Following the release of his On The Bright Side EP, Daniel Allan has since ideated a nuanced way of developing not only his art but music projects as a whole. The LA-based producer is back with his new single “Say What You Want” feat. DEEGAN, the lead single from his upcoming EP, Overstimulated. The project was crowdfunded using crypto through Mirror – raising 50 $ETH, or approximately $190k in a day from fans. Backers purchased NFTs with exclusive benefits like VIP tickets and received $OVERSTIM tokens to participate in governance. The full campaign can be found here.

Thanks to Mirror, Allan follows through on his plan of realizing independent capital and co-ownership between artists and fans in web3. Thanks to Mirror, Allan has pioneered a new way of delivering music and sharing ownership with fans.

“Overstimulated is a project that comments on my personal journey and its overwhelming nature. When life gets hectic, my primary coping mechanism is to lock myself in a room and work it out with music. Sometimes I don’t really know how to communicate, so I suppose this project is my way of sharing that experience with the world.” – Daniel Allan

 Hey Daniel, tell us about your story as an artist. 

Hi thanks for having me! So I like to say that I grew up in a musical household but it was more of a musical adjacent one; my parents both played instruments when they were younger but ended up moving on to other careers in their adult lives so music was bit more in the periphery for them. I took piano lessons as a kid but didn’t really love them, but when I was in second grade my older brother gave me his iPod classic and that’s where my real musical life began. The iPod supplied me with early knowledge in Hip Hop (LL Cool J, Rakim, Biggie etc) and electronic music throughout high school (Deadmau5, Aarmin Van Buuren, early Above & Beyond). It inspired me to go to my first shows and download my first software and that’s kinda the inception of everything.

What do the words “creative freedom” and “artistry” mean to you?

In my eyes creative freedom is artistic expression in its truest form – its about taking the blinders off and not really catering your music to anyone but yourself. To me an artist is someone that can successfully channel this into their music while being a good person – hopefully I’m on track to be an artist like this one day!

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Oof I feel like my sound is always changing but it’s definitely starting to get a lot more experimental with each project. Right now I think it’s best described as alt electronic. I’ve recently been pulling a lot more inspiration from rap music while immersing myself more in my electronic roots.

What inspired “Say What You Want”?

Say What You Want fits in perfectly with the ethos of Overstimulated. It was the first song that I produced when I moved into my new apartment in January of 2021. It was the first long term living commitment I had set up in LA and I was super overwhelmed with figuring out how I was going to make my music life workout in Los Angeles that I just went into production overdrive mode. The writing on the record reflects more of my second half of the year and is basically saying its important to listen to others but at the end of the day your own intuition matters most.

To dig further, what are some sources of inspiration for your storytelling/songwriting?

I’m super excited by experiences and collaboration. Everyone that I worked with on the project inspire me in their own ways and I think having friends in music that all make different types offers me an interesting perspective on my own art.

The crowdfunding aspect of your release is highly intriguing. What do you think are the biggest benefits of taking this path?

To me the biggest benefit of doing an on-chain crowdfund for the project is that it fundamentally changes people’s perception of the value of art and music. I think that creators are so valuable but their hasn’t really been a system put in place that empowers these people to feel valued and that’s created an atmosphere that isn’t necessarily conducive to art. I really think that this path towards music distribution and fan ownership will make the world of art a better place for both creators and the people that support them from the early stages of their careers. 

Where/how can artists learn more? Any recommendations? 

The two best tools by far in the space are Twitter and Discord. The community on twitter is thriving and is always willing to help out while Discord is full of servers with people with all types of background and varying degrees of experience in the space. Some follows that will be worth your while on twitter are @coopahtroopa @gaby_goldberg and @web3brett and some amazing Discord communities are FWB, Seedclub (free), and Forefront (free).

Any fun facts or stories you can share from while you were recording or writing the album?

Actually this project saw so many different version before it is what it was today lol. Here’s a story on Say What You Want since its just came out, but I have so many funny moments from working on this record.

Say What You Want was actually just an instrumental track that was on the back burner that I produced in January of this year. I got on a FaceTime with DEEGAN just catching up and showing him some music while I was rounding the corner on finishing the project. After we got off the phone he hit me up asking if there were any demos I had laying around and Say What You Want was one that made sense at the time – he woke up at 6am the next day to record vocals for me and I immediately became obsessed with it so the instrumental record had to be put on the shelf – maybe I’ll have one on the next EP.

Are there any artists or bands you look up to today?

The artists that I look up to the most are ones that really create an audiovisual world for their fans. The first artists that come to mind are Kanye West, Odesza, and Flume. On top of being insanely talented I admire the vision they have for their art.

Outside of this upcoming EP, any other exciting projects? 

I’m super passionate about the intersection of music and Web3 so that’s what I’m devoting a big bulk of my attention to. The space has been life changing for a lot of artists and I’m excited to see what the future of the space is going to develop into.