Rocking the World: Legends of Rock AMA with Peter Laverick

Foreign.

Hello everyone and welcome to cointelegraph's live AMA session. In these ama, we showcase fascinating projects and concepts that are shaping the current and future landscape of web3, the individual and incredible collaborative efforts behind them. I'm your host. Our conversation today is going to revolve around rock music, music NFTs and insights for both digital and physical collectors. So if you're a music fan or a music collectible enthusiast, whether you're new to the game or a seasoned veteran, or if you just want to learn about exciting new web3 initiatives, just stick around. So as always, we have a special guest on this AMA Today we have with us Peter Leverick, head of Legends of Rock. So if you never heard of Legends of Rock, it's a brand new campaign and game from Global Entertainment and Mad World, an Animoca Brands portfolio company. It offers some of the most iconic moments in music history with a rare physical collection of vintage slides from the rich decades of the 80s, of the 60s, 70s and early 80s, from David Bowie's first band and the Conrad's to the first concerts by the Beatles and Sex Pistols. So to the iconic images of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Queen and many more. So over 100 of the most legendary bands in history are featured in this project. So now a few words about our guest. So Peter Laverick is a seasoned Web3 professional with a wealth of experience in project management and business development. He has been with Medwood for the last three years and has spent nearly 18 months preparing and building the Legends of Rock campaign with the partners in Los Angeles. So he works very closely with the Animoca Brands and Animoca Brands Japan to oversee the entire business for Legends of Rock. Hi Peter. Welcome to Cointelegraph ama. How are you doing?

Hi Giovanni. Yes, I'm doing very well, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm very excited to share more about Legends of Rock with you all.

Yeah, I'm excited too. So before we move forward, I want to just remind our audience that this is an interactive show. So please share all the questions that you have in the chat and we're going to ask our guests to answer anything that piques your curiosity and yeah, also make sure you don't miss out our next AMA sessions. So before we get started, we just have a very quick video to introduce Legends of Rock. Let's play it. Okay, so let's get started with. With some background first. So I heard that your rock memorabilia collection has some story behind it. So it started with Klaus Muller from Globe Entertainment and Media, who discovered these vintage photos in quantity and quality that was beyond his imagination. So can you tell us more about that background story?

Yes, of course. And as you said, it's not my story to tell, it's Klaus story. But I will do my very best to tell it. So Globe Entertainment actually purchased the Rock and Roll archives unseen. So they hadn't even seen what was inside of it. And they did this during the COVID pandemic in June of 2020. The archived was originally housed outside of London in the uk and they were, they weren't even able to fly in and see what was inside the archive at that point. So Klaus, who is the CEO of Globe Photos, he asked a friend of his who lived in London to drive and take a look and pack up everything that he thought might have been of value and then FedEx it to the warehouse over in the head office in Las Vegas. And when his friend went to go see, it ended up being hundreds and hundreds of filing cabinets. And it took them over eight months to get to Vegas. The archives was filled more than 40 inch containers. It's in a massive warehouse in Las Vegas. And today they have only gone through around 10% of the archives so far. So. So, yeah, keep your eyes peeled for some more crazy discoveries over the next coming years.

Okay, that sounds very fascinating, like a large amount of these collectibles still to be discovered. But let's dive deeper into this because I'm sure that a lot of people that are watching us may not be familiar with the value of these collectibles. So for those unfamiliar with celebrity photography, could you explain the value and the rarity of the Legends of Rock collection?

Of course, of course. So the Legends of Rock collection consists of these rare and iconic photographs of rock musicians and bands from the 60s, 70s and 80s, like you've already mentioned, captured by renowned photographers. The value of these images lies in their cultural significance as a lot of them have documented pivotal moments in music history. And the rarity of the collection is actually due to, you know, the limited number of these original photos and prints available and the fact that many of these photographs are untouched and have never ever been seen before of these iconic artists and rock legends.

Yeah, and I'm pleased to see that in our chat. There is a lot of movement, a lot of people be engaged. Yeah, so I think that we already have a question from our audience from Hong Kong. Someone is asking when is the next auction?

