Technology is disrupting the music industry once again.
In this week's special 4-part bonus series, you’ll hear rapid fire interviews with incredible musicians who are using cutting edge podcasting tech to reinvent the music industry.
We’re kicking off this bonus series with one of the top artists in the world of value-for-value music, Ainsley Costello.
Ainsley began performing in school and community musical theatre productions at the age of 7. Fueled by her passion and determination, she began taking classes at Berklee College of Music online at just 15 years old.
A rare combination of raw talent and relentless ambition, Ainsley has a resume of those twice her age, graduating from Berkeley magna cum laude with a degree in music business at the age of 19, with over 20 commercial single releases and 200 shows in 20+ states under her belt—no big deal. And I get the feeling that she's just getting warmed up.
In this episode with Ainsley Costello, you’ll hear:
And if you’d like to drop a some “sats” in the tip jar for today’s episode, which will be split 50/50 with Ainsley, simply:
>> Get your tickets ($10): AntonesNightclub.com
>> Or join the Livestream on Tunestr or Adam Curry’s Boostagram Ball podcast (Show starts at 6pm Central / 7pm Eastern / 4pm Pacific on Monday, December 16, 2024)
Go to AinsleyCostello.com to connect with Ainsley and hear a sampling of her music
Read the show notes: https://fatburningman.com/ainsley-costello-how-bitcoin-is-disrupting-the-music-industry
In this week's special 4-part bonus series, you’ll hear rapid fire interviews with incredible musicians who are using cutting edge podcasting tech to reinvent the music industry.
We’re kicking off this bonus series with one of the top artists in the world of value-for-value music, Ainsley Costello.
Ainsley began performing in school and community musical theatre productions at the age of 7. Fueled by her passion and determination, she began taking classes at Berklee College of Music online at just 15 years old.
A rare combination of raw talent and relentless ambition, Ainsley has a resume of those twice her age, graduating from Berkeley magna cum laude with a degree in music business at the age of 19, with over 20 commercial single releases and 200 shows in 20+ states under her belt—no big deal. And I get the feeling that she's just getting warmed up.
In this episode with Ainsley Costello, you’ll hear:
- What really happens when artists sign their lives away to record companies
- The future of music in the age of generative AI
- How artists and DJs are using podcasting technology to reimagine the music industry
- A few inspiring words that might just convince you to chase your dreams
- And more…
And if you’d like to drop a some “sats” in the tip jar for today’s episode, which will be split 50/50 with Ainsley, simply:
- Download the Fountain.fm app
- Add a few bucks to your lightning wallet
- Find this episode on Fountain, click the lightning icon, and send us a Boost with an optional message
>> Get your tickets ($10): AntonesNightclub.com
>> Or join the Livestream on Tunestr or Adam Curry’s Boostagram Ball podcast (Show starts at 6pm Central / 7pm Eastern / 4pm Pacific on Monday, December 16, 2024)
Go to AinsleyCostello.com to connect with Ainsley and hear a sampling of her music
Read the show notes: https://fatburningman.com/ainsley-costello-how-bitcoin-is-disrupting-the-music-industry
[00:00:00]
Abel James:
Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us in this special episode of the show. Technology is disrupting the music industry once again. And in this special 4 part bonus series, you'll hear rapid fire interviews with remarkable musicians who are using cutting edge podcasting tech to reinvent the music industry. This is all leading up to the first ever Satsby Southwest Independent Music Summit and our show at Antones hosted by Adam Curry. Adam Curry, a music legend from his MTV days as VJ and host of Headbanger's Ball, has been dubbed the Podfather for being the inventor of modern podcasting, and he has recently turned his musical focus to decentralized technologies that empower artists in a way that Big Tech has not. The 2 day event highlights how this grassroots movement of free open source technology can change the game in music, podcasting, and beyond. I'm speaking on the creator panel for the summit at the Bitcoin Commons on 15th, and then I'm stoked to be opening the show by premiering a new song at Austin's home of the blues, Antone's, on 16th. Leading up to the show on December 16th, you'll get a special burst of bonus episodes with fellow artists playing at the show with at least 4 new episodes dropping this week, so stay tuned. You'll hear interviews with the incredible Suzanne Santo, who has performed with some of the biggest acts in the world, including Hozier. Ainsley Costello, one of the top artists in value for value music. Johnny Elrod, fellow Austinite and drummer for FM Rodeo. As well as Stacy McCann, longtime bandmate, bassist, and frontwoman of SOB and the danks.
These episodes are free of ads with no sponsors. So if you like what you're hearing, you can support this show by sharing it with a friend or sending a boost to this show on a modern podcasting app like Fountain. Don't know what a boost or a boostagram or a zap is yet? No worries. If you wanna help create a better future for music and podcasting, here's your challenge, and it's pretty quick. Just download an app called Fountain FM. It's a podcast player. And then put a couple of bucks into your lightning wallet. Sounds kind of complicated, but it's actually quite easy. And then learn how to send a boost or a small micropayment to a musician whose music you like or a podcast that you dig. If you find this show valuable, I'd be honored if you send us a boost. And now with podcasting 2.0 tech, your boosts are also shared with the featured artist or guest on the show. So when I'm playing their music or interviewing them, we can actually split the micropayments. And this sounds like a small thing, but in the world of podcasting, music, and beyond, it could totally change how things work. Because as a musician on Spotify, Apple Music, and the traditional platforms, we'll talk about some of the ways that it's broken. But this technology holds a lot of promise, so we're really excited about it. So, anyway, join us via livestream or in person for the Sats by Southwest Independent Music Summit at the Bitcoin Commons on December 15th, as well as the concert at Anton's for Adam Curry's BoosterGram Ball on December 16th. You can visit abeljames.com, abeljames.com for more information. Sign up for my newsletter as well, and I'll send you direct links to the live streams and all of the fun things to come for these live shows and events down the road. Alright. So for this first episode of the bonus series, we're kicking this off with one of the top artists in the whole value verse, Ainsley Costello.
You'll hear what really happens when artists sign their lives away to record companies, the future of music in the age of generative AI, how artists and DJs are using podcasting technology to reimagine the music industry, a few inspiring words that might just convince you to chase your dreams, and much, much more. And make sure to listen to the end of this interview to hear one of Ainsley's tunes, Cherry on Top, which was the first song to ever hit 1,000,000 satoshis on Wave Lake. Let's hang out with Ainsley. Alright, folks. We're here today with our friend, the one and only Ainsley Costello, a rare combination of raw talent and relentless ambition.
Ainsley began taking classes at Berklee College of Music Online at just 15 years old. After graduating from high school at 16 during COVID, she continued with Berklee College of Music Online. And in 2023, she graduated from Berklee magna cum laude with a degree in music business at the age of 19. Now at just 20 years old, Ainsley has a resume of those twice her age with over 20 commercial single releases and a 150 shows in a couple dozen states, no big deal, under her belt. And I get the feeling that she's just getting warmed up. So, Ainsley, I am so stoked to have you here. Thank you so much for having me on the show, and I must say you have a very good radio announcer voice. I was very impressed. Oh, thank you very much. It's from all those singing lessons over the years. This is wonderful because I haven't seen a whole lot of interviews with you. You did a fantastic one with Heather Larson, one of our mutual friends who we're gonna be singing in Austin as well. But, so a lot of people who are listening right now probably haven't heard your music or heard of what you do. So why don't you just give a little bit of your origin story and why you've dedicated your life to this magical world of music?
[00:05:24] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, my name is Ainsley Costello. I'm a 20 year old singer songwriter based here in Nashville, and I truly have been doing music forever. My dad is a musician. My dad went to LA in the nineties to do basically the same thing that I'm doing here in Nashville. But then, you know, I was born. My dad got a day job. My parents settled down, but my dad never stopped playing in cover bands and playing in jazz bands and whatever. And so I just have a lot of formative memories growing up of going to see my dad in in cover bands when I was, like, 3, and my friends and I would be, like, running around the restaurant just jamming out to, like, all the yacht rock that he and his band were playing. But, yeah, I mean, it was something that I always knew was, like, very inherently in me. Like, from the time that I was 4 or 5 years old, I knew I wanted to be a singer, and then I turned 12 and I started writing songs. For some reason, I don't know why, but I feel like 12 is the magic number. So many people who I love and look up to, they were all like, I started writing songs when I was 12, and I was like, well, I'm part of the club now. Cool. But, yeah, I started writing songs right around then when we moved to, Seattle when I was I I was 11 when we moved to Seattle, and that's really where music started for me. You know, when I started writing songs, that was when I started doing my first, like, Ainsley Costello live experience shows when I was, like, 13, 14 all around the Pacific Northwest. And then one thing led to another, and I was missing a lot of school. I even got sent a truancy letter wrong time, a wrongful truancy letter, might I add, because I was missing so much school for traveling and going and playing shows. And then when I was 14, 15, I started kind of, like, placing the bug in my parents' ear of, like, hey. Can we move to Nashville? Because I think this is a very natural next step for me. And then we moved to Nashville, and about a month later, COVID hit, and also that same month slash same week, I put out my first album when I was 15. It was a very, like, pop country, like, wrote it in my bedroom in Seattle. We produced it in our home studio in Seattle, and then we moved here, and I get to Nashville where it's really it's music city. Don't get me wrong, but it's very, very country oriented. And I looked around, and I was like, this doesn't make me different.
So, I did a little bit of a deep dive, and I found out that Paramore was from Nashville and Kings of Leon were from Nashville. And this light bulb went off in my head of like, oh, I don't just have to do country. There's a lot of really successful people who came out of Nashville that aren't just country. And so then, you know, one thing led to another. I started writing with the amazing Nashville songwriting community. And then in 2021, I put out a new single every month that year, which was crazy and wild. And 3 years later, I'm looking back at that being like, why did you do that? That was I mean, I'm very glad that I did, but it was a lot of work. And then each year, I've just kept releasing music, and it's finally led up to this point of I, I just finished my new full album. It's not out yet, but it's called x less, and it's really I feel like the culmination of all of the work that I've done in the past, like, honestly, 10 years of my life. It's really this culmination of I know what my messages are and the main things that are important to me now, and I know what sound I wanna be, and I know who my reference artists are, and it all kind of fell together in this one little, like, pot at the end of the rainbow.
[00:08:41] Abel James:
Beautiful. But it can be a bit of a a culture shock as well. I can relate to that too coming from New Hampshire and my first job in Washington DC, then moving to Austin, Texas. Especially Yeah. Music scene, there are a lot of different expectations, different sounds, but what an incredible both both of those towns, incredible places to to get better and cross pollinate ideas and musical genres and styles with other musicians. So really powerful to let that literally drive where you live. Was it a hard time convincing your folks or since they're musicians as as or involved in music as well? Was it not too bad?
[00:09:17] Ainsley Costello:
It wasn't too bad. Weirdly enough, I thought my mom was gonna be more of the holdout on that one, but as soon as I started talking to my mom about it, my mom had always kind of phrased it in this idea of, you know what? We've been in Seattle for 5 years. I think as a family, we're ready for something new. Why don't we do this? And my dad was actually the last holdout because as much as I was playing music in Seattle, my dad was in 7 or 8 bands at one time. We counted. And so my dad was so even more ingrained in the Seattle music community than I was, and he loved it so much. We all loved it there. We all really miss it. I get very homesick for it sometimes. But, you know, my mom and I had finally, like, really started pushing him, and he was like, alright. Let's do it.
He wasn't upset about it at all, but he was definitely like, oh, I love it here, but I do think it's time for something new. And after, you know, a few years now in in Nashville, what's your experience now as a family? We, as a family and me, have a very complicated relationship with Nashville because I really appreciate Nashville for what it is and what it's done for me as, like, professionally and how I've grown as a songwriter and a musician, but we got here 2 weeks before the pandemic hit. And so the 1st year and a half, my experience of Nashville was really skewed. It wasn't kind of that idealistic, like, vision of Nashville you have as a 15 year old. Like, I'm gonna move to Nashville, and then I'm gonna write with all these people. And then in a year, I'm gonna get a publishing deal with this person, and then that'll lead to a label deal. And then it was you I had to come to terms and reckon with that idea of, okay.
So this isn't gonna happen how you wanted it to, and it's not like you can't just follow the steps of Taylor Swift's career or Hayley Williams' career or whoever. And it's because those were their careers, and your career is gonna be your career. And it's all it's gonna happen differently for everyone. And so, you know, we've been here for 5 years now, which is almost it's so crazy to think about. And now I'm kind of at this point where I feel like we were at at the end of living in Seattle. Like, I I love it. I'm so grateful for it, but I do feel like it's time for something new. I just don't know what that something new is yet. Probably Austin, Texas. You'll see when you come here and try some of the brisket. It's I'm so excited. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah. I'm really stoked.
[00:11:31] Abel James:
So you mentioned kinda finding yourself through music, but I can't imagine what it was like kind of coming up, and and being in school throughout the pandemic. What was that like for you as both a student as well as an artist?
