Musicians, like many others in the greater arts community, have an ever-expanding menu of distribution options.
From traditional record deals and FM radio play to startup streaming services and Soundcloud, for many bands getting heard means trying to be available on every streaming service possible. But the payout can be disappointing -- and, for most, not even close to sustainable.
Spotify, for example, last year showed per-stream payouts are around a half cent per stream, which is often split between band members.
Graham Langdon is hoping to improve the equation for artists by paying about a cent per stream -- while also pressing vinyl records for the bands listeners love most each month and making a positive impact on climate change.
His startup, Feedbands, offers streaming music from independent musicians. By specializing in un-signed bands, it gives listeners a lot of music they may not have otherwise heard. In turn, it pays artists about a half cent per stream. And each month it presses a vinyl record for the band Feedbands users vote for most and ships it to members; and it has a partnership to plant a new tree for every 100 streams logged on its platform.
"The artists are constantly disadvantaged in the equation."
Now Feedbands is experimenting with Bitcoin, paying artists with the cryptocurrency and letting them cash out at whatever threshold they want. It's also launching a real-time payment system where it pays Bitcoin to artists immediately after a song is streamed by a user.
"That will be pretty cool, and a first for the music streaming industry," Langdon said.
He said it helps provide an alternative in the streaming industry, which he said is broken.
"It serves pretty much everyone except the artists," he said. "The labels make out really well. The streaming services make out really well. The artists are constantly disadvantaged in the equation."
Feedbands has its roots in Santa Cruz, Calif., where Langdon lived in a home that was essential an arts house where musicians lived and jammed. Soon a developer moved in and they started building a streaming service in 2012.
Langdon said the music on the radio at the time in Santa Cruz was awful, and the music he heard at home was much more interesting but not easy to find. By the end of 2012, the business was created. In 2013, it released its first vinyl for an independent artist.
The platform tends to attract indy rock, hip-hop and folk music. "It really spans the whole spectrum," Langdon said.
Since it works with independent bands, you may not have heard of many of the artists. But some of the larger names to stream through Feedbands include Larkin Poe and Faded Paper Figures (known for a song on “Grey's Anatomy”) and Tank and the Bangas, which won NPR's 2017 Tiny Desk Contest.
It offers a $5 a month subscription for digital and $25 to get its monthly vinyl. You can listen for free, but only members can vote and comment on its active community boards.
Langdon, who moved to Austin a couple years ago, said Feedbands has tens of thousands of users globally. Initially, it used Google ads to help attract new users. Now it's looking at other methods, like viral videos.
In the past couple years, Langdon and his team, which mostly work remotely, started developing its Bitcoin foundation for payments.
Langdon said there's a large community of artists who are already comfortable with Bitcoin, but Feedbands also allows normal cash payouts.
"Some of them are really excited," he said of the Bitcoin payments. "But some of them, as you might imagine, are really hesitant and cautious."
Feedbands recently started working with global charity Trees.org to plant a tree for each one hundred streams logged. That includes streams from paid users and anyone who streams music from its website.
"We want to be a streaming service that actually regenerates the planet by planting trees the more people stream," he said. "And by paying artists in an appreciating asset that will, hopefully, help provide for their financial futures."