The next auction? So, yeah, well, actually on that one, we recently had an event in Tokyo two weeks ago where we auctioned off 10 of these iconic photos with their printed version as well and the nft. So that was two weeks ago in Tokyo. We haven't got one planned in the next month, but after that, after the first tour launches with the NFT sales, we're planning to host an auction between Tour 1 and Tour 2 to do a similar sort of thing to sell to auction of 10 more iconic images likely going to be either in Tokyo, Hong Kong or in Los Angeles where our partners are based on.

Yeah, and of course at the end of this show we're going to share your contact with the audience so that they can keep up to date with your next events. But now let's move on with the next question. So if we are talking, we are talking about the collectibles niche as a whole outside of your project, what measures are in place to maintain the value and the rarity of items similar to Legends of Rock collection?

So as we've mentioned earlier, there are very few vintage slides available from the 60s and 70s in particular. This is when the bands were just starting off. People didn't have mobile phones, small cameras to take photos during the concerts. It just wasn't on people's minds at the time or the technology wasn't available. So a few archives and music magazines would sometimes just hire someone to go and take photos of a concert. One or two would be published if they're lucky and the rest was filed away, never to be seen again until Globe bought these photos. So the cameras didn't have the motor drives like they do today. Photographers would just shoot a couple rolls of film and that was it for the whole concert or the whole experience. So yes, the slides from the 60s and 70s are exceedingly rare. In particular, once the bands and the photographers become or became more famous then, then more photos were taken naturally. And the image Images in the 80s are, are much less rare naturally because there are just a lot more of them and the ones of, you know, the current stars of like Miley Cyrus or something, you know, no knock on Miley Cyrus but they're just not worth anything because there are millions of them online. So it all depends on like anything all depends on just the rarity, supply and demand. The early Beatles, the Stones, Bowie, Queen, Led Zeppelin, they're just to this day and they will forever I imagine be extremely sought after and you know, iconic.

Yeah, of course, I mean I can imagine that the quantity of pictures that were taken at those concerts were so such a small amount compared to the average amount of images that come out from nowadays concerts, considering all the cameras, technology that we have today to make pictures and.

Yeah, exactly, it's exactly.

So what kind of strategies would you recommend for individuals who want to build and curate their own collections of music memorabilia?

I mean it's a pretty, it's a pretty straightforward answer. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here, but you know, my recommendation would be just to, for people to build and curate their own collection just by focusing on one particular genre or artists that they're passionate about or that they've enjoyed growing up. They can research the history in particular of these, the sort of like previous roadmap of the artist or the person in particular and look for unique items related to that concert posters, ticket stubs, signed merchandise, photos that we have that we're launching as NFTs. The ones we've got are truly original. One of ones that they wouldn't have seen before. A big one is also just connecting at these events. So going to these collectors events, music events and finding these chat rooms online that you speak to like minded people who have the same sort of passions and same favorite artists as yourselves.

Yeah, and now I would like truly to dive into the connection between the collectibles that we were talking about and the NFT space before that. Before we touch upon that, I just want to remind once again our audience to please continue writing down the questions that pique your curiosity and our guests will immediately answer those questions. So yeah, don't be shy and write them in the chat. So now talking about the NFT space. So what are the main differences between collecting physical music memorabilia, one we are discussing so far, and digital music NFTs? So since legends of Rock offers not only rock memorabilia NFTs but also physical slides representing those NFTs, why did you decide to combine the the two and what are the benefits of your NFTs? So these are a lot of questions, but probably give us an old compassing answer.

Yeah, well they're great questions and very important ones as well. What I can say is the main difference between collecting physical music memorabilia and digital music NFTs is obviously just the tangible aspect. Initially physical items can be held and displayed. NFTs only exist in the digital form in the traditional sense. However, when you combine the physical and the digital elements, that's when it gets really interesting. And that's what we're looking to do at Legends of Rock. When you combine them to in a single collectible, it offers a very unique value proposition in our opinion. By issuing the NFTs as digital certificates of authenticity for a physical item, we can verify the item's provenance and ensure its rarity. What I mean by that is if you were to go to the shop or go online and buy a LeBron James jersey, for example, that would come at the moment with a physical certificate of authenticity and it would be signed and everything like that. These certificates are very easy to replicate, so it's hard to know if they're legitimate or not. By issuing the NFT as a digital certificate of authenticity, we can ensure the item's provenance, which is something that I think NFTs and Web3, it's a fantastic use case of. Additionally, our NFTs can also provide a level of interactivity and community engagement that physical items traditionally have not been able to in the past.

