Interview: Cooper Turley Launches Coop Records to Support the Next Generation of Music
Turley's new artist-centric venture builds upon the Web3 pioneer's interest in creating culture and community through music
Cooper Turley is a driving force in the Music NFT space who is firmly committed to finding new and novel ways to support artists. Today, he announced the launch of Coop Records which blends his interest in Web3 and crypto with his love for music. Coop Records is an investment fund that aims to help build the future of music, including supporting artists and new Web3 ventures.
It’s an exciting new chapter for Turley who continues to blaze a trail for the development of the Music NFT space and Web3. According to recent research shared by Water & Music, Music NFTs still only count for a small part of the total NFT market. However, Music NFTs represent a promising new format for artists to build community and grow their fanbase to achieve success.
Turley is no stranger to the power of community. As an avid electronic music fan, he was transformed by the communal experience of live music at a young age. The joy of building together, sharing music with friends, and helping nurture what’s new and next still drives him to this day. Coop Records is proof that Turley is serious about supporting artists in Web3.
I spoke with Turley earlier this week to learn more about Coop Records, and more broadly about his relentless passion for music and the artists that create it.
Arjan: Your commitment to finding new ways to support artists is deeply rooted in your love for music. What sparked your interest in becoming actively involved in the music industry?
Cooper: My relationship with music started a long time ago. I started hanging out with friends in my junior year of high school who were all really into live music. I started going to a lot of live concerts and seeing artists like Avicii, Zed’s Dead, and RL Grime—people that were leading electronic culture at the time. It really marked an important moment for me because I realized how much I loved music. All my friends were picking colleges to go to and I decided to head to Colorado to study music business. That’s where I really started to form an identity around music. I was a journalist at the time writing for different blogs covering shows. I had a brief stint as a DJ where I was basically remixing other people’s songs and putting mixes together on SoundCloud.
Seeing live music really helped shape your point of view. Do you remember your first show?
Avicii at the Naval Yard [Philadelphia] in 2011! I will never forget it. It was shortly after “Levels” came out and was my favorite song at the time. I remember going to the show with some friends. It was a really amazing experience. I remember being overwhelmed by how many people were coming out to support this one artist that I liked as well. That whole day was such an incredible experience. I went to a dozen more shows in the couple of months that followed. I was hooked on the live show experience.
You’ve been really focused in your recent efforts on uplifting new and emerging artists. Have you always had an interest in finding the next big thing?
I’ve always enjoyed doing that. Back in college when I was working out or practicing for sports, I would be the one who was picking all the songs that we would come out to the court on. I was always making playlists for friends. It was the SoundCloud era—there was a whole culture around discovering new music. I remember always having a really big love for discovering new music early on even if it was only with a couple of people. There’s something really special about being early to artists. Plus, the feeling of loving something new and sharing it with friends who then love it as well is an amazing experience. That drive has been the through-line for most of my career—finding new artists and helping them to figure things out and sharing that with others.
Did it take a minute to figure out what you wanted to do in music?
Yes. It wasn't until recently that I was able to really find a career path with it because I was never an artist. I didn't really love management and I never really found a lane for me to be able to pursue music as a career. So for a long time, I kind of lived this double life of music being my identity and my passion, and then crypto being the avenue that paid the bills. I finally figured out a way to merge those two worlds together with Coop Records.
Before asking more about Coop Records, there’s another element to your new venture and that’s crypto. When did your crypto journey start?
That was in my senior year of college. I was studying music business at the University of Colorado Denver, and a professor taught a class on the future of the music industry. He highlighted the idea of smart contracts and the ability to expedite royalty payments in the industry. The concept of smart contracts being able to expedite royalties immediately clicked for me. At that point in time, I started to do more of a deep dive around wider crypto, Ethereum in particular, and Web3 trends. But my entry into crypto was through the concept of smart contracts and the way that it can be applied to the music industry.
You’ve become a prolific collector in the Music NFT space. I have a feeling that’s not only because you love music and want to support it, but also because you want to lay the foundation for this new format to succeed.
Absolutely. I'm very fortunate to have done well for myself financially to be able to collect at the level that I am. A lot of the early artists that I was supporting are people that I've known for many years prior to collecting their music. Being able to collect their music felt like the most forward way that I could really support their craft. From a broader perspective, I’m fascinated by the idea of collecting music. I'm very proud of the collection I have. And as you alluded to, it's one thing for me to tweet about music, and it’s another thing for me to put my money where my mouth is, and really be collecting these songs in mass. And I'm extremely happy with the collection I have now. And I'm also very proud of some of the assets that I own today.