[00:11:47] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I actually had less of a harder time with it than a lot of my friends my age did as a student. Mhmm. Because when I was after my freshman year of high school, that was when we made the decision as a family. Ansley, you're gonna go online because you're missing so much school, and it's just it's not really sustainable. I mean, of I wasn't gonna, like, drop out of high school. Like, I still have my high school degree. But after my freshman year of high school, I was like, I think I need to go online, and that was think about it. I think my freshman year was 2018 I think my 2018 to 19, and then for the entire my sophomore year was all online, and that was the full year before COVID. So I already become acclimated to being online, and I knew what that whole thing was about. And so when the rest of the world went online, I was like, welcome to the club, guys.
[00:12:36] Abel James:
That's amazing. Okay. So let's talk about also, you mentioned your music is one of the places where you can kinda find yourself. And, ultimately, at least some artists realize that they can write music that actually means something or says something. Many artists do not. And the commercial interest sometimes get in the way of music that has a message. But I know it's an important part of what you do. So, maybe you could just share that with a lot of people who just aren't musicians or aren't really involved in that world tend to listen quite passively and might not be aware of how powerful music can be as a tool to actually affect cultural change. So maybe you can just rant about that a little bit. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, from a very young age, I knew that I
[00:13:19] Ainsley Costello:
really looked up and listened to songwriters. It was just before I even knew how to do it, I loved the the structure of telling a story in a song of twisting a a common phrase or putting down a a line or a lyric that has a double meaning or a triple meaning or a quadruple meaning, however much you look at it. And so, I mean, there definitely are songs out there that, you know, don't have as much of a deeper meaning than others, but, also, I'm a really firm believer that a song doesn't have to be hallelujah to be great. Sure. I think every song is gonna mean something to someone, and I think even in my discography, there are songs that are, like, really fun and dance y and happy, and then there are songs where I get a little bit more lyrically intense. But message wise, I knew from a really young age that I was really fed up with, as a young girl growing up in the 20 tens, late 2000, that so much of the messaging that I was getting on the radio when radio was still more of a thing than it is now was that you have to be in love to be happy or that you have to be in a relationship to be a whole and happy and fulfilled human being. And so when I started writing songs, I was like, there has to be a way for me to write this idea of you don't have to be any of those things to be a full and happy and fulfilled lovely human being, but still meshing it with these fun pop sounds that make you wanna dance and they make you wanna get up, but they still have a meaning to it. And so it it took a couple of years of really perfecting the songwriting of that, kind of knowing what I wanted to say, and then finding the sound that really made them meld together in a really, what's the word, like, synergetic way. I'm I'm really passionate about telling the next generation of young girls or if there are already any young girls who are listening to me. I know I don't have a huge platform, but the people who do listen to me already, I take it really seriously. I'm so grateful for it, and I just I wanted to be different than this, like, oh, my boyfriend broke up with me, and I'm sad, and I'm gonna be alone forever. And, like, at the same time, that's not a bad message to write at all. I think the world does need those songs.
But for where I'm at right now in my life, I don't wanna write something that feels disingenuous to where I'm at now. I'm sure I'm gonna write that message of, like, I got broken up with and it's awful in a couple years when that does really hit me, but I wanted to really honor this space of where I'm at in my life right now of, like, hey. I've never been in a relationship before, and I think that's fine. And I don't think you, grandma, Thanksgiving need to shade me for that.
[00:15:56] Abel James:
That's so cool. And I'm sure you can relate to this too, but I've always found that writing songs, during different stages of my life kinda represents this ability to to almost travel through time. And when I play or listen to the song later in life or or a few months, a few years later, it can kinda transport you back to that little
[00:16:17] Ainsley Costello:
memory capsule or something like that. Total I totally look at it as a time capsule too.
[00:16:22] Abel James:
Yeah. And so that brings a lot of value to what you're saying where you don't just wanna write what everyone else is writing or write a song that's going to get popular, but actually create something that represents your emotional state and and kind of, like, your life stage in a way that only works when you write that song. Right? Because, like, if you tried to write that song, a few weeks later or a few years later, it would come out completely differently. So for me, you know, I'm I'm double your age at this point and, have had a whole bunch of different life stages and songs written within them. And I can say, like, looking back at some of them, it's hilarious because I'm just, like, man, I kinda dig that one, but I would never write that now. I mean, like, I wouldn't even play that now. Or sometimes, like, there are songs that are just for you. There's some songs that are, like, meant to perform. There are other ones that are kinda just for you. My gosh. You you said so much in that
[00:17:14] Ainsley Costello:
little chunk that I totally agree with. I think there are definitely some songs where I've written where I kinda see, like, there are these 2 buckets when you're writing. One of them, from the get go, you're writing a song for public consumption, for the radio, for a mass audience, and then there's this other bucket where you write them purely from a therapeutic standpoint, this idea of I might never share this with the world, but I need to write this song for me. And as I've gotten older, I've realized that, oh, wow. I mean, I I love working in both of them, and it's become when I was 15, 16, just getting to Nashville, I was really in this, like, okay. How do I write a radio ready 3 minute song? How do I, like, get this Nashville formula down to a science? And now that I really feel confident in that, then it almost makes it easier to come over to this really therapeutic place and write from a purely selfish standpoint, but then you can work it up with a band and it might be really, really deep and personal, But it also has that influence of the radio ready. You've learned the structure. You know what the Nashville system is. And I think that is really cool. So I really relate to what you just said with that. What about, in terms of live performance,
[00:18:26] Abel James:
in in going to Berkeley and doing some of that remotely, what is your take kind of coming up now with using stems, click tracks, other things like that on stage as tools for live performance? And and how do you balance that in a world where a lot of artists are just kind of going out there mining, essentially, and not performing very much? There are ways to combine this where you're really putting on an intense and incredible show that is also aligned with with some of these new technological tools. So what's your process for setting up a live show like that? Oh, I love this question. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this because I think in in the Nashville session player
[00:19:06] Ainsley Costello:
community, there's a little bit of a different approach and attitude towards this than you know, you talk to, just a just a music fan and a music lover who loves going and seeing the live experience. There are a lot of people who think, oh, if you use click or tracker in any capacity, then you're not performing live. I wholeheartedly disagree with that. With the tracks for me, I use them as an enhancement of what my songs are. For me, personally, what I do with my live shows is I would say we play about 85, 90% of the song live, and then there's about 10 or 15% where I look at it as, like, the sparkles or the sprinkles of the song. I'm not at a place yet where I have 2, 3, 4 guitar players or a keyboard player or multiple percussionists. And so until I get to that point, I love putting in these little, like, keyboard, synth sound, sparkles in the background that we can't really replicate when it's just the 4 of us playing on stage because I have in my band right now, I have me, my drummer Daniel, my guitar player Eli, and then my bass player who's my dad. And I also think it's gonna differ for every artist. There are some artists who can go up and they can perform with, like, fully just TV track. It's just them in the track, and it works great for them. And then there are some artists who are just like, no tracks, nothing, and they go up and it's a fantastic show. And so for me, it's really it's living in the gray. It's like it's not one or the other. It's kind of like the v for v world and still releasing in the traditional. It's like you you have to do both, and I think there's a really beautiful syndication that happens when you start to mix both and you figure out what works for you. What about, like, auto tune and some of the other tools that can be used in kind of a heavy handed way or not necessarily?
Yeah. For me, I haven't used auto tune or any tune thing live, but when I'm in the studio, I use a little bit of it, not because this is another thing I'm really glad that we can clear up too. When you go into the studio, so many people are like, if you use auto tune, you can't sing or you're a bad singer. No. It's like the gloss over the painting. All it does is just tweak and it just gives it this this shine and this finish that makes it sound like it's radio ready. You can hit all the notes perfectly right on, but then you put that auto tune on it and it's just this tiny little bit, like, oh, okay. Cool. Now we're ready for public consumption. But, also, I think auto tune can be used like an instrument. I think it's really cool when artists do that. I think it's a very cliche example, but Cher's believe she uses the auto tune as an instrument, and I think it really, really, really works in that song. And so if I ever write a song where it calls for that on stage, absolutely. Or Charli XCX, she's a great example of doing that on stage. She was just on tour with, Troye Sivan, I think, and when I was looking over the videos of that, she performs live with auto tune, but it's not this kinda, like, hidden, I'm using auto tune, but I don't want you to know that I'm using auto tune. It's this very blatant upfront I'm using auto tune as an instrument in a way to enhance what this song needs. And she's like a dance pop EDM artist, so, of course, auto tune and stuff like that is gonna work more for different styles than others in my opinion.
[00:22:26] Abel James:
What what about the process of, writing songs for you? What does that process looks like look like? And then, as a follow on question, how does AI play into that either now or in the future?
[00:22:38] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I mean so I've never really used AI yet to help me with my songwriting. When it's just me, whether I'm writing by myself or I'm writing with cowriters and coproducers, I'm a very hook oriented writer. I kinda have to know what the the hook of the chorus is or that thing that all makes it kind of click into place. I've always looked at the chorus or the hook of the song like The Lighthouse. Like, once I have that, then I know what room I have to play within the verses and the bridge and the pre choruses and stuff like that, and I it's really, really rare for me to just sit down and write a song from line 1 and go all the way down.
9 times out of 10, I have a fully done chorus before I write the verses. But with AI, I think it's I'm so intimidated by AI. But, you know, I again, I think this is it's gonna come in 5, 10 years whenever we get all of these federal government regulations around AI. I think, like, auto tune, it can be used it'll be able to be used as a tool or an instrument to just help. I mean, I would never, like, go on chat gpt and tell it to write me a song and put my name on it, But what this is a funny story. One time my mom and I, we fell down this rabbit hole of chat gpt, and I had a song called Cherry on top, and it's one of my favorite songs I've ever written. And it's a song that maybe if you might know if you're in the v for v world, but it was, like, right around the time that chat GPT came out, and my mom told chat GPT to write a song called Cherry on Top, and it came back with all of these 5 different versions of this song called Cherry on Top, and it was hysterical. It was so funny because they were all really bad.
But it was really funny to just see, like, in my opinion, maybe it'll change, but right now, I don't think AI really has the ability to capture the human emotion that goes into writing a song. Maybe that'll change in the future, but that was just when you asked me that, it it just randomly sparked that memory of like, oh, here's a technically, we we're going off the same hook. I wrote a song called Cherry on Top. Chat GPT wrote a song called Cherry on Top, and they were wildly and vastly different.
[00:24:51] Abel James:
So aside from it being bad in that experience, why would you hesitate to,
[00:24:57] Ainsley Costello:
you know, basically ask Chat gpt or a generative AI to write a song for you and then perform it? Why would you not do that? I wouldn't do that because I don't feel like it's me writing the song. And this is it's gonna be different for every artist because there are some artists who they don't write a song by themselves or they don't write a song at all in their career, and that works for them. Like, I think of artists like Celine Dion or Britney Spears who are incredible artists, but they weren't the main songwriters on their songs, but that doesn't make them any less of artists. But for me, personally, one of my biggest convictions and something that's always driven me as a songwriter is I feel like I know what I wanna say better than anyone else.
That's also a funny thing to have to navigate in the Nashville songwriting community because you write with a bunch of people who, like, just writing songs all day every day. They're not artists, but that's their job. They go in and they're like, okay, Ainsley. I've taken about a 5 second look at your Instagram page, and I listened to 20 seconds of one of your songs that I know this is the perfect song for you. And I'm like, do you know that? But and so going through that experience really made me understand that I'm a songwriter too. I'm not just an artist, and I know what I wanna say, and I know how I wanna articulate it. Sure. I want help sometimes, which is, like, the magic of cowriting. But going back to AI, I mean, I just don't feel like it would feel like me writing the song. I mean, I think it might be a different story if it's like, I'm so close on this line, but I don't know what it is. AI, can you finesse this line a couple of different times for me and maybe I can see if there's something I'd like? But I don't even know if I would do that personally yet, but who knows? Everything is subject to change. I could look back on this interview in 10 years and be like, Ainsley, you use AI all the time. What is this?
[00:26:46] Abel James:
Yeah. Well, I'm with you. I mean, I echo that completely. It feels disingenuous to basically sing the lines that are coming from a computer, and no judgment against, you know, people who who are doing that. It just there's something that feels a little bit off, and I think it's really because of the the sacredness of our word. When you write a word and then you sing it or you say it, it doesn't matter if it's spoken or sung. There is something that is just too real about that. Right? Like, there's something almost semi religious or it could be literally religious to a lot of people, in in the music world or or not. And so, yes. Also, I I I share that skepticism.
[00:27:28] Ainsley Costello:
And But I love that you use the word sacred because that's how songwriting has always felt. Even when you're writing a song from the get go, the for public consumption bucket, it is this kind of like you go into a room with 2, 3 people you have never met, and then you're basically, like, spilling all of your life's secrets or even, like, you it's funny. I just had this realization a couple of months ago. I'm 20 now, but I've been releasing songs and music for 5, 6 years. And I'm at this point now where I'm like, when I was 14, what gave me the gall to just, like, write an album and put it out? It's what I've looked back at it now. I'm like, this is scary. How was I just doing this like it was nothing? Because I'm writing songs more now than our I mean, they are a little deeper than the songs I was writing at 14, 15, 16, but I'm like, oh, I love this song, but I'm scared to put this out.
