Founder, CEO, Frontman
Current City: Los Angeles.
Current Job and Entrepreneurial Focus: Founder/CEO - Chorus.
Notable Prior Jobs: New York Times bestselling author, Frontman - The Airborne Toxic Event, On-Air Columnist - NPR's All Things Considered.
When I Started Performing: 15 years old.
Performing Arts Background: I have been a singer/songwriter fronting the band The Airborne Toxic Event for the past 15 years. Been an incredible journey, playing the main of Coachella (twice), main stage of Lollapalooza, headlining the Greek Theatre, Beacon Hall, Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony, Davies Hall with the San Francisco Symphony, Disney Hall with the Calder Quartet, dozens of late night TV performances (the Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel, Letterman), 6 records (one gold), thousands of nights living on a tour bus, and a wonderful community of fans and supporters.
How did your performing arts background supercharge your entrepreneurship? As an entrepreneur, there are constant challenges, road blocks that need to be seen as temporary setbacks. It’s funny because as a founder you need both resilience and risk tolerance and if there is one industry which requires MORE of these things, it’s entertainment. The ability to push forward in the face of uncertainty is second nature to artists who’ve been facing headwinds their whole careers.
The purpose of Chorus is to empower artists by connecting them directly to the fans who love them most on a premium, paywalled platform offering the community exclusive songs, videos, livestreams, a live VIP experience and more. After years of touring, it was clear to me that the shrinking revenue from music sales was putting artists in an ever more difficult position to earn money. At the same time, creators in other industries were finding innovative ways to funnel fans from long-tail (free) content to a monetization model, to their mutual benefit. We set out to connect the dots and solve this problem for the music industry, borrowing heavily from the insights gained from years of touring to solve for what fans want most, while focusing on the needs of fellow artists in a similar position to ours.
Favorite Performer: David Bowie.
Follow this Performer:
Twitter - @Mikel_Jollett
