Is NFT Star Daniel Allan Web3’s First Breakout Music Act? – Billboard

The 20th of July Daniel Allan woke up to a sold-out pool of 1,000 music NFTs, called Glass House – earning about 72 ETH ($136,000 as of late July) in less than 24 hours. No record company. No marketing campaign. No viral TikTok hit. Only 1000 true fans show up to support him. “It was one of the most emotional moments I’ve had,” he says. “That was the last thing I saw coming, honestly.”

To outsiders, this might look like an overnight success – another artist cashing in quickly on NFTs – but according to Allan and his team, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was the biggest risk of his career.

Two years ago, Allan moved to the west coast with the dream of making a living from music. “I just wanted to go out to LA, crash on people’s couches, make beats.” And like most new artists, that’s exactly what he did, with a side gig delivering groceries with Instacart.

Early on, Allan found a strategy that worked for him in the music industry. He signed three-track record deals with Internet companies like BonFire and Seeking Blue, making electronic pop music available, and took a small advance to cover the rent for a month or two. In between, he took up mixing and mastering jobs. It paid the bills, but it wasn’t glamorous or creatively satisfying. “Pretty early on in that process, I realized I didn’t see any way out of it, other than having a viral TikTok moment.” Allan was determined to make music as bold as Kanye West and Flume, and would never be satisfied with making beats for other people. He just needed a way out.

At first Allan followed the traditional industrial path. He put on a show in his friend’s backyard and invited everyone he knew in the music industry. And it worked. A few major label offers came in, but when he looked closer, the numbers didn’t add up. A three-album deal would bring him less money than he was already making, and deep down he knew a record deal wasn’t a golden ticket. “I’ve learned that my friends in LA fall into two categories,” he says. “Friends who want to sign a deal and friends who want to get out of the deal.” Maybe there was another option. In a twist of fate, someone else was at the same backyard show: Cooper Turley.

Turley is one of the leading figures in the Web3 music industry. An investor in more than a dozen Web3 music platforms, he is one of the biggest collectors in the space. He is also addicted to music. “Cooper’s superpower is that he’s a really good fan of music,” laughs Allan. “If you go to a show, he’s always the guy dancing even if no one else is.”

After the show, Turley introduced Daniel to Web3 and told him about a new platform called Catalog where musicians can release a version of their song as a single NFT, known as 1/1s. Despite the craze for NFTs sweeping through pop culture in 2021, music NFTs were still a big risk. “Music wasn’t something people took at all,” says Turley. “There were probably less than 10 artists on Catalog at the time.”

But Allan took a chance anyway. “I didn’t have much to lose,” he shrugs. Allan minted his first song on Catalog in April 2021. Turley bought it for 0.69 ETH ($1,637 at the time). His second track was quickly bought by Brett Shear, another prolific collector in the space and partner in Kygo’s crypto fund, Palm Tree Crew Crypto. It was the game changer. A complete stranger had paid him directly for his music. “It was the craziest moment. I didn’t have to do a crazy marketing campaign. I just made a beat and someone appreciated it as art, which was so foreign to me.”

Instinct kicked in. “Let me try again.” Over the next few months, Allan sold six NFTs on Catalog for a total of 3.8 ETH ($7,600).

“That’s when it clicked for me that it was going to be something special,” says Turley. “A lot of artists come in, put out a music NFT, they sell out, and then they’re nowhere to be seen. But Allan was so consistent that it allowed me to take a bigger chance on him. Turley came on board as Allan’s project manager for something even bigger: Overstimulated EP.

The Overstimulated the campaign was something no one had ever done before. Allan asked the community for an advance of 50 ETH in exchange for 50% ownership in the EP, all done through NFTs. It was structured like a record deal, but owned by his fans and community. It sold out overnight.

Another easy success? Not exactly, says Allan. “A lot of people see me as the kid who collected 50 ETH in 24 hours, but what most people don’t see is what I did all summer.”

In the months leading up to Overstimulated release, Allan spent eight hours a day on Twitter and Discord. He sent out messages to everyone in the Web3 music room. He dropped into dozens of Discord servers to say “gm” (good morning) and make connections with NFT music collectors. He spent all day on calls and Twitter Spaces to learn all he could about NFTs. “I was always down to be the dumbest person in the room, even if that meant only 5% of people got back to me.” And the beauty of crypto is that it never sleeps. “I asked a question at 3 in the morning and someone would answer.”

In Allan’s words, the sale was the result of “working all day”. At the end of the campaign Overstimulated The EP had 87 supporters – at least 50 of whom Allan had made personal connections with beforehand. He built the foundation one collector at a time.

From there, everything exploded. “In many ways, I had to become CEO. It got to the point where I couldn’t speak. I had 14-hour days of phone calls.” Allan didn’t have a record label, but he had 87 collectors who now had a stake in his career. He needed to find a way to scale the project and get more people involved. He needed a community manager.

Henry Chatfield had a history in the music business and was intrigued by music NFTs in 2021. “I don’t know how to help, but I want to help,” he told Allan via a cold DM on Twitter. The pair connected immediately and spent hours each week working on ways to engage this new community, such as creating a group chat for all the collectors. “Many of the collectors have now become friends,” explains Chatfield. “They talk about projects and work on things together. So it’s become this amazing connected network of different nodes now.”

Not only is Web3 changing revenue structures, it’s also forcing a change in the way independent artists set up their teams. Instead of a traditional management company and record label, Allan has a project manager who handles the token economy (Turley), a community manager (Chatfield) and collectors (many of whom can be considered investors with a stake in his music through Overstimulated project).

Over the next six months, the team experimented with almost every strategy in Web3. Allan released three tracks in limited edition through Sound.xyz. He teamed up with Beat Foundry to release a generative music compilation. He crowdfunded a singing camp in Miami to collaborate with other artists. Finally, he had the time and money to make the music he wanted. His sound has since shifted from electropop with saccharine vocals to a more mature production style and hip hop collaborations.

In total, Allan estimates that he has generated around 320 ETH ($606,000 at today’s prices) across all projects, but not all were successful. The collaboration with Beat Foundry fell in the middle of the crypto crash in May, selling only a third of the collection. “I’ve had a lot of flops,” he says. “I try to be public and vocal about the L’s as much as I am about the wins. We’re making history with what we’re doing, but I don’t think I’ve laid the perfect path.”

The hardest part is finding time for music. “I never want the music to slip through the needles,” says Allan. “I care a lot about it, I want to make timeless records.” But the Web3 model requires less sleep and a lot of work. “If you ask me how to balance it, I don’t have an answer, but I will tell you that it’s very difficult, and so I don’t think it’s necessarily for everyone.”

Succeeding in Web3 currently requires a relentless entrepreneurial edge, but that effort and consistency is rewarded. “Web3 music is more about time than talent right now,” says Turley. “At a certain point that will change and the talent will win out. But for people who just show up every single week and show all their songs, that’s the X-Factor that I personally look for.”

Despite all the hard work, Allan is now close to becoming Web3’s breakout artist. “It’s something I struggle with,” he admits openly. “Fortunately, Web3 has opened many doors for me in Web2. It has helped me to collaborate with artists that I look up to.”

Allan and his team agree that Web3 is not here to take over the music industry (yet). Web2 distribution models, streaming and radio promotions are still necessary to break an artist into the mainstream. But Web3 is starting to prove itself as a new launch platform for new artists, a way to crowdfund your early career and connect with your first 1,000 fans.

And if Daniel Allan is the first Web3 native artist to break out, he’ll bring those early fans along for the ride, not just as fans, but as collectors and investors in his music. The consequences of that can be enormous.