John Waupsh, the founder and CEO of new multimedia streaming app Nerve, has mad love for music.
He collects acetate records and is the steward of The Preservation Project, an indy organization based in Austin that specializes in recovering and curating obscure music from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
Waupsh wanted to create a way for musicians and artists to connect with their existing fans and generate monthly revenue they can count on — especially now, when touring and concerts aren’t possible because of Covid-19.
Nerve, the app born of that desire, allows users to find all of their favorite musicians’ work in one place. As Waupsh puts it, other services such as Spotify and Apple Music let you play “vanilla” releases, but if you want to go deeper — and he always does — you have to search multiple platforms to find everything from the musicians who speak to your soul.
“Fans spend a lot of time locating rare content. Ask any music lover where they find rare demos or live tracks from their favorite artists, and they will overload you with endless disjointed websites, social media profiles and online trade groups,” Nerve said in a news release. “While artists may have a large collection of unreleased content to share, they are not always aware that their fans are searching for this content. Even though artists are usually not paid for unofficial releases, loyal fans are willing to pay for access to hard-to-find or never-before-released content. Loyal fans are also more motivated to support a streaming platform that fairly compensates performers and raises awareness for worthy causes.”
Nerve, Waupsh explained in an interview, is an app that is built entirely for experiencing music for today through a mobile platform. Other platforms were not built to experience music, Waupsh said, but instead created for discovery or for social interaction.
“There are other options out there for people to subscribe to musicians,” he said. “But they’re garbage. I’m a huge music fan. It doesn’t make sense for someone to have a terrible listening experience when they’re trying to enjoy their favorite artist.”
Nerve delivers music ad-free, and it also delivers data to artists that they don’t get from other platforms, Waupsh said.
Waupsh has collected acetate records for decades. Acetates are made of metal with a thin layer of plastic on top and are meant to “last a few spins.”
“I started collecting these acetates or reels to reels, but I couldn’t listen to them because I knew they’d get burned up if I put a needle on them,” Waupsh said. “I kept them in storage units across the country.”
In 2011, a “buddy of mine who is a pretty famous record producer” gave him the tools to digitize his collection.
“I started going through and digitizing everything and moving it back to vinyl,” Waupsh said.
“I’m always creating things,” Waupsh added, and Nerve is his newest project.
The chief innovation officer at Kasasa, Waupsh and his partners launched Nerve in March with two artists — early ’80s hip-hop DJs Skeme Richards and Supreme La Rock.
“I’ve always wanted a way to stay connected to my global fan base — providing them with continued mixes and content well after I visited their cities, and Nerve is the perfect way to do so,” Richards said in a news release. “It feels like an exclusive or limited-edition item that’s reserved for true fans that value what I do. Plus, with the real-time live streaming function, I can connect with them from the second I roll out of bed and drop the needle on the record. (Covid-19) killed my touring and my planned income. The subscription fees are helpful during a time like this; it’s kind of like getting a salary for spinning records.”
Nerve started its technical beta in March and is now opening up to all genres and artists. Musicians interested in being on Nerve create a channel and then upload audio and video content. Nerve verifies that they’re the real artist.
Fans pay $5 per month to access an artist’s channel. The artist receives $3, and Nerve keeps $1.50. The rest goes toward paying for credit card processing and to MusiCares, a nonprofit operated by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
“The money gets paid to the artist on a weekly basis,” Waupsh said. “We have Nerve Mondays, which is when the money actually lands into your account.”
Giving artists a way to earn income automatically is important to Waupsh, and Nerve also is set up so that artists can share proceeds with their own nonprofit organizations.
“It’s something that we heard from a lot of artists — many of them have nonprofits, and they’re all hurting,” Waupsh said.
Nerve is wrapping up its beta test and will debut a new UI in about a month.
