Meet Levi Downey | Music Producer & Co-founder of Amerge Music Cooperative

We had the good fortune of connecting with Levi Downey and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Levi, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
Amerge Music Cooperative is a community. A thoughtful group of music makers, music placers, and music operators who all decided to start being a little more intentional with how we create art and do business together. Unfortunately, the macro system we all work within tends to be quite economically exploitative and brutal towards the human spirit. Amerge aims to change this. Starting with the folks we choose to work with on a daily basis. Our goal is to show the entertainment industry at large a new way of operating. A more equitable, sustainable, and transparent approach to licensing the art we create together. By realigning music licensing incentives and radically sharing the resources of our group, we hope to inspire a wave of similar communities within the entertainment industry and beyond. Because if we are able to work together in a more fair and dignified way, our community and the world will be a better place.

What should our readers know about your business?
At Amerge, our mission is to empower music creators, placers, and operators by forging a united, transparent, and equitable ecosystem within the sync licensing community. We harness the power of on-chain technology to align the incentives of all stakeholders and ensure fair compensation for each of our creative endeavors. I’m most proud of the people in our small group thus far. The brave folks willing to experiment in this novel approach.

I wouldn’t say that it has been easy thus far. Amerge co-founder Dennis Corolina and myself have been actively working on setting up the foundation of Amerge for about two years now. There have been some moments where the legal structure of being a Cooperative using tokenized revenue (more on that on our site if you’re curious) seemed too difficult or expensive to execute. But, with persistence and support from mentors and collaborators like Alex Glancy and Hope Garcia from GGH LLP, Brodie Conley, Austin Robely from Metalabel, Katlyn Corolina, the entire Songcamp crew, my GMS fam, the United Federation of Worker Cooperatives, and so many others we have been able to steadily build through the ups and downs. Team is everything. Finding the right people who are aligned with the vision and mission of the group is honestly the only way we’ve been able to make it this far.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Fun! Honestly, we’d probably spend most the time eating vegan food haha. First stop, we’d have to hit Cha Cha Matcha in WeHo for a little caffeine fuel. Then get vegan bahn mi burritos from Tacos Tu Madre. We should probably take a little walk after that, maybe hit Venice to people-watch and see the pro skaters shred. Once we’re hungry again we’d have to grab an “I Am Whole” bowl from Cafe Gratitude along with some boozy boocha from June Shine. Then it’d be time to catch the early evening set at the Hollywood Improv. After getting some lol dopamine, and because it’s Friday, we’d absolutely have to end the night with The Rehearsal which is the coolest gathering of artists and makers sharing their work in a weekly performance showcase at the iconic Mercado La Paloma. Haha, and that’s probably enough activity for a week slammed into a single day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I one-hundred percent would not be where I am without the love and support from my closest friends and family. My wonderful wife Kelly Fedderson has been a relentlessly stable rock during the most chaotic of times. More than anyone else, she has believed in my wild ideas and fueled confidence in my ability to corral them into existence. Of course there is also a list of 50+ friends, family, and co-conspirators that I shouldn’t list here (and to spare myself in case I forget someone at this moment!). My hope is that if you’re one of those people, that you already know the impact you’ve had on my life, and that I’ll be able to directly share with you how much you’ve helped me along this journey <3.

Website: https://www.amerge.xyz/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levi.downey/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/levidowney

Other: https://www.levidowney.com/