We were lucky to catch up with Rain Phoenix recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Rain thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I am the founder of LaunchLeft, (the ‘left’ stands for left-of-center artists- we are not a political organization). I would count LaunchLeft as a meaningful project, a kind of energy experiment. One of our very intentional goals is to turn greed toward generosity and competitiveness toward collaboration in the arts & entertainment space.
Rain, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I grew up in LA in the entertainment industry. I started singing at age 5 and acting at age 11. I always knew the arts was for me. I moved to the east coast for a time, but, in 2010 I moved back to LA when my first band papercranes got signed to a local record label. Within a year of being in LA, I traded in a show meant for my band for producing a large scale collaborative music event for charity. It was then that I realized my calling in the arts included organizing meaningful events with other creatives. This realization eventually led to what I do now, LaunchLeft. At its most concise, “LaunchLeft is an alliance of artists who break from the norm and lean in to the unique. We enlist famed creatives to launch emerging artists.” In a deeper sense, it’s about modeling kindness over competition, generosity over greed in the artistic community. We are inspired by left-of-center, brick-throwers, game-changers and artistic innovators who fearlessly live to create no matter the adversity.
LaunchLeft has a podcast, label, creative agency and event production arm. We showcase emerging artists and consult, mentor & connect creatives across mediums. If you’re a cause driven company and brand, you should know our newly launched full service creative agency is available for all your content needs.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think we could do better in this country in regard to how we treat the creative community. By providing mentorship and financial support for well curated and vetted projects. We have worked a lot in live events and leading collaborative artistic experiences and it’s shocking how often the performing artists are expected to ‘volunteer’ while the venue and the brands get the lion share of the benefit from showcasing them. Whenever we create budgets for live events, we make a point of always paying the participating artists. Our Cabaret Ronin shows are a good example. We brought together an array of multi-platform artists- trapeze, contortion, tap, comedy- and paid them. Those shows were so joyful and we had a great crowd too, but, it takes time to build robust audience and to make sure everybody wins, (venue, artists, event producers, audience…) So unfortunately that model is only sustainable when a proper budget is created and the funds are available. We would love to continue these shows but rely on patrons of the arts, and brands who can offer sponsorship, which are few and far between. We need more people who understand that the arts and supporting artists, especially in local communities, is the most important investment we can make to move culture forward.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
NFTs are so controversial! It’s funny now most people say web3 instead of NFTs as a way of rebranding crypto and blockchain. There has been so much bad press on them, a smear campaign of sorts, because there are a lot of folks who do not want things to change. We think there’s good evidence that web3 is an opportunity to grow connection between creators and their fans. We decided to try it and in 2021 and created a LaunchLeft gallery of NFTs on foundation with some of our artists collaborating with cast and crew of the iconic film “My Own Private Idaho”. The experience was a solidarity building exercise, and we on-boarded all the artists- in fact, the entire project was made up of genesis pieces! Most of the artists didn’t know what NFTs were but, when we explained how it had the potential to create a revenue stream that would instantly go into their wallets, not to mention they would retain a percentage of royalties with resale, well it made sense to at least try it! We worked so hard on the project and had such a great time doing it but, we and the artists lacked the time or financial stability to be in the spaces where we could share about it on a daily basis, and then the crypto crash happened. That said, we wouldn’t take it back! We were also especially happy when ethereum went from proof of work to proof of stake thereby using much less energy in the minting process. All to say, we are hopeful that the future is bright in the web3 space for artists and companies like ours who wish to support artists and their work reaching more audience. 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.launchleft.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/launchleft/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaunchLeft
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/launchleft/
- Twitter: @launchleft
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaunchLeft
- Other: https://foundation.app/@launchleft
Image Credits
Rio Asch Phoenix