[00:28:22] Abel James:
Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of advantages when we're young and don't know any better. I had the same experience where I was 14, 15 years old, playing all of the instruments, recording it all at home, and releasing my songs to the Internet. And, like, looking back at that, it's like, could I do that now? Would I ever do that now? It's like, we have too many layers of judgment and adulting on us at this point to to feel that carefree. But I think we can we can get that back. And you're in a a great example of, how you can be an artist in today's world, which is more difficult than it used to be in in many ways. There are lots of opportunities. But the reality is that dedicating your life to the arts or or music comes with a lot of challenges in terms of being able to make a good living or feel like you're moving forward and kind of going after big gigs or or big projects and and chasing your dream. So how have you been able to retain that that passion as well as artistic freedom in the face of, music business that is fundamentally broken. We can talk about the ways that it's broken in a bit here. But what's that been like for you? Yeah. That's a really great question. I think
[00:29:33] Ainsley Costello:
one of the things when I was 15, 16, just moving to Nashville, and I was writing 4 or 5 times a week with people who I had never met before, and it was this very set formula of, okay. We're gonna sit down for 3 hours, and we're not gonna get up until we finish a song, it gave me this really foundational understanding of how to song write how to song write with other people. I think I'm a really firm believer that working with other people is going to make you a better creative. I feel like I'm a better solo writer now because I've written a jillion songs with a jillion different people. But now that I have pulled back a little bit from the very traditional Nashville cowriting session or setting, one of the things that has helped me is I don't force myself.
If I'm trying to sit down and write and it's not coming, I'm not gonna force it. Yeah. But there is there it's a weird dichotomy, because there there is that level of you have to have discipline to sit down and be able to write a song and finish it and do all the things, but now as I've gotten older and I've realized that songwriting is a very sacred thing to me when I'm so songwriting by myself, I don't I don't force it when it's not coming. I let myself be really inspired whenever like, I've just finished a massive book series and I'm really inspired by what I just read about or if I just watched a TV show and I, like, feel like that main character was me in both of those things that I've done. I'm I'm always very inspired by whatever forms of media that I'm consuming, but I've tried to this year, in particular, I've tried to go easier on myself in the sense of if it's not coming, you don't need to force it because I definitely when I got to Nashville 2, 3, 4 years ago, I was like, okay. I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna write a 100 songs in a year and then I'm gonna write a 150 next year and this and that. And there is an argument to, like again, that's a great goal to say. I I was able to fulfill that, and it's, like, still one of the things I'm really proud of that I would, like, wrote a 100 songs in a year one time. But at the same time, going easier on yourself and having this quality over quantity mentality has really been helpful for me, and just, like, I write in very short concentrated bursts, and so I might not write a song every week, every month, but when I do, I spend so much time on it. And when I'm songwriting by myself, I'm so slow. I, truly, I write songs over the course of, like, a week and a half, 2 weeks until I feel like it's really done, and this is all for, like, a 2 and a half minute song. Like, I'm probably being really annoying about it in songwriter y. But short concentrated bursts and the quality over quantity mentality is how I'm sort of trying to protect my peace in this very broken and capitalistic industry that I was on, a Twitter spaces the other day or an ex spaces that you were on actually, and I talked a little bit about this idea of I think the music industry takes a very capitalistic view of our art and our ability and willingness to share it with the world. There's this, in Nashville specifically, there's this big mentality of just keep writing, and the one song is gonna come one day. Whether you're just a songwriter and you're trying to get a Blake Shelton cut or if you're your own artist, just keep writing and then the one song is gonna go viral on TikTok, and I think that there's a lot of truth to that, but I also think that it's a very profitable view of trying to gain money and power and whatever off of the backs of the little guys who are lifting an entire industry up on their backs.
[00:33:17] Abel James:
Yeah. Wow. That's kind of brutal, but totally true. And having been in the creator economy or influencer world or podcasting, whatever it is, world of social media for a long time, I liked it better when we didn't have the word influencer. Because, essentially, what this has done is taken it from people who had a passion, whether it was around art or or some other interest, you know, who started up a blog or started up their own channels around something, generally do it because they want to to learn. They wanna give back. They want to experience this this passion and share it with other people. In the years since, though, especially as the money has come flooding into this this business model, it's one of those things where most most companies and brands and maybe even the general public seem to think that the only reason that influencers exist or creators exist is to sell products, is to sell skin care stuff, is to sell supplements, and to sell all sorts of things. And trust me, you know, you know, I take sponsors. It costs money to, create media and podcasts and and have, a platform and that sort of thing. And, also having a small team, tends to to take some resources, but creators don't exist for that purpose and only for that purpose. And if you get caught in that, which many artists and creators do, it's a recipe for burnout, and it's something that's not really serving anyone at at a certain point. So how do you maintain your artistic integrity throughout this whole process?
[00:34:45] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I think I've really tried to limit my social media intake. Mhmm. I think I'm part of the first generation that really grew up on the Internet. I remember having an Instagram account when I was 9 or 10 in elementary school. I mean, I wasn't doing anything nefarious on it, but I just remember, like, all of my friends had it, and I wanted to post pictures of, like, me and my cool skateboard that I got for Christmas. Like, it was this idea of I think social media started in a very pure place, but I think it's been blown way out of proportion, and the word influenced and organic and authentic truly today don't mean anything. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I've experienced living in Nashville is I've had meetings with record labels, and I've had meetings with managers and A and R people, and they're like, yeah. You're great, but we're not gonna sign you if you don't have upwards of a 100000 followers.
And I'm like, but what? How in what world does that make sense? Because in the fifties, sixties, seventies, when the music industry was still new, all it took was someone seeing an ounce or a seed of potential and then taking care of the rest. And I taking care of the rest is harsh because I think artists do need to have a a a say in every aspect or element of their career. But, also, artists today are forced to be everything. We can't just focus on this one pure thing, which is why we got into it in the first place, which is making art. I mean, I have so many friends who we've, like, commiserated over this this idea of, you know oh, wait. No. I lost my train of thought. Where did it go? This happens to me all the time.
Hello? Ainsley's brain. Where did it go? I lost it. I don't know where it went.
[00:36:34] Abel James:
Hey. That happens.
[00:36:36] Ainsley Costello:
It does. It happens all the time. I started going to therapy for the first time last year, and I would just be, like, word vomiting, and then I just stop. I'm like, I don't know where it went.
[00:36:45] Abel James:
Well, you were kind of talking about some of the things that you've seen around you in in the music space. Like, what have you seen in terms of people I'll just share quickly. You know, I've seen a few people sign their lives away, essentially, to a music publishing deal or, you know, a record company, whatever it was. And, at first, they thought it was great, but maybe they didn't read all the fine print. And what the fine print said is basically that they own you forever, almost 360 degrees in every universe that exists, in every universe that's yet to be discovered.
[00:37:15] Ainsley Costello:
Yep. That's a real term, people listening. It's like, we have the right to exercise, like, your name and image, within the known universe and without it. That's like an actual clause in record contracts. It's ridiculous. It's insanity. And so it's very those contracts and those deals are very hard to come by, very competitive. And so if you're not ready just to sign your life away, then, you know,
[00:37:36] Abel James:
there are thousands of people right behind you standing in line ready to do it. And so Yeah. Once that happens though, even if there is some amount of payoff and usually that's not very big, even if it is with a major company and it's kind of a major deal, All of a sudden, you don't get to write the songs you wanna write, play the songs you wanna play, or, you know, even include some of your favorite songs on your own album that's going to be coming out as part of this deal. So what have you seen in terms of, other people making decisions like that that maybe weren't for the best down the road or some really great decisions you've seen in terms of, artists around you as you come on?
[00:38:13] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. And I finally remembered what I was gonna say. Awesome. It was this idea of, you know, independent artists. It's a segue into this next question. Independent artists, at the end of the day, we have all of this responsibility to book our own shows and do our own social media posts and talk to record labels and booking agent people. And then at the end of the day, we're so exhausted that you can't write a song anymore because you're burnt out. And so rinse and repeat, and then that's how we've landed in this very, very broken industry. But, yeah, to go back to your last question, we're in an industry that this broken industry cannot break artists anymore, just period.
You know, I think there definitely is that a couple years ago when the whole, like, Taylor Swift's masters thing was was really, really prominent, and that was all you were seeing in music news, I remember thinking, like, I feel like it's a little how do I say this? Because I know that the Swifties are gonna come after me for this, but I'm gonna preface this by saying I am as just as big as Swiftie as everyone else. But, when that was really big in in the in the music industry news a couple years ago, I remember thinking that, you know, Taylor Swift is the biggest artist in the world, and I think, of course, we wanna own our masters, and we wanna own our rights, and we wanna have all of this artistic integrity. But I remember thinking it was almost a little hypocritical to be so, like, Taylor Swift isn't Taylor Swift without this idea of she had to give up a lot. You have to make sacrifices within what you're willing to give up on the business end of your career, what you're willing to give up in your personal career. She wouldn't have become Taylor Swift if she didn't, you know, sign that deal of, like, okay.
There's all this money behind me now and there's this and there's that. And, I mean, it's it's a double edged sword because I I truly understand both aspects of it. Like, indie artists cannot do this alone. It's just it's impossible. There's so many things to do. You need help, but at the same time, it's, like, where I think that case was a really good example of what are you willing to give up and what are you not willing to sacrifice. And, of course, I think it's brilliant what she's doing now with rerecording the masters, but it's also, like, you there there is some stuff that you are gonna have to sacrifice to become the biggest artist in the world, the biggest whatever in the world. And I know that's a little harsh of a criticism, but I don't know. That's just something that's been
[00:40:47] Abel James:
ruminating in my brain the last couple of years on that. I'm curious. What are you striving toward? Is it as big as Taylor Swift? If if that were an option, would you go in that direction, or do you envision something different for your career? What does it look like best case scenario?
[00:41:02] Ainsley Costello:
I think as I've gotten older, my biggest goal is just to support myself on music. I just wanna buy a house with my music, and I wanna not stress over buying a $20 book at Target because I'm a broke musician and every extra dollar that I have goes towards recording a song or missing a song or mastering a song and then the advertising. I mean, of course, I think every artist shoots for that. Like, I wanna do arenas. I wanna do stadiums or maybe not every artist, but I think a lot of artists, that is the kind of professionally aspiring dream.
But for me, I've and that was definitely me when I was younger. I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna break all these records by this age, and I'm gonna do this by that age. And now I'm just like I've I feel like I've tempered my expectations a little bit. I just I want to be a professional recording artist, and I wanna be able to tour, and I wanna be able to connect with fans and make the music that I wanna make. And whatever scale I get to do that on where I'm able to comfortably support myself is a win.
[00:42:05] Abel James:
So speaking of that, you've now had a decade in the music industry or at least being involved in in music. And, you've had commercial releases. You've worked with a traditional system in Spotify and all that. And now you've also been in the v for v or value verse podcasting music space for over a year. So let's start with the traditional model. What did that look like for you as a musician in terms of actually getting paid for your music over time or even reimbursed for production costs or, like, the cost of guitar strings, whatever it is. What did that look like in the traditional system, and and what are you looking at now that you've, joined and really led the charge in the Valueverse as well?
[00:42:43] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I mean, the big Sound and Light that I've been going around and telling people is in 5 years on the traditional DSPs, the digital streaming platform, Spotify, Apple Music, etcetera, I made $750. And in a year and a half on the v for v platforms like Wave Lake and Fountain, I've made over $13,000 off of my music.
[00:43:02] Abel James:
Over a 1000000 Satoshis, by the way. Over a 1000000 the first artist to ever do that. Right?
[00:43:07] Ainsley Costello:
I think so. To my recollection and understanding, cherry on top was the first song on wave lake and in the value verse to hit a 1000000 sats, which still completely baffles me. But I am so grateful for it because for the first time in my career, it doesn't feel like I'm shouting into the void for people to listen and appreciate my music. And I think at an artist's core, you shouldn't have to shout into the void and ask for your music to be appreciated because that's what art is. You put it out in the world and you hope that it connects with people, and now it's finally connecting with people because there aren't as many middlemen and gatekeepers, and it's easier to find my music over here as in with the traditional industry.
Even though I'm not on the same level as a Beyonce or an Ed Sheeran, I'm competing with those guys. But yeah. And, also, going back to the $1750 over 5 years, something that a lot of people don't know if you're not in the music industry is that's not an upfront check for $750. That is broken up over 4, 5, 6 months, where you get incremental checks, like, from anywhere from 20¢ to $20. Most of my checks were, like, less than a dollar that I would get from ASCAP, who is my performing rights organization. And then within that, you have to split all of that between your cocreators, and and the mechanical royalty rate on Spotify and Apple Music right now is 0.009¢ per stream. It's not even 1¢ per stream, and then that gets broken up even more between you and your cocreators.
And so it's not sustainable at all. It's a broken industry, and, of course, all of these fantastic artists in Nashville or LA or New York or even, like, Nowhereville, Ohio, they're no they're never gonna be heard because you're competing with the legacy bands. You're competing with the biggest stars today. And when you have an industry that's telling you, hey. We're not gonna work with you unless you're a TikTok influencer, unless we you we force you to be something that you're not, it's not gonna happen for you. And so then you come over to this space, and it's like, oh, I feel like I can actually do what I came here to do. I can write music, and it's going to be appreciated, and it's gonna be heard, and it's just like, it feels like a culture shock almost, but it's almost like it's the it's the bare minimum. Like, we have this incredible music revolution that's like it it feels so new and so wonderful. I'm like, oh my gosh. I can't believe these people are supporting me, but, like, that's what society is supposed to do for art and artists, and so it's it's wild. I'm so, so grateful to be here.