I believe Music NFTs weren’t the first collectibles you got into.
In college, I went to three or four live shows a week and I got very active in fan communities for artists like Pretty Lights, GRiZ, Illenium, and others. I really got into collecting artists pins—buying and selling them. I was active in Facebook groups and on marketplaces, really taking part in these fan communities. That’s why the idea of having a strong sense of community around music was very native to me.
One of your recent initiatives is the Web3 Launchpad to support artists interested in getting into Web3. Can you tell us more?
I put together a structured curriculum for ten artists that have never touched Music NFTs before. Over the course of four weeks, I take them from zero to minting their first Music NFT. I know I may be known as a collector, but it’s important to me to give back in ways that doesn’t involve capital, like with the launchpad and my weekly newsletter.
I love your focus on building community through music and finding new ways for new artists to succeed. Today, you’ve announced the launch of Coop Records. Tell us more.
I'm really excited to announce Coop Records. It's an early-stage fund that invests in the next generation of music. It's a $10 million fund that I'm running as a solo GP to invest in companies and artists at the intersection of music and technology. I've been very active in the investing space as an angel investor and more recently I’ve really enjoyed working with early-stage founders who are figuring out the building blocks of Web3. There are a lot of people, including artists, who are very passionate about doing music in Web3 but they may need a strong, capable team around them to build. This fund is a way for me to allocate capital to people that want to build teams around products and protocols in Web3.
Congratulations! So even though the name includes the word “Records” this is not a label?
It’s a hybrid. I was very intentional to use “Records,” because I want people to think of it as a label, but it’s basically a hybrid of a venture fund and a record label. Developing artists will be an important part of my mission.
Are you sharing where you’ll be making your first investments?
The first investments out of the fund will be announced soon. I'm actively looking for new deals to invest in, but as of today the fund is live and actively deploying into new companies. There’s no application process. I have a strong network within Web3 and I follow a lot of different initiatives the fund could potentially support.
Is there an area you’re really interested in developing for Coop Records?
There’s a concept of artist seed rounds that I'm really excited about. I think it's really interesting to think about investing in an artist brand that encompasses all of their different verticals—from streaming to publishing, to touring and NFTs. Finding a way to really put that all into one formal vehicle and then offer that vehicle to investors. And so there are some artists that I'm working with on this concept.
Can you share more details about the people that have invested in Coop Records?
The vast majority of the investors in the fund are crypto founders, venture fund founders, and active angel investors in the space. It’s basically people who run other crypto funds and founders of prominent crypto projects. And then there are people actively collecting music NFTs. Some music managers are getting involved as well. There are a couple of select artists participating as well that I'm really excited about but I can’t disclose them individually.
From your perspective as a music fan, collector, and investor, what is the biggest hurdle for Music NFTs to further develop as a new format?
I honestly think it's unlearning the current system around how we release music. I think that people are so boxed into the way in which music their music is being monetized. I think the biggest thing to getting adoption of Music NFTs to grow is really about challenging the notion of how you should be building relationships with your fans. Instead of thinking about how to get 10 million monthly listeners, you should also think about how to get a thousand collectors. I think that those are two very different demographics. The biggest challenge here is recognizing that fan bases are not a one size fits all. Fans collecting Music NFTs create an additional sense of community and purpose around the artists. It’s very similar to what I experienced when I was collecting pins early on in my career.
Congratulations on your new venture. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
When I first started collecting, I was just doing it ‘cause it was fun and cool, and I like supporting new artists. But recently, I've talked to a lot of artists here in L.A, and I think that the system needs a shake up and a wakeup call. Artists are feeling very uninspired lately. It's very difficult for an independent artist to pursue their craft. This new layer of music [collectibles] that we're developing is going to be foundational in the future. We're a long way away from that being finalized and but I can feel something really special bubbling here.
Thank you for chatting!
Thank you! I just wanna say thank you for always shining such a spotlight on the space. I talk to so many of my friends about how big of a role blogging and curation played in the last generation of music. We're going to need a very similar wave of curation around this next chapter of music for it to really take hold. And I think that you are one of the very few people in the world that's doing this in a really transformative way. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this.
For more updates on Cooper Turley and Coop Records, please follow Cooper on Twitter and make sure to subscribe to his weekly Web3 Music newsletter