Yeah, of course, like tracking the provenance of of items is probably one of the best features that NFTs made available for us.

Sure.

So maybe you can describe some other features that your platform offers for physical and both for both digital and physical collectibles.

Of course, of course. So not only have we got the, the actual NFTs themselves, so the original photos, which are all one of ones, but we also have what's called the Community Pass. So this is unique to Legends of Rock and there's going to be six different tiers of the Community Pass and the users will level up their Community Pass the more they play the game and participate with Legends of Rock and each tier that they unlock, it unlocks higher levels of utility and a higher chance of winning the game itself. But we've got, as well as that, we've got other features for physical and digital collectibles. As I said earlier, we've got auction events, we'll have a marketplace and also a social platform and sort of metaverse for collectors and the community to engage with. In the future, we plan to introduce new products and features to enhance the collectible experience and as I said, bring the gap closer from the users themselves to the actual memorabilia and closing that gap towards their favorite artists.

Yeah, that's interesting. And so maybe talking in general. So not just about your project, but I'm curious to know your view on this. So how has the emergence of NFTs affected the traditional music collectibles market? And what opportunities do you see for the synergies between the two? And also in your opinion, what are the challenges in tokenizing real world music memorabilia?

Yeah, great question. Thank you, Gio, for that. So I think NFTs and Web3 in general has disrupted quite a Few different industries and I think the traditional music collectibles market is one of them, or at least it's starting to be. But this creates new opportunities for ownership, value creation and as we keep touching back to is the community building side of things. So we see a lot of opportunities and potential for synergies between the two. I believe that the blockchain technology itself can help create a more transparent and democratic marketplace for music memorabilia. And on the challenges question, one of the main challenges, I think it's quite an obvious one, but I'm going to say it anyway. One of the main challenges is to establish the provenance and to ensure the actual authenticity of the item being tokenized. So it's for these kind of reasons that it's so important for us to work with partners like Globe Entertainment because they've acquired an official photo archives over the years. It's factors like that that make it incredibly integral to the program of Legends of Rock to be working with an official archive.

Yeah, and of course we saw that NFTs have a variety of different use cases and functions, and so they have within the music industry. So NFTs are being used in a variety of ways in addition to digital collectibles, as event tickets, passes to daos and music communities, funding tools and royalties, tracks and curated playlists available only through NFTs and much more, many more use cases. So which of these practices do you think have the most potential to stick around? Why? And how might they change in the future?

Again, another really, really good question. And I think all of the ones you listed there have their own, have their own roadmap and their own journey and all have potential to stick around. But you know, I think one of the really strong functions of NFTs is as a funding tool and the royalties aspect. So I think they have the most potential to stay in place or expand because this allows a more direct and transparent relationship between the artists themselves and their fans. Also, I think we're seeing it more and more nowadays, but I really expect to see a rise in token gated experiences, in real life experiences and online experiences, IRL and URL for holders of these NFTs within a specific artist community. NFTs themselves are allowing artists, musicians, bands to have a more intimate connection with their communities more than anything that's ever come before, to be honest. So I don't really see that side of things going away and it's likely just going to get deeper as the technology progresses.

Yeah, I agree. Probably one of the most interesting features of NFTs that I noticed the very first times that I got in touch with this new technology is specifically the transparent and direct relationship between the artist and the fans. So without intermediary. That's great. That's great technology. And so another question that piques my curiosity is what do you think needs to be changed in order for Music NFTs to become truly mainstream and provide full value to music fans?

Yeah, again, I'm going to resort to a fairly simple answer here, but to make NFTs and web three more mainstream, there just needs to be a wider adoption of blockchain technology and more people need to be aware of it. So an increase in education on the benefits of NFTs to artists, creators, collectors, fans, communities. Naturally this helps when the market sentiment is a bit more positive than it has been in the last 18 months or so. But it's, you know, it's as simple as that. The more people know about it, the more likely we are to see some progressions in the space.

Yeah, it's definitely true that. I mean, the interest in this, these sort of technologies depends on the market sentiment. And of course the, the bare market has been quite significant in sort of putting pressure on, on the development on these technologies. But I'm pretty sure that with the next, with the next Bull cycle, we're going to see much more enthusiasts coming up again and even.