[00:45:50] Abel James:
Yeah. It's it's amazing to see what's happened with your career kind of looking at these various platforms, Wave Lake and Fountain. And, it was listening to your interviews and and seeing kind of what what you did with your career as well as a few other folks like Joe Martin and and other incredible talented musicians in the Valueverse space. But once I I found that and kind of it took me a minute to understand what exactly was going on and how all of this works. Maybe, actually, you could take a couple minutes to just explain how this is diff different. But, for me, as a long time podcaster and making audiobooks as well as music, I've been really interested in how distribution works and also how we can build more community and and and kind of add aspects of the human element to the online interaction to actually support human relationships, to support real music and real art being made. You know, uploading songs to Spotify or or publishing it on Apple is for many artists, kinda and and my experience as well, it's kind of a bummer because you upload it there. You spend all of this time, money, effort, and, you know, a lot of sweat equity and and emotional equity into putting these songs out there sometimes. And then you put it on Spotify and there's basically no hope for anyone who's not Beyonce or Taylor Swift or John Mayer or whoever it is to get any sort of attention or traction there. So the only people who are gonna be listening to it are literally the people who are already following you somewhere else that you're sending to this platform that ultimately is not going to help your music get out there. It's not gonna help other people share it. So contrasting that to the world of the value verse and the podcasting 2.0 technology and these protocols and and all the rest of it and Bitcoin, Nostra, and all these other buzzwords. Once you start getting those more open source technologies involved and you have the opportunity to listen to an Ainsley Costello song, and then you send a few cents her way with a little comment saying, this song is totally bomb. I'm gonna tell all my friends. You can actually tell your friends they can download it too, and you have some level of ownership as a listener over this music. Right? Because you can download it. You can listen to it. And you don't have to keep paying some platform forever to keep your access to that Ainsley Costello song that you love so much. And so I think that this really represents a lot of opportunity for artists and for listeners to interact more, and just bring a little bit more interest and and interactivity to something that's become soulless and disconnected and algorithm driven. Like, I'm so encouraged by the fact that you can upload songs to the Valueverse. Other DJs and podcasters can find that and then help other people discover new new music. Like, this is just not been happening on the Internet for decades now. Yeah. And it's so magical that it's happening now. So maybe you can just quickly explain what is the value verse in v for v, and and how did, you find your way there, and and what does it look like now?
[00:48:56] Ainsley Costello:
Absolutely. Well, the value verse, which is just kind of this term that I don't I don't know who coined it, but it's like one of these things that just makes sense to me. So the value verse is, created of these new streaming platforms, lightning enabled, bitcoin enabled, streaming platforms called Wave Lake and Fountain, and then it also has all of these Nostr social tool apps, like, nos dot social, primal, DAMIS. There's a bunch more that I'm missing, but it's a place where the main ethos is value for value, and that truly at its core is this idea of I make something that you deem valuable and you give me value in return. It doesn't have to be a $100. It doesn't have to be a $1,000. It can be, like, I'm gonna zap you 10¢ because this song just made my day and I'll continue to zap you 10¢ every time that I hear this song. I think the heavy lift with getting fans over to the value verse is this idea that not just the artists, but the fans have gotten used to getting art for free. And it's this it has to be this mindset shift of, well, artists are giving you something and how valuable do you deem this? It's this it goes back to this idea of being a busker. Like, there is this I mean, one of the examples that I use is when I was 13, 14 living in Seattle, I would busk at Pike's Place Market all the time, which is the, like, Pike's is just so cool. It's like where they throw the fish and there's all these, like, really cool independent little vendors, but I would go and I would busk there when I was 13, 14 and people would throw stuff in in my guitar case as the little tip jar. And it's that idea of, oh, here's this young kid who's out here brave enough braving the Seattle weather and potentially people harassing you on the street to sing her songs that she's written for you in her bedroom, and I've deemed that really valuable, so I'm gonna put $5 in her guitar case. It's the same ethos and the same mentality.
And so coming over here, it's really this this big mindset shift, but it's it shouldn't have been a mindset shift in the first place because we should have always been operating in an industry where that was the standard, but, you know, better late than never for sure. And, also, for any artists listening, because one of the big questions that my friends always ask me when I tell them about this and that they should get into it, they're like, well, how does how does it work? How do you get paid? Is it like, what's the per stream royalty? And there isn't a per stream royalty rate. It's whatever you deem valuable for a song. And one of the other great things about the value verse is if somebody doesn't like your song, they have to pay you to tell you that.
[00:51:40] Abel James:
And one of the differentiating factors too that could help this in the future and help music in general, as well as just online content, and a lot of this is the reason that Nostra is is getting some attention. But, basically, in a sea of mediocrity where there's just too much content being, like, pumped out by by AI and all these bot accounts and that sort of thing, once you introduce micropayments and these these ideas that you could zap or boost a a very small amount of money to a real artist or or to someone who made real content. That makes it such that we don't need to really rely on algorithm algorithms like we do in the other platforms to tell us this is important content or this is a good song.
In fact, when you have micro, payments, real people can drive that process by listening to something, liking it, giving it a little bit of juice because the bots, even though it's a micropayment, at scale wouldn't be able to do that. At least it wouldn't be terribly effective. So I think it's it's one way as well that we could see more of a meritocracy in the world of content than we do right now, which is basically just like a giant algorithm based race to the bottom. And, like, it's become very unfun for the creators as well as the people who are on the other end of that. Very just driven by exploitation.
And so one of the things that I noticed when I met, you, your folks, you know, Mike from Toonster and and all the people building Wave Lake, Fountain, Pod Home. Just like different types of humans, the artists as well in the space. So what was what was your experience for, like, comparing the people who exist in the traditional music industry to those who you've met in the Valueverse space?
[00:53:28] Ainsley Costello:
So this is a callback to, like, what I said something I said a little bit earlier. The traditional music industry has made me absolutely despise, gutturally despise the words authentic and organic. Yeah. But that's what it feels like over here. It feels like I put my music on Wave Lake in July of 2023, and it organically came about that Adam Curry put it on his podcast. And then a bunch of other podcasters picked it up, and that's how people know me. And that's how it should be. That's how it was in the eighties nineties when radio was the main form of discovery because that goes back to this idea of there is no discovery today on Spotify and Apple Music. You can't Or the radio even. It's the same songs.
It's all gatekept, and even the big Spotify and Apple Music editorial playlists, most of those artists' teams or their labels are paying for it. It's truly, it's pay to play. And so over here, I didn't pay Adam Curry to put cherry on top on his show. It pretty much, it worked out that I got paid from that because more people discovered my music, and they thought that it was valuable, and they appreciated it. And so got paid too, critically. Right? Like, that's the amazing part. It it was both people this. Yes. Appreciate it. Yeah. Completely. And it's just it's so cool, and it's like it feels so refreshing, and it feels like every every day that I'm in this space, my shoulders unclench a little bit from, you know, 5 years of being like, oh, you know, in the traditional music industry, I'm the problem. The reason why this hasn't been working for me is I'm not writing the good enough song. I'm not putting on a good enough show when it's not the artist's fault. It's a broken system that is inherently broken.
And so over here, it's just it's just night and day difference.
[00:55:16] Abel James:
What about Noster in general? A lot of people are not familiar with how that works. What are you excited about? And
[00:55:23] Ainsley Costello:
I love noster. For those who don't know what it is, it's this social media protocol rails, that power a bunch of new social media apps. So, think of it as, like, if you have to go to, Instagram if you wanna post something, you have to post it separately on Instagram, and then you have to copy and paste it. You have to put it on Facebook, copy and paste it, put it on TikTok, rinse and repeat. But over here, if you post something on primal, that same post with all those same hashtags, all the same people who follow you, that's gonna show up on damas, and then it's gonna show up on nos.social. And that takes so much time and energy off of an indie artist's plate who, like, we've been told that we have to post 3 to 5 times a day on TikTok. And so then if we go over here and we can just post it once and it shows up everywhere, oh my gosh. That's so cool. But it also it's lightning enabled, it's Bitcoin enabled, and it goes back to this idea of people value with the content you you put out too, not just, like, your actual content, which is your music or your music videos or your shows. It's like, if I post a picture of me on Catalina Island a couple of weeks ago, someone will zap it and be like, oh, thank you for sharing your life with me. I find value in this because you're a real person, and I can tell you're not a robot.
So, yeah, I mean, I just I love Nostra. It takes away this perpetual feeling of yuckiness that I have on Instagram and x and whatever because I I said this on, the lovely Ben Wehrman's podcast a couple of weeks ago, but every time I open Instagram, I feel like I have to take a shower. It's just like, ugh. So it doesn't feel like that on all of the Noster hubs.
[00:57:04] Abel James:
Yeah. It's, so I remember early Internet, like, late nineties, early 2,000 fives, And the Internet was so fun in a completely different way than it is now. Like, now it feels just we're all shackled with this constant accessibility or at least the expectation of it and these constant connections. And it's just so once again, kind of, like, driven by exploitation and kind of trying to take advantage of the person who is just trying to kick back and surf the net or, God forbid, look something up and have it come back with the truth. Like, this has become very ugly and Yeah. Un like, just not fun to be on a lot of the social media. So, finding Noster and the whole value verse space a few months ago, I've really been encouraged by how collaborative the space is in an insanely competitive Internet and, specifically music as well. The music industry can be very cutthroat with lots of weird behind the scenes deals and backstabbing and taking advantage of each other.
Whereas, you know, people are generally rewarded for collaborating and working together. At least that's the ethos of the open source, value verse, v for v space. And I think that that's something that we can really, it it's our responsibility to build this up in parallel to the other systems. But once we do, I can't imagine most people choosing TikTok and Instagram and all those icky feelings that you get from that over this other experience. It's just we need to build it a little bit more and welcome more people to the party, I would think. Yeah. Absolutely. Before we go, Ainsley, what is the best place for people to find your work as well as, in a couple of weeks? We have a big show coming up in the summit, so I'll let you just talk about that for a minute.
[00:58:48] Ainsley Costello:
Well, in the Bitcoin Nostril world, you can find me on Wave, Lake, and Fountain, and then on you can find my music on any of the, modern podcasting apps like True Fans, Podcast Guru, and a couple of other ones. And then I'm also just Ainsley Costello on Noster. It's easy. Like, I'm just the Ainsley Costello on 1. It's not like you have to go and find 12 different versions of Ainsley Costello's name on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter. But yeah. So we have a really fun show coming up in Austin today, Tuesday. It's 2 weeks from yesterday, the day we're recording this. We're playing a show with the legendary Antones in Austin on December 16th. Mister Abel James is gonna be playing. I'm so excited because, Abel, I love your music so much. And one of the things that sparked me wanting to be a musician was, like, just being a fangirl of other people, and I'm so excited to hear you live. I, I took over Fountain the other day because they just introduced this really cool, feature called Fountain Radio, and I played my favorite Abel James song, Love You till I'm Dead. I think that song is so sweet.
But yeah. So it's this 2 day extravaganza on Sunday, December 15th. We're doing this independent creator summit for independent musicians, podcasters, content creators on how you can get paid in a different way than the traditional kind of fiat world and how you can find a new audience, and there's so many incredible speakers who are gonna get up and talk. DJ Valerie b Love, Mike from Toonster. I don't know if, the Wave, Lake, and Fountain guys are gonna be there, but we have a lot of really cool people who are gonna show up. And then the night of the Anton show, there are a couple of fun surprises and special guests who haven't been announced yet either. It's just gonna be a wonderful, wonderful night, and I'm so excited about it. I'm stoked. Awesome. Just quickly, I wonder, Ainsley, if you could just give folks out there
[01:00:44] Abel James:
a few words in favor of, chasing your dreams, just getting after it and going after something that's unlikely and and really doubling down on your passion. What would you say to people who are a little too timid to do that quite yet but are considering it?
[01:00:58] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I my mentality is I would rather have tried it and it failed. Quotation failed. Oh, I just threw my headphones everywhere and have been, quote, not successful than have just spent my life sitting in a cubicle wondering if it didn't work. I think I'm a big theater kid, and one of the things that comes to mind about this is, we're seeing Wicked a lot right now because the movie adaptation has just come out. But my favorite Elphaba or who my favorite actress who has ever played Elphaba on Broadway, her name is Jessica Vosk, and there's the story of she was working on Wall Street and she had just this incredible voice and nobody ever knew it, and I don't know exactly how she got into Wicked, but she got into Wicked, and people are like, how was she sitting on Wall Street with this incredible gift of acting and storytelling and singing, and we didn't know. And so I am just of the mentality of if it doesn't work, you can't say you didn't try. And I actually wrote a song about that called Can't Say I'm Not Trying That'll Be on my new album x less. Amazing. We'll look forward to that. Ainsley, thanks so much for spending time with us, and I'm stoked to spend time on stage with you. I am too. Thank you so much, Abel. And, also, just, like, one really funny thing real quick. So you were in Nashville at the Bitcoin conference this year.
