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Mark Rose (Spitalfield) and Bob Nanna (Braid, Hey Mercedes) have teamed up and created something unique. They’ve founded Downwrite, a place where anyone can work together with an artist of their choice to create a song. There are already over 30 artists on the staff and Bob and Mark have paid over $20,000 to their artists so far. GroundSounds recently chatted with Bob and Mark to learn more about Downwrite and how the process works.
GS: Tell our readers a little bit about Downwrite—the idea behind it and how it has grown to where it is now.
Mark: The idea started a couple years ago. Bob and I just wanted to let people know that the two of us were available to write music and custom songs for people. It was another way for us to do what we love doing on the side and make a little extra money. Immediately after coming up with that idea, Bob called me and we decided to try to make it into a network or community of sorts to allow writers to do things in their down time, which is where the name comes from. We launched in February and started slowly adding artists, mostly people that we knew and had good relationships. Now we’re up to over 30 artists and we’ve done over 200 projects, it’s been really fun to be a part of.
GS: You’ve got some big names in the music world on the roster, how did you get your artists on board?
Bob: Once we came up with the idea, we each got a few songs and figured out that this could work. Matt {Pryor – The Get Up Kids} was one of the first people on board. Braid has toured a bunch with The Get Up Kids, and between Mark and I we both know a ton of artists and bands that we’ve toured with or just had connections to. We sort of “hit the phones” and asked if people would be interested. Matt was actually thinking about doing something similar on his own and when we contacted him he was totally on board and wanting to be a part of it. Same with William Beckett and and Shane {Henderson – Valencia}.
Mark: Yeah and as more artists are on board and get feedback from everyone, it’s easier to talk to more and more people and show our history of what we’ve done so far. I visualize it expanding a little bit quicker as we move along here and more people learn about the option to be on board.
GS: What kind of requests can people make? Do they just submit what they want the song to be about or do they give specific artistic direction to the artists? How does the process work?
Mark: All of those things are customized by the writers, so they can pick and choose what they want to do. Artists can set pricing tiers for production, something as easy as home-recording with one instrument, all the way up to full studio productions. Each artist has their own questionnaire that they’ve written that when the purchaser is picking out what they want, they fill it out and give them all the direction and creativity and ideas for the song they’re going to record for them. We’ve had examples of people coming to an artist with lyrics who say “I’d really love if you could put this to music and record it for me.” We’ve had all sorts of various levels of requests from that to just an idea or subject.
Bob: If the artist is cool with that, that’s great and if they’re not, that’s great too. Mark was saying this is something for artists to do in their down time, but we like to say it’s also like what the artist is “down” to do. If you’re down to collaborate with someone, great, it doesn’t have to be one way or the other, you sort of make the rules.
Mark: That’s exactly right. And we want to have every artist on board at least has an option for $100 and many of them have different things moving up from there. We have different types of artists and different genres. We recently put up our first classically trained cellist, who does accompaniment parts. So her page is dedicated to “do you want me to write and record a part for your existing song?” or “do you want me to record something you’ve written that you’d like me to perform for you?” There are all these different things you can do.
GS: So what if someone requests you but they have a bunch of requests you aren’t comfortable with, can you just decline an offer?
Mark: Yeah ultimately it is the artist’s choice. If they’re not comfortable doing something they don’t have to do it. The way it’s set up right now is each artist has their own queue with how many projects they are able to take on at a time. If my project queue is open and I get a request, I do have the option to decline if I’m not feeling it, or if it’s something I want to take a risk on and go for it, I can do that too. We want to be as artist-friendly as possible. Bob and I, being songwriters who’ve been writing and recording music for a decade plus, we try to think about what we would want when putting these things together and try to be as artist-friendly as possible.
GS: You have already paid $20,000 to artists so far. How does the payment process work?
Bob: Each artist has tiers and options. We’re paying the artist based on project. The purchaser pays the site, then once the artist delivers the song through the site, we then pay the artist.
Mark: We have a small transaction fee, but the lion’s share of the money goes back to the artists. Ultimately we are trying to make as much money as we can for the artists. We want to be that middle-man and that tool they can use to do all sorts of creative stuff with their fans or with anyone really. We’ve actually had people just coming across the site that don’t know the artists and browsing through and finding someone they want to work with. That’s been pretty cool too.
GS: You already have over 30 artists, how big do you think this can get and how big do you want it to get?
Mark: At this point I’m excited to take on a bunch more artists and we’re getting more and more interest. Eventually we want to open this up so that artists everywhere can get on and build a profile and start working. I hope that it can get to a level that it becomes another thing artists can do to keep themselves afloat. With Youtube and Spotify providing a lot of free music for people, so we want to be part of that solution to help artists make money doing what they’re good at.
GS: What are you guys currently personally working on right now?
Bob: Braid is starting to record a new album. That will come out in the Spring of next year. I’m also in a band with my fiancée called Jack & Ace, we’re going to be working on a record for next year. Also I used to do this solo project called The City on Film. I’m excited about maybe doing something with that next year and specifically connecting it to Downwrite, like maybe having it be an album that’s totally sourced from Downwrite requests. These are just crazy things I’m thinking about, but it’s a good feeling to have something like Downwrite inspire me to want to do something like this. Maybe I’ll make a record of collaborations, it’s an interesting thought.
Mark: So this year was the 10 year anniversary for an album called Remember Right Now with my band Spitalfield, so we have our finale for that anniversary tour, so we’re going to close the book on that, it was a lot of fun. This year I put out an EP called The Sound of a Turnaround, and I’ve been touring pretty hard on that, played over 100 shows this year on it. Heading into the holidays and into next year, I’ve been writing a bunch of solo material, and to what Bob said I’ve also been inspired by some of the stuff I’ve heard and been a part of on Downwrite, so I’ve been getting even more inspiration to write and record.
So I’m going to be heading out in January with JT Woodruff, the frontman for Hawthorne Heights who has solo material as well, and is also an artist on Downwrite. We’re gonna be out doing about 15 shows in January, and by February or March I want to be in pre-production my next full-length. So that’s keeping me busy and excited.
GS: Very cool, well thanks guys! Is there anything else that you wanted me to mention about Downwrite?
Bob: Custom songs make great Christmas gifts…or valentine’s day gifts…or birthday gifts!
Check out Downwrite for more info and to see the entire roster of artists
