Food & Drink
Bruce Pavitt’s New App, 8Stem, Makes You the DJ
Sub Pop's Bruce Pavitt has a new app that puts anyone in the producer's seat
By Tim Appelo January 17, 2017
This article originally appeared in the January 2017 issue of Seattle magazine.
Sub Pop cofounder Bruce Pavitt knows times have changed since he launched Seattle’s billion-dollar music revolution in the ’80s. Today’s kids prefer gizmos to guitars, and technology gives them easy ways to do it all, from making music to producing it. Pavitt’s new company, 8Stem, offers music fans a free, easy-as-Instagram iPhone app by that name. It turns everyone into a producer, able to delete and add new tracks on existing recordings: lead, bass, drums, instruments, synthesized vocals, beats. Kids addicted to gaming and tech can now listen interactively, erasing part of a tune by Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil—one of 40 artists who license music to 8Stem—and recording their own sounds over Thayil’s, and then sharing it with the touch of a button, so others can remix it at will. “We live in a remix culture,” says Pavitt. “If you go to YouTube, type in any pop song, then add ‘remix,’ the remixes are going to exceed the listeners of the original song.” Pavitt and his tech-exec partner Adam Farish designed 8Stem to cash in on that trend.
Artists whose music is part of the remix benefit financially thanks to Dubset, a new “fingerprint” technology that scans remixes and detects music owned by any of the 14,000 labels and publishers it has deals with, then makes sure the various owners of the rights are paid. “We just inked a deal with Dubset,” says Pavitt, “and our first track was on Spotify, ‘Sleep In’ by Telekinesis.” 8Stem user Anomie Belle, a noted Seattle musician, added her vocals to the song and put the new version on Spotify; Telekinesis, 8Stem and remixer Belle all get a slice of the profit—and you can, too.
About 30 of 8Stem’s 40 artists are from Seattle, though a few are from London, Argentina and New York City. “We’re trying to reignite the local culture so it’s an energy source for new music and fresh ideas that can go anywhere,” says Pavitt, who used that very technique to conquer the world at Sub Pop.
Need to Know
1. As a student at The Evergreen State College, Pavitt used $50 and a crayon to create Sub Pop as a fanzine for credit in 1979, made it a record company, and then sold 49 percent of it to Warner Music Group for $20 million in 1995.
2. Pavitt’s spirited teen pals in his hometown of Park Forest, Illinois, included Kim Thayil and Hiro Yamamoto, who followed him to Seattle and started Soundgarden, and Tom Zutaut, who discovered Enya, Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses, featuring Seattle’s Duff McKagan.
3. Pavitt predicts that streaming music, including songs remixed on his new 8Stem app, will jump from a $4 billion market today to $16 billion in 2020.
4. Farish (above, right) cofounded SmartAmerica Home Automation, owns Orcas Island’s Outlook Inn, made two albums and toured America as an electronic dance music DJ.
Follow Us
Book Excerpt: Old White Man Writing
Seattle resident Joshua Gidding examines his own white privilege
In his book, Old White Man Writing, Seattle resident Joshua Gidding attempts to come to terms with his privilege. Gidding grapples with the rapidly changing cultural norms in 21st-century America while examining his own racial biases and prejudices. As Manhattan Book Review notes: “Old White Man Writing is an introspective deep dive into an eventful life…
Glacial Expressions
Local scientist and painter Jill Pelto spotlights climate change in a multi-artist show at Slip Gallery
The divide between the arts and sciences is long-fostered and well-documented. From elementary school onward, children are often singled out for their penchant for math or artistic ability and guided toward classes — and later careers — that align with their right or left brain tendencies. For Jill Pelto — a local climate scientist, painter,…
How Taproot Theatre Survived A Financial Crisis
Theatre is planning for its 50th birthday next year
Karen Lund vividly remembers that sinking feeling she had in the fall of 2023. That was when Lund, producing artistic director of Taproot Theatre Co., first realized that the financially strapped, midsized professional theatre in the Greenwood neighborhood might not survive. The theatre had already weathered the worst of the pandemic, but costs were mounting….
Humanities Washington Fights ‘Midnight’ Cuts
Nonprofit loses previously approved federal grants with little warning
The letter came without warning, like a slap in the face from an invisible hand. Humanities Washington CEO and Executive Director Julie Ziegler had already been talking with peers in other states, and she readied herself for the blow. The National Endowment for the Humanities (think DOGE) had terminated her nonprofit’s previously awarded federal grant…