You were there at the base of Bitcoin event when my friend Jess Loud, who's also gonna be playing on December 16th with us, he freestyled this song called interstellar birds, and I swear it is one of my biggest brain rots. I always hear it going because JL had said to the crowd this is just a funny story for anyone listening if you don't know this. JL had said, anyone, just give me a topic, and I'll just freestyle a song about it. And Abel, you go, give me a song about interstellar birds. And so JL just goes, interstellar birds, like Abel said. And it's just it's my favorite song. I listen to it in my head every day.
[01:02:54] Abel James:
That one gets stuck in my head too. It's it's kind of insane. Who knows what he's gonna come up with next? But I have a feeling Who knows? It's gonna be a lot of fun in Austin. Yeah. Absolutely. Abel, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode with Ainsley. We're gonna finish this show strong by playing one of Ainsley's original tracks called Cherry on Top. We hope you enjoy, and don't forget to boost in or send a boostagram with your message. We always love hearing from you. So without further ado, let's listen to Ainsley.
[01:03:43] Unknown:
I'm not as dense as you think I live. I know that you didn't know that I knew about your little plan. But you had to go and tell everyone I might sense that you that you aren't used to having it all given back to you. And there was I might be tempted to see if he's ratting and cry like a little boy. You might deserve it, but
Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us in this special episode of the show. Technology is disrupting the music industry once again. And in this special 4 part bonus series, you'll hear rapid fire interviews with remarkable musicians who are using cutting edge podcasting tech to reinvent the music industry. This is all leading up to the first ever Satsby Southwest Independent Music Summit and our show at Antones hosted by Adam Curry. Adam Curry, a music legend from his MTV days as VJ and host of Headbanger's Ball, has been dubbed the Podfather for being the inventor of modern podcasting, and he has recently turned his musical focus to decentralized technologies that empower artists in a way that Big Tech has not. The 2 day event highlights how this grassroots movement of free open source technology can change the game in music, podcasting, and beyond. I'm speaking on the creator panel for the summit at the Bitcoin Commons on 15th, and then I'm stoked to be opening the show by premiering a new song at Austin's home of the blues, Antone's, on 16th. Leading up to the show on December 16th, you'll get a special burst of bonus episodes with fellow artists playing at the show with at least 4 new episodes dropping this week, so stay tuned. You'll hear interviews with the incredible Suzanne Santo, who has performed with some of the biggest acts in the world, including Hozier. Ainsley Costello, one of the top artists in value for value music. Johnny Elrod, fellow Austinite and drummer for FM Rodeo. As well as Stacy McCann, longtime bandmate, bassist, and frontwoman of SOB and the danks.
These episodes are free of ads with no sponsors. So if you like what you're hearing, you can support this show by sharing it with a friend or sending a boost to this show on a modern podcasting app like Fountain. Don't know what a boost or a boostagram or a zap is yet? No worries. If you wanna help create a better future for music and podcasting, here's your challenge, and it's pretty quick. Just download an app called Fountain FM. It's a podcast player. And then put a couple of bucks into your lightning wallet. Sounds kind of complicated, but it's actually quite easy. And then learn how to send a boost or a small micropayment to a musician whose music you like or a podcast that you dig. If you find this show valuable, I'd be honored if you send us a boost. And now with podcasting 2.0 tech, your boosts are also shared with the featured artist or guest on the show. So when I'm playing their music or interviewing them, we can actually split the micropayments. And this sounds like a small thing, but in the world of podcasting, music, and beyond, it could totally change how things work. Because as a musician on Spotify, Apple Music, and the traditional platforms, we'll talk about some of the ways that it's broken. But this technology holds a lot of promise, so we're really excited about it. So, anyway, join us via livestream or in person for the Sats by Southwest Independent Music Summit at the Bitcoin Commons on December 15th, as well as the concert at Anton's for Adam Curry's BoosterGram Ball on December 16th. You can visit abeljames.com, abeljames.com for more information. Sign up for my newsletter as well, and I'll send you direct links to the live streams and all of the fun things to come for these live shows and events down the road. Alright. So for this first episode of the bonus series, we're kicking this off with one of the top artists in the whole value verse, Ainsley Costello.
You'll hear what really happens when artists sign their lives away to record companies, the future of music in the age of generative AI, how artists and DJs are using podcasting technology to reimagine the music industry, a few inspiring words that might just convince you to chase your dreams, and much, much more. And make sure to listen to the end of this interview to hear one of Ainsley's tunes, Cherry on Top, which was the first song to ever hit 1,000,000 satoshis on Wave Lake. Let's hang out with Ainsley. Alright, folks. We're here today with our friend, the one and only Ainsley Costello, a rare combination of raw talent and relentless ambition.
Ainsley began taking classes at Berklee College of Music Online at just 15 years old. After graduating from high school at 16 during COVID, she continued with Berklee College of Music Online. And in 2023, she graduated from Berklee magna cum laude with a degree in music business at the age of 19. Now at just 20 years old, Ainsley has a resume of those twice her age with over 20 commercial single releases and a 150 shows in a couple dozen states, no big deal, under her belt. And I get the feeling that she's just getting warmed up. So, Ainsley, I am so stoked to have you here. Thank you so much for having me on the show, and I must say you have a very good radio announcer voice. I was very impressed. Oh, thank you very much. It's from all those singing lessons over the years. This is wonderful because I haven't seen a whole lot of interviews with you. You did a fantastic one with Heather Larson, one of our mutual friends who we're gonna be singing in Austin as well. But, so a lot of people who are listening right now probably haven't heard your music or heard of what you do. So why don't you just give a little bit of your origin story and why you've dedicated your life to this magical world of music?
[00:05:24] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, my name is Ainsley Costello. I'm a 20 year old singer songwriter based here in Nashville, and I truly have been doing music forever. My dad is a musician. My dad went to LA in the nineties to do basically the same thing that I'm doing here in Nashville. But then, you know, I was born. My dad got a day job. My parents settled down, but my dad never stopped playing in cover bands and playing in jazz bands and whatever. And so I just have a lot of formative memories growing up of going to see my dad in in cover bands when I was, like, 3, and my friends and I would be, like, running around the restaurant just jamming out to, like, all the yacht rock that he and his band were playing. But, yeah, I mean, it was something that I always knew was, like, very inherently in me. Like, from the time that I was 4 or 5 years old, I knew I wanted to be a singer, and then I turned 12 and I started writing songs. For some reason, I don't know why, but I feel like 12 is the magic number. So many people who I love and look up to, they were all like, I started writing songs when I was 12, and I was like, well, I'm part of the club now. Cool. But, yeah, I started writing songs right around then when we moved to, Seattle when I was I I was 11 when we moved to Seattle, and that's really where music started for me. You know, when I started writing songs, that was when I started doing my first, like, Ainsley Costello live experience shows when I was, like, 13, 14 all around the Pacific Northwest. And then one thing led to another, and I was missing a lot of school. I even got sent a truancy letter wrong time, a wrongful truancy letter, might I add, because I was missing so much school for traveling and going and playing shows. And then when I was 14, 15, I started kind of, like, placing the bug in my parents' ear of, like, hey. Can we move to Nashville? Because I think this is a very natural next step for me. And then we moved to Nashville, and about a month later, COVID hit, and also that same month slash same week, I put out my first album when I was 15. It was a very, like, pop country, like, wrote it in my bedroom in Seattle. We produced it in our home studio in Seattle, and then we moved here, and I get to Nashville where it's really it's music city. Don't get me wrong, but it's very, very country oriented. And I looked around, and I was like, this doesn't make me different.
So, I did a little bit of a deep dive, and I found out that Paramore was from Nashville and Kings of Leon were from Nashville. And this light bulb went off in my head of like, oh, I don't just have to do country. There's a lot of really successful people who came out of Nashville that aren't just country. And so then, you know, one thing led to another. I started writing with the amazing Nashville songwriting community. And then in 2021, I put out a new single every month that year, which was crazy and wild. And 3 years later, I'm looking back at that being like, why did you do that? That was I mean, I'm very glad that I did, but it was a lot of work. And then each year, I've just kept releasing music, and it's finally led up to this point of I, I just finished my new full album. It's not out yet, but it's called x less, and it's really I feel like the culmination of all of the work that I've done in the past, like, honestly, 10 years of my life. It's really this culmination of I know what my messages are and the main things that are important to me now, and I know what sound I wanna be, and I know who my reference artists are, and it all kind of fell together in this one little, like, pot at the end of the rainbow.
[00:08:41] Abel James:
Beautiful. But it can be a bit of a a culture shock as well. I can relate to that too coming from New Hampshire and my first job in Washington DC, then moving to Austin, Texas. Especially Yeah. Music scene, there are a lot of different expectations, different sounds, but what an incredible both both of those towns, incredible places to to get better and cross pollinate ideas and musical genres and styles with other musicians. So really powerful to let that literally drive where you live. Was it a hard time convincing your folks or since they're musicians as as or involved in music as well? Was it not too bad?
[00:09:17] Ainsley Costello:
It wasn't too bad. Weirdly enough, I thought my mom was gonna be more of the holdout on that one, but as soon as I started talking to my mom about it, my mom had always kind of phrased it in this idea of, you know what? We've been in Seattle for 5 years. I think as a family, we're ready for something new. Why don't we do this? And my dad was actually the last holdout because as much as I was playing music in Seattle, my dad was in 7 or 8 bands at one time. We counted. And so my dad was so even more ingrained in the Seattle music community than I was, and he loved it so much. We all loved it there. We all really miss it. I get very homesick for it sometimes. But, you know, my mom and I had finally, like, really started pushing him, and he was like, alright. Let's do it.
He wasn't upset about it at all, but he was definitely like, oh, I love it here, but I do think it's time for something new. And after, you know, a few years now in in Nashville, what's your experience now as a family? We, as a family and me, have a very complicated relationship with Nashville because I really appreciate Nashville for what it is and what it's done for me as, like, professionally and how I've grown as a songwriter and a musician, but we got here 2 weeks before the pandemic hit. And so the 1st year and a half, my experience of Nashville was really skewed. It wasn't kind of that idealistic, like, vision of Nashville you have as a 15 year old. Like, I'm gonna move to Nashville, and then I'm gonna write with all these people. And then in a year, I'm gonna get a publishing deal with this person, and then that'll lead to a label deal. And then it was you I had to come to terms and reckon with that idea of, okay.
So this isn't gonna happen how you wanted it to, and it's not like you can't just follow the steps of Taylor Swift's career or Hayley Williams' career or whoever. And it's because those were their careers, and your career is gonna be your career. And it's all it's gonna happen differently for everyone. And so, you know, we've been here for 5 years now, which is almost it's so crazy to think about. And now I'm kind of at this point where I feel like we were at at the end of living in Seattle. Like, I I love it. I'm so grateful for it, but I do feel like it's time for something new. I just don't know what that something new is yet. Probably Austin, Texas. You'll see when you come here and try some of the brisket. It's I'm so excited. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah. I'm really stoked.
[00:11:31] Abel James:
So you mentioned kinda finding yourself through music, but I can't imagine what it was like kind of coming up, and and being in school throughout the pandemic. What was that like for you as both a student as well as an artist?
[00:11:47] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I actually had less of a harder time with it than a lot of my friends my age did as a student. Mhmm. Because when I was after my freshman year of high school, that was when we made the decision as a family. Ansley, you're gonna go online because you're missing so much school, and it's just it's not really sustainable. I mean, of I wasn't gonna, like, drop out of high school. Like, I still have my high school degree. But after my freshman year of high school, I was like, I think I need to go online, and that was think about it. I think my freshman year was 2018 I think my 2018 to 19, and then for the entire my sophomore year was all online, and that was the full year before COVID. So I already become acclimated to being online, and I knew what that whole thing was about. And so when the rest of the world went online, I was like, welcome to the club, guys.
[00:12:36] Abel James:
That's amazing. Okay. So let's talk about also, you mentioned your music is one of the places where you can kinda find yourself. And, ultimately, at least some artists realize that they can write music that actually means something or says something. Many artists do not. And the commercial interest sometimes get in the way of music that has a message. But I know it's an important part of what you do. So, maybe you could just share that with a lot of people who just aren't musicians or aren't really involved in that world tend to listen quite passively and might not be aware of how powerful music can be as a tool to actually affect cultural change. So maybe you can just rant about that a little bit. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, from a very young age, I knew that I
[00:13:19] Ainsley Costello:
really looked up and listened to songwriters. It was just before I even knew how to do it, I loved the the structure of telling a story in a song of twisting a a common phrase or putting down a a line or a lyric that has a double meaning or a triple meaning or a quadruple meaning, however much you look at it. And so, I mean, there definitely are songs out there that, you know, don't have as much of a deeper meaning than others, but, also, I'm a really firm believer that a song doesn't have to be hallelujah to be great. Sure. I think every song is gonna mean something to someone, and I think even in my discography, there are songs that are, like, really fun and dance y and happy, and then there are songs where I get a little bit more lyrically intense. But message wise, I knew from a really young age that I was really fed up with, as a young girl growing up in the 20 tens, late 2000, that so much of the messaging that I was getting on the radio when radio was still more of a thing than it is now was that you have to be in love to be happy or that you have to be in a relationship to be a whole and happy and fulfilled human being. And so when I started writing songs, I was like, there has to be a way for me to write this idea of you don't have to be any of those things to be a full and happy and fulfilled lovely human being, but still meshing it with these fun pop sounds that make you wanna dance and they make you wanna get up, but they still have a meaning to it. And so it it took a couple of years of really perfecting the songwriting of that, kind of knowing what I wanted to say, and then finding the sound that really made them meld together in a really, what's the word, like, synergetic way. I'm I'm really passionate about telling the next generation of young girls or if there are already any young girls who are listening to me. I know I don't have a huge platform, but the people who do listen to me already, I take it really seriously. I'm so grateful for it, and I just I wanted to be different than this, like, oh, my boyfriend broke up with me, and I'm sad, and I'm gonna be alone forever. And, like, at the same time, that's not a bad message to write at all. I think the world does need those songs.