I'm sure we will. Fingers crossed, Gio. Let's do this.

And so, yeah, going back to your project specifically, I'm curious to know what kind of collaborations or partnership that you have set up in the latest months, if you can share them with us.

Yeah, it's again, great question. I love talking about stuff like this and anything to Legends of Rock. At this stage, we can't actually disclose any of our announcements that we've got in the pipeline. However, what I can say is that Legends of Rock is going to have many collaborations announced in the near future and that is not only photography and music related. One of my favorite parts about working in Web3, as we all know, is that it opens the door to a lot of collaborations which may not have been possible in a more traditional web2 sense. So, you know, you can see artists crossing over some fashion labels that you might not have seen before. Likewise with Legends of Rock, we're definitely not limiting ourselves to just music or photography, collaborations and crossovers. So it's best to just stay tuned on this one, especially in the upcoming couple of months. But yeah, we're very excited about what we're working on. That's for sure.

Okay. And yeah, I'm seeing that there is another question from the audience. So someone is asking what bands are included for the first drop. Not sure, maybe you already mentioned it, but perhaps you want to answer this one.

Yeah, sure, I can definitely go ahead and answer this one. So the first drop actually has 1000 photos as part of the drop. So instead of drop one, it's tour one as part of the global tour. So the bands included, there's a huge list of bands, but we'll go Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Prince. Put him on the spot here. I think they're probably five of the best ones I can name off the top of my head. But. But yeah, you get the picture. We've got some heavy hitters in this. Jimi Hendrix is another one. We've got some pretty heavy hitters in the, in this first tour and, and we're only going to go up a level in tour two.

Okay. And I think that this ties perfectly into the last question. I want to ask you more on a personal note, so maybe you can share with us who is your favorite rock singer or group from the from 60s to early 80s? I see that you have some pictures in the background that perhaps can give some hint, but do you have any memories of your first time listening to their music? So yeah, maybe share a bit of this personal view.

Yeah, of course. So actually this is, this photo here is a gift from Klaus, the CEO of Globe. He very kindly gifted me and my girlfriend some, some of these iconic prints when we moved into our apartment in Hong Kong. So yeah, very privileged to have stuff like that lying around. But actually my favorite band is Queen. I'm not of the generation, sadly, where I got to see all these iconic bands perform live and even, you know, break through and, and, and make it, make it big and famous. But I'm not sure if it's because of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm a massive fan of that. I think that did a lot for younger generations, let's say to introduce them to like true rock and roll. And really, really I'm a massive Freddie Mercury fan. I think he's a fantastic performer. I love a good front man and you know, Queen are one of the bands in our first, in our first tour. So as part of Legends of Rock. So I will definitely be smashing the keyboard, playing the game, trying to win my, my Freddie Mercury slide.

Awesome. Yeah, I think that was a great note to wrap up the discussions, Peter. So, yeah, basically that brings us to the end of today's ama. But before we wrap up. I want to thank you, Peter, for joining us and sharing your knowledge on the topic. It was a very insightful conversation.

Hey, thank you for having me, Giovanni. Really appreciate it.

Yeah. And I'm sure before we go, that our audience would like to get in touch with you. So perhaps you would like to share the most effective means to communicate, to engage with you, with your team and community members.

Of course. Of course. And we would love to hear from as many of you as possible for any questions, any feedback of Legends of Rock or just some, you know, some rocking on in the Twitter and we can chat back and forth. So the best way is to actually follow the Legends of Rock official Twitter and Instagram accounts, which is legendsofrockio after the website legendsofrockio and then if you want to follow and message myself personally as head of Legends of Rock, my Twitter bio is PeterLaverick, as my name says on my name tag right here. And I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible. I normally live on Twitter a bit, as all of us on web3do. So follow me and message me and we can chat out on there.

Awesome. Okay, thanks, Peter. We really hope to have you soon on our channel again and to our listeners as well. I want to thank you for participating and being active in the conversation. It was awesome to answer your questions. If you enjoyed the discussion, don't forget to subscribe to Cointelegraph's YouTube channel and follow us on social media platforms like Twitter, Telegram, Instagram and of course, YouTube for the most recent news and updates. So thanks again one more time for watching us and we look forward to catching up with you in our upcoming videos. I'm Giovanni. See you next time.

Sam.