Like, I wish this could be a conversation with 62 of you equally, but maybe the next one we just turn on everyone's mic. Yeah, and I'm always down to hear ideas that people have and also just from my perspective, I keep thinking about with, um, the NFTs I've done, which by the way, so I have no plans right now to do another drop. I only want to make the experience better for the existing collectors. So that's, um, the point of view I'm just working from right now, which I'm like, how do I continue to make it good for them? Continued airdrops, like what are cool experiences I can give them? So also, if you ever have ideas about that, Let me know. I've even thought about, should I be sending people all the stems of the songs that I have out? Yeah, like, how do I make this as unique as possible? Because these people have paid money for NFTs of mine, of the music. So it's like, all right, how do we now push on that?

Yeah, I definitely think one way that you are totally winning besides the music, but just how open you are with your fans and how responsive and, you know, how you, like, even just you saying you're gonna go back and respond to stuff in the Discord, that's like so So I mean, customer service wins championships. That's how you win. And, uh, and you're a really great example of that as well as a rock star. So thank you for being here live.

Yeah.

Thanks for listening to the PoolTogether Community Podcast. You can visit pooltogether.com to deposit, and we'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. So visit the PoolTogether Discord and let us know.