But for where I'm at right now in my life, I don't wanna write something that feels disingenuous to where I'm at now. I'm sure I'm gonna write that message of, like, I got broken up with and it's awful in a couple years when that does really hit me, but I wanted to really honor this space of where I'm at in my life right now of, like, hey. I've never been in a relationship before, and I think that's fine. And I don't think you, grandma, Thanksgiving need to shade me for that.
[00:15:56] Abel James:
That's so cool. And I'm sure you can relate to this too, but I've always found that writing songs, during different stages of my life kinda represents this ability to to almost travel through time. And when I play or listen to the song later in life or or a few months, a few years later, it can kinda transport you back to that little
[00:16:17] Ainsley Costello:
memory capsule or something like that. Total I totally look at it as a time capsule too.
[00:16:22] Abel James:
Yeah. And so that brings a lot of value to what you're saying where you don't just wanna write what everyone else is writing or write a song that's going to get popular, but actually create something that represents your emotional state and and kind of, like, your life stage in a way that only works when you write that song. Right? Because, like, if you tried to write that song, a few weeks later or a few years later, it would come out completely differently. So for me, you know, I'm I'm double your age at this point and, have had a whole bunch of different life stages and songs written within them. And I can say, like, looking back at some of them, it's hilarious because I'm just, like, man, I kinda dig that one, but I would never write that now. I mean, like, I wouldn't even play that now. Or sometimes, like, there are songs that are just for you. There's some songs that are, like, meant to perform. There are other ones that are kinda just for you. My gosh. You you said so much in that
[00:17:14] Ainsley Costello:
little chunk that I totally agree with. I think there are definitely some songs where I've written where I kinda see, like, there are these 2 buckets when you're writing. One of them, from the get go, you're writing a song for public consumption, for the radio, for a mass audience, and then there's this other bucket where you write them purely from a therapeutic standpoint, this idea of I might never share this with the world, but I need to write this song for me. And as I've gotten older, I've realized that, oh, wow. I mean, I I love working in both of them, and it's become when I was 15, 16, just getting to Nashville, I was really in this, like, okay. How do I write a radio ready 3 minute song? How do I, like, get this Nashville formula down to a science? And now that I really feel confident in that, then it almost makes it easier to come over to this really therapeutic place and write from a purely selfish standpoint, but then you can work it up with a band and it might be really, really deep and personal, But it also has that influence of the radio ready. You've learned the structure. You know what the Nashville system is. And I think that is really cool. So I really relate to what you just said with that. What about, in terms of live performance,
[00:18:26] Abel James:
in in going to Berkeley and doing some of that remotely, what is your take kind of coming up now with using stems, click tracks, other things like that on stage as tools for live performance? And and how do you balance that in a world where a lot of artists are just kind of going out there mining, essentially, and not performing very much? There are ways to combine this where you're really putting on an intense and incredible show that is also aligned with with some of these new technological tools. So what's your process for setting up a live show like that? Oh, I love this question. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this because I think in in the Nashville session player
[00:19:06] Ainsley Costello:
community, there's a little bit of a different approach and attitude towards this than you know, you talk to, just a just a music fan and a music lover who loves going and seeing the live experience. There are a lot of people who think, oh, if you use click or tracker in any capacity, then you're not performing live. I wholeheartedly disagree with that. With the tracks for me, I use them as an enhancement of what my songs are. For me, personally, what I do with my live shows is I would say we play about 85, 90% of the song live, and then there's about 10 or 15% where I look at it as, like, the sparkles or the sprinkles of the song. I'm not at a place yet where I have 2, 3, 4 guitar players or a keyboard player or multiple percussionists. And so until I get to that point, I love putting in these little, like, keyboard, synth sound, sparkles in the background that we can't really replicate when it's just the 4 of us playing on stage because I have in my band right now, I have me, my drummer Daniel, my guitar player Eli, and then my bass player who's my dad. And I also think it's gonna differ for every artist. There are some artists who can go up and they can perform with, like, fully just TV track. It's just them in the track, and it works great for them. And then there are some artists who are just like, no tracks, nothing, and they go up and it's a fantastic show. And so for me, it's really it's living in the gray. It's like it's not one or the other. It's kind of like the v for v world and still releasing in the traditional. It's like you you have to do both, and I think there's a really beautiful syndication that happens when you start to mix both and you figure out what works for you. What about, like, auto tune and some of the other tools that can be used in kind of a heavy handed way or not necessarily?
Yeah. For me, I haven't used auto tune or any tune thing live, but when I'm in the studio, I use a little bit of it, not because this is another thing I'm really glad that we can clear up too. When you go into the studio, so many people are like, if you use auto tune, you can't sing or you're a bad singer. No. It's like the gloss over the painting. All it does is just tweak and it just gives it this this shine and this finish that makes it sound like it's radio ready. You can hit all the notes perfectly right on, but then you put that auto tune on it and it's just this tiny little bit, like, oh, okay. Cool. Now we're ready for public consumption. But, also, I think auto tune can be used like an instrument. I think it's really cool when artists do that. I think it's a very cliche example, but Cher's believe she uses the auto tune as an instrument, and I think it really, really, really works in that song. And so if I ever write a song where it calls for that on stage, absolutely. Or Charli XCX, she's a great example of doing that on stage. She was just on tour with, Troye Sivan, I think, and when I was looking over the videos of that, she performs live with auto tune, but it's not this kinda, like, hidden, I'm using auto tune, but I don't want you to know that I'm using auto tune. It's this very blatant upfront I'm using auto tune as an instrument in a way to enhance what this song needs. And she's like a dance pop EDM artist, so, of course, auto tune and stuff like that is gonna work more for different styles than others in my opinion.
[00:22:26] Abel James:
What what about the process of, writing songs for you? What does that process looks like look like? And then, as a follow on question, how does AI play into that either now or in the future?
[00:22:38] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I mean so I've never really used AI yet to help me with my songwriting. When it's just me, whether I'm writing by myself or I'm writing with cowriters and coproducers, I'm a very hook oriented writer. I kinda have to know what the the hook of the chorus is or that thing that all makes it kind of click into place. I've always looked at the chorus or the hook of the song like The Lighthouse. Like, once I have that, then I know what room I have to play within the verses and the bridge and the pre choruses and stuff like that, and I it's really, really rare for me to just sit down and write a song from line 1 and go all the way down.
9 times out of 10, I have a fully done chorus before I write the verses. But with AI, I think it's I'm so intimidated by AI. But, you know, I again, I think this is it's gonna come in 5, 10 years whenever we get all of these federal government regulations around AI. I think, like, auto tune, it can be used it'll be able to be used as a tool or an instrument to just help. I mean, I would never, like, go on chat gpt and tell it to write me a song and put my name on it, But what this is a funny story. One time my mom and I, we fell down this rabbit hole of chat gpt, and I had a song called Cherry on top, and it's one of my favorite songs I've ever written. And it's a song that maybe if you might know if you're in the v for v world, but it was, like, right around the time that chat GPT came out, and my mom told chat GPT to write a song called Cherry on Top, and it came back with all of these 5 different versions of this song called Cherry on Top, and it was hysterical. It was so funny because they were all really bad.
But it was really funny to just see, like, in my opinion, maybe it'll change, but right now, I don't think AI really has the ability to capture the human emotion that goes into writing a song. Maybe that'll change in the future, but that was just when you asked me that, it it just randomly sparked that memory of like, oh, here's a technically, we we're going off the same hook. I wrote a song called Cherry on Top. Chat GPT wrote a song called Cherry on Top, and they were wildly and vastly different.
[00:24:51] Abel James:
So aside from it being bad in that experience, why would you hesitate to,
[00:24:57] Ainsley Costello:
you know, basically ask Chat gpt or a generative AI to write a song for you and then perform it? Why would you not do that? I wouldn't do that because I don't feel like it's me writing the song. And this is it's gonna be different for every artist because there are some artists who they don't write a song by themselves or they don't write a song at all in their career, and that works for them. Like, I think of artists like Celine Dion or Britney Spears who are incredible artists, but they weren't the main songwriters on their songs, but that doesn't make them any less of artists. But for me, personally, one of my biggest convictions and something that's always driven me as a songwriter is I feel like I know what I wanna say better than anyone else.
That's also a funny thing to have to navigate in the Nashville songwriting community because you write with a bunch of people who, like, just writing songs all day every day. They're not artists, but that's their job. They go in and they're like, okay, Ainsley. I've taken about a 5 second look at your Instagram page, and I listened to 20 seconds of one of your songs that I know this is the perfect song for you. And I'm like, do you know that? But and so going through that experience really made me understand that I'm a songwriter too. I'm not just an artist, and I know what I wanna say, and I know how I wanna articulate it. Sure. I want help sometimes, which is, like, the magic of cowriting. But going back to AI, I mean, I just don't feel like it would feel like me writing the song. I mean, I think it might be a different story if it's like, I'm so close on this line, but I don't know what it is. AI, can you finesse this line a couple of different times for me and maybe I can see if there's something I'd like? But I don't even know if I would do that personally yet, but who knows? Everything is subject to change. I could look back on this interview in 10 years and be like, Ainsley, you use AI all the time. What is this?
[00:26:46] Abel James:
Yeah. Well, I'm with you. I mean, I echo that completely. It feels disingenuous to basically sing the lines that are coming from a computer, and no judgment against, you know, people who who are doing that. It just there's something that feels a little bit off, and I think it's really because of the the sacredness of our word. When you write a word and then you sing it or you say it, it doesn't matter if it's spoken or sung. There is something that is just too real about that. Right? Like, there's something almost semi religious or it could be literally religious to a lot of people, in in the music world or or not. And so, yes. Also, I I I share that skepticism.
[00:27:28] Ainsley Costello:
And But I love that you use the word sacred because that's how songwriting has always felt. Even when you're writing a song from the get go, the for public consumption bucket, it is this kind of like you go into a room with 2, 3 people you have never met, and then you're basically, like, spilling all of your life's secrets or even, like, you it's funny. I just had this realization a couple of months ago. I'm 20 now, but I've been releasing songs and music for 5, 6 years. And I'm at this point now where I'm like, when I was 14, what gave me the gall to just, like, write an album and put it out? It's what I've looked back at it now. I'm like, this is scary. How was I just doing this like it was nothing? Because I'm writing songs more now than our I mean, they are a little deeper than the songs I was writing at 14, 15, 16, but I'm like, oh, I love this song, but I'm scared to put this out.
[00:28:22] Abel James:
Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of advantages when we're young and don't know any better. I had the same experience where I was 14, 15 years old, playing all of the instruments, recording it all at home, and releasing my songs to the Internet. And, like, looking back at that, it's like, could I do that now? Would I ever do that now? It's like, we have too many layers of judgment and adulting on us at this point to to feel that carefree. But I think we can we can get that back. And you're in a a great example of, how you can be an artist in today's world, which is more difficult than it used to be in in many ways. There are lots of opportunities. But the reality is that dedicating your life to the arts or or music comes with a lot of challenges in terms of being able to make a good living or feel like you're moving forward and kind of going after big gigs or or big projects and and chasing your dream. So how have you been able to retain that that passion as well as artistic freedom in the face of, music business that is fundamentally broken. We can talk about the ways that it's broken in a bit here. But what's that been like for you? Yeah. That's a really great question. I think
[00:29:33] Ainsley Costello:
one of the things when I was 15, 16, just moving to Nashville, and I was writing 4 or 5 times a week with people who I had never met before, and it was this very set formula of, okay. We're gonna sit down for 3 hours, and we're not gonna get up until we finish a song, it gave me this really foundational understanding of how to song write how to song write with other people. I think I'm a really firm believer that working with other people is going to make you a better creative. I feel like I'm a better solo writer now because I've written a jillion songs with a jillion different people. But now that I have pulled back a little bit from the very traditional Nashville cowriting session or setting, one of the things that has helped me is I don't force myself.
