Meet Darryl Stephens | Co-Founder of the Bass Parlour App

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

Hi Darryl, how do you think about risk?
Taking risks has been one of the the defining characteristics of my career of my career so far, and the funny thing is that it never gets easier. It’s still stressful and scary each time, but it’s about moving forward anyway despite the fear.

There’s an awesome quote from Henry David Thoreau that I love. He says ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.’ I’ve always been much more afraid of not fulfilling my purpose, then I feared failure.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
The Bass Parlour is a mobile app that connects musicians around the world or the purpose of collaborating on music together. We’ve had an interesting journey to get to this point, and have had to make quite a few adjustments along the way.

I started the Bass Parlour brand back in 2018, and would host music showcases in Washington DC and Atlanta under that name. At these showcases musicians would come and play some of the music they were working on and get feedback from other fellow musicians. We then changed the format of the showcases, and randomly pair musicians at the showcase and give the around 90 minutes to create a new song together then perform it.

These ‘mashup’ showcases became very popular, so I decided to open a co-working space for musicians in Atlanta called Bass Parlour Studios, where musicians could network and collaborate every day of the week. The studio quickly became a staple in the independent music community, but unfortunately, with the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to shut down Bass Parlour Studios. I wanted to continue giving musicians a way to connect so I developed a mobile app called ‘Bass Parlour’ that allows musicians from around the world to find each other, connect, and collaborate on music.

What sets us apart is our community building. We are focused on building a tight-knit community of independent musicians around the world that feel comfortable collaborating on music projects together. In addition to the Bass Parlour mobile app, we just launched a YouTube series called ‘The Bass Parlour Mashup’ where we take two musicians that have never worked together, put them in the studio, and give them an hour to create a new song from scratch. There have been some incredible songs created through this YouTube series.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well we’d have to start off with great food and a few drinks to get the ball rolling. I love Mexican food, and the best Mexican restaurant in the the city is definitely Agavero Cantina in West Midtown. After the Texas fajitas and a couple of the spicy margaritas, then we could get the day started. You also can’t go wrong with having an all-day bar crawl at the different bars and restaurants around the Atlanta BeltLine, just make sure to rent a scooter.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Yeah a big shoutout to my brother and the Co-Founder of Bass Parlour, Brent Stephens. He is serves as the Big Boi to my Andre 3000. We make a great team, as I’m filled to the brim of these huge ideas for the business and against the grain marketing strategies. He does an incredible job of adding structure and and a scaffolding to these ideas, making them much more feasible. He is a vital part of the Bass Parlour movement and the community of collaborators that we are building.

Website: https://bassparlourapp.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bassparlour/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrylrstephens/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKJUZ8LMEXTfG09gqqe1pOg