If I'm trying to sit down and write and it's not coming, I'm not gonna force it. Yeah. But there is there it's a weird dichotomy, because there there is that level of you have to have discipline to sit down and be able to write a song and finish it and do all the things, but now as I've gotten older and I've realized that songwriting is a very sacred thing to me when I'm so songwriting by myself, I don't I don't force it when it's not coming. I let myself be really inspired whenever like, I've just finished a massive book series and I'm really inspired by what I just read about or if I just watched a TV show and I, like, feel like that main character was me in both of those things that I've done. I'm I'm always very inspired by whatever forms of media that I'm consuming, but I've tried to this year, in particular, I've tried to go easier on myself in the sense of if it's not coming, you don't need to force it because I definitely when I got to Nashville 2, 3, 4 years ago, I was like, okay. I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna write a 100 songs in a year and then I'm gonna write a 150 next year and this and that. And there is an argument to, like again, that's a great goal to say. I I was able to fulfill that, and it's, like, still one of the things I'm really proud of that I would, like, wrote a 100 songs in a year one time. But at the same time, going easier on yourself and having this quality over quantity mentality has really been helpful for me, and just, like, I write in very short concentrated bursts, and so I might not write a song every week, every month, but when I do, I spend so much time on it. And when I'm songwriting by myself, I'm so slow. I, truly, I write songs over the course of, like, a week and a half, 2 weeks until I feel like it's really done, and this is all for, like, a 2 and a half minute song. Like, I'm probably being really annoying about it in songwriter y. But short concentrated bursts and the quality over quantity mentality is how I'm sort of trying to protect my peace in this very broken and capitalistic industry that I was on, a Twitter spaces the other day or an ex spaces that you were on actually, and I talked a little bit about this idea of I think the music industry takes a very capitalistic view of our art and our ability and willingness to share it with the world. There's this, in Nashville specifically, there's this big mentality of just keep writing, and the one song is gonna come one day. Whether you're just a songwriter and you're trying to get a Blake Shelton cut or if you're your own artist, just keep writing and then the one song is gonna go viral on TikTok, and I think that there's a lot of truth to that, but I also think that it's a very profitable view of trying to gain money and power and whatever off of the backs of the little guys who are lifting an entire industry up on their backs.
[00:33:17] Abel James:
Yeah. Wow. That's kind of brutal, but totally true. And having been in the creator economy or influencer world or podcasting, whatever it is, world of social media for a long time, I liked it better when we didn't have the word influencer. Because, essentially, what this has done is taken it from people who had a passion, whether it was around art or or some other interest, you know, who started up a blog or started up their own channels around something, generally do it because they want to to learn. They wanna give back. They want to experience this this passion and share it with other people. In the years since, though, especially as the money has come flooding into this this business model, it's one of those things where most most companies and brands and maybe even the general public seem to think that the only reason that influencers exist or creators exist is to sell products, is to sell skin care stuff, is to sell supplements, and to sell all sorts of things. And trust me, you know, you know, I take sponsors. It costs money to, create media and podcasts and and have, a platform and that sort of thing. And, also having a small team, tends to to take some resources, but creators don't exist for that purpose and only for that purpose. And if you get caught in that, which many artists and creators do, it's a recipe for burnout, and it's something that's not really serving anyone at at a certain point. So how do you maintain your artistic integrity throughout this whole process?
[00:34:45] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I think I've really tried to limit my social media intake. Mhmm. I think I'm part of the first generation that really grew up on the Internet. I remember having an Instagram account when I was 9 or 10 in elementary school. I mean, I wasn't doing anything nefarious on it, but I just remember, like, all of my friends had it, and I wanted to post pictures of, like, me and my cool skateboard that I got for Christmas. Like, it was this idea of I think social media started in a very pure place, but I think it's been blown way out of proportion, and the word influenced and organic and authentic truly today don't mean anything. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I've experienced living in Nashville is I've had meetings with record labels, and I've had meetings with managers and A and R people, and they're like, yeah. You're great, but we're not gonna sign you if you don't have upwards of a 100000 followers.
And I'm like, but what? How in what world does that make sense? Because in the fifties, sixties, seventies, when the music industry was still new, all it took was someone seeing an ounce or a seed of potential and then taking care of the rest. And I taking care of the rest is harsh because I think artists do need to have a a a say in every aspect or element of their career. But, also, artists today are forced to be everything. We can't just focus on this one pure thing, which is why we got into it in the first place, which is making art. I mean, I have so many friends who we've, like, commiserated over this this idea of, you know oh, wait. No. I lost my train of thought. Where did it go? This happens to me all the time.
Hello? Ainsley's brain. Where did it go? I lost it. I don't know where it went.
[00:36:34] Abel James:
Hey. That happens.
[00:36:36] Ainsley Costello:
It does. It happens all the time. I started going to therapy for the first time last year, and I would just be, like, word vomiting, and then I just stop. I'm like, I don't know where it went.
[00:36:45] Abel James:
Well, you were kind of talking about some of the things that you've seen around you in in the music space. Like, what have you seen in terms of people I'll just share quickly. You know, I've seen a few people sign their lives away, essentially, to a music publishing deal or, you know, a record company, whatever it was. And, at first, they thought it was great, but maybe they didn't read all the fine print. And what the fine print said is basically that they own you forever, almost 360 degrees in every universe that exists, in every universe that's yet to be discovered.
[00:37:15] Ainsley Costello:
Yep. That's a real term, people listening. It's like, we have the right to exercise, like, your name and image, within the known universe and without it. That's like an actual clause in record contracts. It's ridiculous. It's insanity. And so it's very those contracts and those deals are very hard to come by, very competitive. And so if you're not ready just to sign your life away, then, you know,
[00:37:36] Abel James:
there are thousands of people right behind you standing in line ready to do it. And so Yeah. Once that happens though, even if there is some amount of payoff and usually that's not very big, even if it is with a major company and it's kind of a major deal, All of a sudden, you don't get to write the songs you wanna write, play the songs you wanna play, or, you know, even include some of your favorite songs on your own album that's going to be coming out as part of this deal. So what have you seen in terms of, other people making decisions like that that maybe weren't for the best down the road or some really great decisions you've seen in terms of, artists around you as you come on?
[00:38:13] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. And I finally remembered what I was gonna say. Awesome. It was this idea of, you know, independent artists. It's a segue into this next question. Independent artists, at the end of the day, we have all of this responsibility to book our own shows and do our own social media posts and talk to record labels and booking agent people. And then at the end of the day, we're so exhausted that you can't write a song anymore because you're burnt out. And so rinse and repeat, and then that's how we've landed in this very, very broken industry. But, yeah, to go back to your last question, we're in an industry that this broken industry cannot break artists anymore, just period.
You know, I think there definitely is that a couple years ago when the whole, like, Taylor Swift's masters thing was was really, really prominent, and that was all you were seeing in music news, I remember thinking, like, I feel like it's a little how do I say this? Because I know that the Swifties are gonna come after me for this, but I'm gonna preface this by saying I am as just as big as Swiftie as everyone else. But, when that was really big in in the in the music industry news a couple years ago, I remember thinking that, you know, Taylor Swift is the biggest artist in the world, and I think, of course, we wanna own our masters, and we wanna own our rights, and we wanna have all of this artistic integrity. But I remember thinking it was almost a little hypocritical to be so, like, Taylor Swift isn't Taylor Swift without this idea of she had to give up a lot. You have to make sacrifices within what you're willing to give up on the business end of your career, what you're willing to give up in your personal career. She wouldn't have become Taylor Swift if she didn't, you know, sign that deal of, like, okay.
There's all this money behind me now and there's this and there's that. And, I mean, it's it's a double edged sword because I I truly understand both aspects of it. Like, indie artists cannot do this alone. It's just it's impossible. There's so many things to do. You need help, but at the same time, it's, like, where I think that case was a really good example of what are you willing to give up and what are you not willing to sacrifice. And, of course, I think it's brilliant what she's doing now with rerecording the masters, but it's also, like, you there there is some stuff that you are gonna have to sacrifice to become the biggest artist in the world, the biggest whatever in the world. And I know that's a little harsh of a criticism, but I don't know. That's just something that's been
[00:40:47] Abel James:
ruminating in my brain the last couple of years on that. I'm curious. What are you striving toward? Is it as big as Taylor Swift? If if that were an option, would you go in that direction, or do you envision something different for your career? What does it look like best case scenario?
[00:41:02] Ainsley Costello:
I think as I've gotten older, my biggest goal is just to support myself on music. I just wanna buy a house with my music, and I wanna not stress over buying a $20 book at Target because I'm a broke musician and every extra dollar that I have goes towards recording a song or missing a song or mastering a song and then the advertising. I mean, of course, I think every artist shoots for that. Like, I wanna do arenas. I wanna do stadiums or maybe not every artist, but I think a lot of artists, that is the kind of professionally aspiring dream.
But for me, I've and that was definitely me when I was younger. I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna break all these records by this age, and I'm gonna do this by that age. And now I'm just like I've I feel like I've tempered my expectations a little bit. I just I want to be a professional recording artist, and I wanna be able to tour, and I wanna be able to connect with fans and make the music that I wanna make. And whatever scale I get to do that on where I'm able to comfortably support myself is a win.
[00:42:05] Abel James:
So speaking of that, you've now had a decade in the music industry or at least being involved in in music. And, you've had commercial releases. You've worked with a traditional system in Spotify and all that. And now you've also been in the v for v or value verse podcasting music space for over a year. So let's start with the traditional model. What did that look like for you as a musician in terms of actually getting paid for your music over time or even reimbursed for production costs or, like, the cost of guitar strings, whatever it is. What did that look like in the traditional system, and and what are you looking at now that you've, joined and really led the charge in the Valueverse as well?
[00:42:43] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I mean, the big Sound and Light that I've been going around and telling people is in 5 years on the traditional DSPs, the digital streaming platform, Spotify, Apple Music, etcetera, I made $750. And in a year and a half on the v for v platforms like Wave Lake and Fountain, I've made over $13,000 off of my music.
[00:43:02] Abel James:
Over a 1000000 Satoshis, by the way. Over a 1000000 the first artist to ever do that. Right?
[00:43:07] Ainsley Costello:
I think so. To my recollection and understanding, cherry on top was the first song on wave lake and in the value verse to hit a 1000000 sats, which still completely baffles me. But I am so grateful for it because for the first time in my career, it doesn't feel like I'm shouting into the void for people to listen and appreciate my music. And I think at an artist's core, you shouldn't have to shout into the void and ask for your music to be appreciated because that's what art is. You put it out in the world and you hope that it connects with people, and now it's finally connecting with people because there aren't as many middlemen and gatekeepers, and it's easier to find my music over here as in with the traditional industry.
Even though I'm not on the same level as a Beyonce or an Ed Sheeran, I'm competing with those guys. But yeah. And, also, going back to the $1750 over 5 years, something that a lot of people don't know if you're not in the music industry is that's not an upfront check for $750. That is broken up over 4, 5, 6 months, where you get incremental checks, like, from anywhere from 20¢ to $20. Most of my checks were, like, less than a dollar that I would get from ASCAP, who is my performing rights organization. And then within that, you have to split all of that between your cocreators, and and the mechanical royalty rate on Spotify and Apple Music right now is 0.009¢ per stream. It's not even 1¢ per stream, and then that gets broken up even more between you and your cocreators.
And so it's not sustainable at all. It's a broken industry, and, of course, all of these fantastic artists in Nashville or LA or New York or even, like, Nowhereville, Ohio, they're no they're never gonna be heard because you're competing with the legacy bands. You're competing with the biggest stars today. And when you have an industry that's telling you, hey. We're not gonna work with you unless you're a TikTok influencer, unless we you we force you to be something that you're not, it's not gonna happen for you. And so then you come over to this space, and it's like, oh, I feel like I can actually do what I came here to do. I can write music, and it's going to be appreciated, and it's gonna be heard, and it's just like, it feels like a culture shock almost, but it's almost like it's the it's the bare minimum. Like, we have this incredible music revolution that's like it it feels so new and so wonderful. I'm like, oh my gosh. I can't believe these people are supporting me, but, like, that's what society is supposed to do for art and artists, and so it's it's wild. I'm so, so grateful to be here.
[00:45:50] Abel James:
Yeah. It's it's amazing to see what's happened with your career kind of looking at these various platforms, Wave Lake and Fountain. And, it was listening to your interviews and and seeing kind of what what you did with your career as well as a few other folks like Joe Martin and and other incredible talented musicians in the Valueverse space. But once I I found that and kind of it took me a minute to understand what exactly was going on and how all of this works. Maybe, actually, you could take a couple minutes to just explain how this is diff different. But, for me, as a long time podcaster and making audiobooks as well as music, I've been really interested in how distribution works and also how we can build more community and and and kind of add aspects of the human element to the online interaction to actually support human relationships, to support real music and real art being made. You know, uploading songs to Spotify or or publishing it on Apple is for many artists, kinda and and my experience as well, it's kind of a bummer because you upload it there. You spend all of this time, money, effort, and, you know, a lot of sweat equity and and emotional equity into putting these songs out there sometimes. And then you put it on Spotify and there's basically no hope for anyone who's not Beyonce or Taylor Swift or John Mayer or whoever it is to get any sort of attention or traction there. So the only people who are gonna be listening to it are literally the people who are already following you somewhere else that you're sending to this platform that ultimately is not going to help your music get out there. It's not gonna help other people share it. So contrasting that to the world of the value verse and the podcasting 2.0 technology and these protocols and and all the rest of it and Bitcoin, Nostra, and all these other buzzwords. Once you start getting those more open source technologies involved and you have the opportunity to listen to an Ainsley Costello song, and then you send a few cents her way with a little comment saying, this song is totally bomb. I'm gonna tell all my friends. You can actually tell your friends they can download it too, and you have some level of ownership as a listener over this music. Right? Because you can download it. You can listen to it. And you don't have to keep paying some platform forever to keep your access to that Ainsley Costello song that you love so much. And so I think that this really represents a lot of opportunity for artists and for listeners to interact more, and just bring a little bit more interest and and interactivity to something that's become soulless and disconnected and algorithm driven. Like, I'm so encouraged by the fact that you can upload songs to the Valueverse. Other DJs and podcasters can find that and then help other people discover new new music. Like, this is just not been happening on the Internet for decades now. Yeah. And it's so magical that it's happening now. So maybe you can just quickly explain what is the value verse in v for v, and and how did, you find your way there, and and what does it look like now?
[00:48:56] Ainsley Costello:
Absolutely. Well, the value verse, which is just kind of this term that I don't I don't know who coined it, but it's like one of these things that just makes sense to me. So the value verse is, created of these new streaming platforms, lightning enabled, bitcoin enabled, streaming platforms called Wave Lake and Fountain, and then it also has all of these Nostr social tool apps, like, nos dot social, primal, DAMIS. There's a bunch more that I'm missing, but it's a place where the main ethos is value for value, and that truly at its core is this idea of I make something that you deem valuable and you give me value in return. It doesn't have to be a $100. It doesn't have to be a $1,000. It can be, like, I'm gonna zap you 10¢ because this song just made my day and I'll continue to zap you 10¢ every time that I hear this song. I think the heavy lift with getting fans over to the value verse is this idea that not just the artists, but the fans have gotten used to getting art for free. And it's this it has to be this mindset shift of, well, artists are giving you something and how valuable do you deem this? It's this it goes back to this idea of being a busker. Like, there is this I mean, one of the examples that I use is when I was 13, 14 living in Seattle, I would busk at Pike's Place Market all the time, which is the, like, Pike's is just so cool. It's like where they throw the fish and there's all these, like, really cool independent little vendors, but I would go and I would busk there when I was 13, 14 and people would throw stuff in in my guitar case as the little tip jar. And it's that idea of, oh, here's this young kid who's out here brave enough braving the Seattle weather and potentially people harassing you on the street to sing her songs that she's written for you in her bedroom, and I've deemed that really valuable, so I'm gonna put $5 in her guitar case. It's the same ethos and the same mentality.
And so coming over here, it's really this this big mindset shift, but it's it shouldn't have been a mindset shift in the first place because we should have always been operating in an industry where that was the standard, but, you know, better late than never for sure. And, also, for any artists listening, because one of the big questions that my friends always ask me when I tell them about this and that they should get into it, they're like, well, how does how does it work? How do you get paid? Is it like, what's the per stream royalty? And there isn't a per stream royalty rate. It's whatever you deem valuable for a song. And one of the other great things about the value verse is if somebody doesn't like your song, they have to pay you to tell you that.
[00:51:40] Abel James:
And one of the differentiating factors too that could help this in the future and help music in general, as well as just online content, and a lot of this is the reason that Nostra is is getting some attention. But, basically, in a sea of mediocrity where there's just too much content being, like, pumped out by by AI and all these bot accounts and that sort of thing, once you introduce micropayments and these these ideas that you could zap or boost a a very small amount of money to a real artist or or to someone who made real content. That makes it such that we don't need to really rely on algorithm algorithms like we do in the other platforms to tell us this is important content or this is a good song.
In fact, when you have micro, payments, real people can drive that process by listening to something, liking it, giving it a little bit of juice because the bots, even though it's a micropayment, at scale wouldn't be able to do that. At least it wouldn't be terribly effective. So I think it's it's one way as well that we could see more of a meritocracy in the world of content than we do right now, which is basically just like a giant algorithm based race to the bottom. And, like, it's become very unfun for the creators as well as the people who are on the other end of that. Very just driven by exploitation.
And so one of the things that I noticed when I met, you, your folks, you know, Mike from Toonster and and all the people building Wave Lake, Fountain, Pod Home. Just like different types of humans, the artists as well in the space. So what was what was your experience for, like, comparing the people who exist in the traditional music industry to those who you've met in the Valueverse space?
[00:53:28] Ainsley Costello:
So this is a callback to, like, what I said something I said a little bit earlier. The traditional music industry has made me absolutely despise, gutturally despise the words authentic and organic. Yeah. But that's what it feels like over here. It feels like I put my music on Wave Lake in July of 2023, and it organically came about that Adam Curry put it on his podcast. And then a bunch of other podcasters picked it up, and that's how people know me. And that's how it should be. That's how it was in the eighties nineties when radio was the main form of discovery because that goes back to this idea of there is no discovery today on Spotify and Apple Music. You can't Or the radio even. It's the same songs.
It's all gatekept, and even the big Spotify and Apple Music editorial playlists, most of those artists' teams or their labels are paying for it. It's truly, it's pay to play. And so over here, I didn't pay Adam Curry to put cherry on top on his show. It pretty much, it worked out that I got paid from that because more people discovered my music, and they thought that it was valuable, and they appreciated it. And so got paid too, critically. Right? Like, that's the amazing part. It it was both people this. Yes. Appreciate it. Yeah. Completely. And it's just it's so cool, and it's like it feels so refreshing, and it feels like every every day that I'm in this space, my shoulders unclench a little bit from, you know, 5 years of being like, oh, you know, in the traditional music industry, I'm the problem. The reason why this hasn't been working for me is I'm not writing the good enough song. I'm not putting on a good enough show when it's not the artist's fault. It's a broken system that is inherently broken.
And so over here, it's just it's just night and day difference.
[00:55:16] Abel James:
What about Noster in general? A lot of people are not familiar with how that works. What are you excited about? And
[00:55:23] Ainsley Costello:
I love noster. For those who don't know what it is, it's this social media protocol rails, that power a bunch of new social media apps. So, think of it as, like, if you have to go to, Instagram if you wanna post something, you have to post it separately on Instagram, and then you have to copy and paste it. You have to put it on Facebook, copy and paste it, put it on TikTok, rinse and repeat. But over here, if you post something on primal, that same post with all those same hashtags, all the same people who follow you, that's gonna show up on damas, and then it's gonna show up on nos.social. And that takes so much time and energy off of an indie artist's plate who, like, we've been told that we have to post 3 to 5 times a day on TikTok. And so then if we go over here and we can just post it once and it shows up everywhere, oh my gosh. That's so cool. But it also it's lightning enabled, it's Bitcoin enabled, and it goes back to this idea of people value with the content you you put out too, not just, like, your actual content, which is your music or your music videos or your shows. It's like, if I post a picture of me on Catalina Island a couple of weeks ago, someone will zap it and be like, oh, thank you for sharing your life with me. I find value in this because you're a real person, and I can tell you're not a robot.
So, yeah, I mean, I just I love Nostra. It takes away this perpetual feeling of yuckiness that I have on Instagram and x and whatever because I I said this on, the lovely Ben Wehrman's podcast a couple of weeks ago, but every time I open Instagram, I feel like I have to take a shower. It's just like, ugh. So it doesn't feel like that on all of the Noster hubs.
[00:57:04] Abel James:
Yeah. It's, so I remember early Internet, like, late nineties, early 2,000 fives, And the Internet was so fun in a completely different way than it is now. Like, now it feels just we're all shackled with this constant accessibility or at least the expectation of it and these constant connections. And it's just so once again, kind of, like, driven by exploitation and kind of trying to take advantage of the person who is just trying to kick back and surf the net or, God forbid, look something up and have it come back with the truth. Like, this has become very ugly and Yeah. Un like, just not fun to be on a lot of the social media. So, finding Noster and the whole value verse space a few months ago, I've really been encouraged by how collaborative the space is in an insanely competitive Internet and, specifically music as well. The music industry can be very cutthroat with lots of weird behind the scenes deals and backstabbing and taking advantage of each other.
Whereas, you know, people are generally rewarded for collaborating and working together. At least that's the ethos of the open source, value verse, v for v space. And I think that that's something that we can really, it it's our responsibility to build this up in parallel to the other systems. But once we do, I can't imagine most people choosing TikTok and Instagram and all those icky feelings that you get from that over this other experience. It's just we need to build it a little bit more and welcome more people to the party, I would think. Yeah. Absolutely. Before we go, Ainsley, what is the best place for people to find your work as well as, in a couple of weeks? We have a big show coming up in the summit, so I'll let you just talk about that for a minute.
[00:58:48] Ainsley Costello:
Well, in the Bitcoin Nostril world, you can find me on Wave, Lake, and Fountain, and then on you can find my music on any of the, modern podcasting apps like True Fans, Podcast Guru, and a couple of other ones. And then I'm also just Ainsley Costello on Noster. It's easy. Like, I'm just the Ainsley Costello on 1. It's not like you have to go and find 12 different versions of Ainsley Costello's name on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter. But yeah. So we have a really fun show coming up in Austin today, Tuesday. It's 2 weeks from yesterday, the day we're recording this. We're playing a show with the legendary Antones in Austin on December 16th. Mister Abel James is gonna be playing. I'm so excited because, Abel, I love your music so much. And one of the things that sparked me wanting to be a musician was, like, just being a fangirl of other people, and I'm so excited to hear you live. I, I took over Fountain the other day because they just introduced this really cool, feature called Fountain Radio, and I played my favorite Abel James song, Love You till I'm Dead. I think that song is so sweet.
But yeah. So it's this 2 day extravaganza on Sunday, December 15th. We're doing this independent creator summit for independent musicians, podcasters, content creators on how you can get paid in a different way than the traditional kind of fiat world and how you can find a new audience, and there's so many incredible speakers who are gonna get up and talk. DJ Valerie b Love, Mike from Toonster. I don't know if, the Wave, Lake, and Fountain guys are gonna be there, but we have a lot of really cool people who are gonna show up. And then the night of the Anton show, there are a couple of fun surprises and special guests who haven't been announced yet either. It's just gonna be a wonderful, wonderful night, and I'm so excited about it. I'm stoked. Awesome. Just quickly, I wonder, Ainsley, if you could just give folks out there
[01:00:44] Abel James:
a few words in favor of, chasing your dreams, just getting after it and going after something that's unlikely and and really doubling down on your passion. What would you say to people who are a little too timid to do that quite yet but are considering it?
[01:00:58] Ainsley Costello:
Yeah. I my mentality is I would rather have tried it and it failed. Quotation failed. Oh, I just threw my headphones everywhere and have been, quote, not successful than have just spent my life sitting in a cubicle wondering if it didn't work. I think I'm a big theater kid, and one of the things that comes to mind about this is, we're seeing Wicked a lot right now because the movie adaptation has just come out. But my favorite Elphaba or who my favorite actress who has ever played Elphaba on Broadway, her name is Jessica Vosk, and there's the story of she was working on Wall Street and she had just this incredible voice and nobody ever knew it, and I don't know exactly how she got into Wicked, but she got into Wicked, and people are like, how was she sitting on Wall Street with this incredible gift of acting and storytelling and singing, and we didn't know. And so I am just of the mentality of if it doesn't work, you can't say you didn't try. And I actually wrote a song about that called Can't Say I'm Not Trying That'll Be on my new album x less. Amazing. We'll look forward to that. Ainsley, thanks so much for spending time with us, and I'm stoked to spend time on stage with you. I am too. Thank you so much, Abel. And, also, just, like, one really funny thing real quick. So you were in Nashville at the Bitcoin conference this year.
You were there at the base of Bitcoin event when my friend Jess Loud, who's also gonna be playing on December 16th with us, he freestyled this song called interstellar birds, and I swear it is one of my biggest brain rots. I always hear it going because JL had said to the crowd this is just a funny story for anyone listening if you don't know this. JL had said, anyone, just give me a topic, and I'll just freestyle a song about it. And Abel, you go, give me a song about interstellar birds. And so JL just goes, interstellar birds, like Abel said. And it's just it's my favorite song. I listen to it in my head every day.
[01:02:54] Abel James:
That one gets stuck in my head too. It's it's kind of insane. Who knows what he's gonna come up with next? But I have a feeling Who knows? It's gonna be a lot of fun in Austin. Yeah. Absolutely. Abel, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode with Ainsley. We're gonna finish this show strong by playing one of Ainsley's original tracks called Cherry on Top. We hope you enjoy, and don't forget to boost in or send a boostagram with your message. We always love hearing from you. So without further ado, let's listen to Ainsley.
[01:03:43] Unknown:
I'm not as dense as you think I live. I know that you didn't know that I knew about your little plan. But you had to go and tell everyone I might sense that you that you aren't used to having it all given back to you. And there was I might be tempted to see if he's ratting and cry like a little boy. You might deserve it, but
Introduction to the Episode
Adam Curry and the Music Summit
Featured Artists and Upcoming Episodes
The Future of Music and Podcasting
Interview with Ainsley Costello
Ainsley's Musical Journey
Songwriting and Artistic Integrity
Live Performance and Technology
AI in Songwriting
Navigating the Music Industry
Traditional vs. Value for Value Model
Exploring the Valueverse
Nostr and Social Media
Chasing Dreams and Upcoming Events
