Spotlight on Chris Grigg

We sit down with the founder of the promising Bandcamp alternative Ampwall.

Who is Chris Grigg? What’s your background? 

I’m a musician and software engineer living in Queens, NYC with my wife and our two daughters. I’ve released music and played live for more than 20 years, mostly with bands of the metal persuasion, and most frequently with my bands Woe and Glorious Depravity. I also do a fair amount of mixing and production work. As a software engineer, I’ve worked for a handful of technology companies but I love working for startups. I was the first software engineer at a fitness and robotics startup based in Brooklyn Proteus Motion, an engineer at live events service Jukely (RIP), and a staff engineer at Shippo.

Tying it all together: I love creating things. I’m not gonna say that code is an equally creative act to writing songs but damn it’s close. I love the process of going from concept to something that is alive and sits independently from me.

What motivated you to start Ampwall?

A few things that all came together at the same time. There were a lot of frustrations with existing services – missing features, bad experiences, and a general sense that they were built by people who either didn’t get it or just didn’t look at the way I did. I was concerned with the fact that all of the platforms I used were owned by big corporations whose motives didn’t seem aligned with mine. And then, as a software engineer with a DIY background, it was a space I was (and am!) passionate about so there was no reason not to dive in and try to do it better.

What’s the primary problem you’re trying to solve?

The simplest way to express it is the problem of music communities becoming disenfranchised as technology becomes more omnipresent. That doesn’t mean all that much on its own, though. It’s a very broad mission and it has a lot of facets.

There’s e-commerce, of course; everyone wants artists to make more money and this is the area where so many music platforms focus. But there’s so much more to consider! Not every artist is motivated by sales and we don’t all define “success” the same way but even a lot of the artists who are selling still feel like things are out of control. They’re doomscrolling and feeling trapped by algorithms and massive corporate tech. We’re all caught up in systems where only the brand new shiny thing gets promoted, where relationships with art are often vanishingly brief and shallow.

There are also a lot of areas that also don’t get any attention from other music platforms. Music scenes are complex, vibrant spaces that thrive when different people come together to create things: people making sound, people making images, people booking tours, people reviewing and interviewing and reflecting, and people engaging with everything along the way. This all gets ignored by Bandcamp and Spotify, so the platforms that have the most traffic don’t actually look like the music scenes we experience out in the world! And it makes sense to their business, they care about sales (Bandcamp) and streams (Spotify) so there’s no incentive for them to widen their perspective.

This is all our domain. It’s big and challenging! But we’re here for it. Our mission is to find ways to just bring joy, help build connections, and create a space for music communities to thrive and find success beyond sales and purchases.

How does Ampwall compare to other music platforms?

How much time ya got!? Haha!

First let’s set the stage, cause the context is important. I started building during nights and weekends in January 2023. I went full-time in September 2023. Nobody else was working on it full-time with me until spring 2024; we didn’t start allowing public signups until September 2024. In other words, we’re still really new! We still say we’re in a public beta test because there’s a lot to do. We’re a grassroots DIY platform going up against companies that have these massive, massive budgets and years of a headstart. Bandcamp launched in 2008! So when we talk about comparisons, it’s important to keep in mind.

We start with a very different philosophy. We see ourselves as a comprehensive platform for music communities, not just an e-commerce marketplace. The result is we look at things a bit differently. An e-commerce marketplace sees things entirely from the perspective of sales: what will make more money, who is selling, who is buying. Of course Ampwall also cares about this, but music communities need more than that to thrive. You need people to be happy, proud of their work, connected with each other; you need a lot of different skills and perspectives. Ampwall cares deeply about this, too. This sets us up to be more inclusive, powerful, and fun as a result.

So let’s talk specifics. I find that most people visiting Ampwall for the first time tend to make comparisons against what they’re most familiar with; it’s a lot like reviewing music when you get down about it. They usually draw comparisons to Bandcamp and on the surface that’s the best place to start. You set up a page as an artist, you upload digital audio, you can allow full-song previews on your page, sell at various prices, sell merchandise. There’s a shipping dashboard, places to add links, blogs, etc,… When someone buys, they can download music in various formats.

But there are important details everywhere. Our transaction fees are lower than Bandcamp – 5% us vs 10-15% them – and to be quite frank we want to bring them lower or at least give people options to reduce them. Buyers have the option of covering the Ampwall fee on behalf of artists and they do some 80% of the time, leaving only credit card processing fees.

Ampwall is all about connections between people so you’ll find links all over the place. There’s a real MySpace influence with a feature similar to the old Top 6 that helps discovery. You can add users as Members (we call it “I’m in the band”) and links to them appear on the artist page and links to artists appear on profiles. When a band member buys something from another artist, the email to the seller will say something like “Chris Grigg (member of Woe, Glorious Depravity)” to encourage them to know more about who’s supporting them. We’re emphasizing organic discovery over algorithmic discovery with stuff like this, that Discogs or Metal Archives or Wikipedia feeling of diving deep into rabbit holes that’s so engaging and rewarding.

We’re building pages and features for people who aren’t making sounds. We have a growing community of music-associated visual artists who share their work and sell their merch. They can link their art to the music and merchandise that’s using it, another path for organic discovery. One of our ongoing projects involves better writing tools so journalists and bloggers can have a bigger presence on Ampwall. These are things that other music platforms don’t consider because their scope is more narrow, they’re not concerned with overall music communities, they live and die by sales and just don’t have to care.

We have the strongest policies against AI sounds and images of any music platform that we’re aware of. AI isn’t just stealing from artists by training using their work. Bad actors (which includes the music platforms themselves!) are also impersonating them online, and everyone’s future will involve lots of time spent trying to figure out if you’re dealing with a real person. We think that helping artists fight back against the threat of AI is central to our mission, so what today is “AI is not allowed” will grow into resources and advocacy.

Underneath it all, we’re structured different: Ampwall is a Public Benefit Company founded and built by people who release music and tour, so we’re all deeply invested in building something sustainable that serves the arts, not investors seeking huge returns. Everyone making decisions is a musician using Ampwall for their own work and is committed to the mission. I was our original user, I built the first proof-of-concept around my own new album, and we’re always adding features that we ourselves want to see and use. As a PBC we can ensure that anyone who gets involved in the future will be on board with this mission.

We take a lot of pride in being accessible, transparent, and collaborative. We’re fanatical about tech support and try to respond to everything very, very quickly. Our main community channel is a decently sized Discord server that’s primarily filled with our artists. We chat a lot about what we’re building, get feedback on ideas, brainstorm on feature requests, do tech support, and share a lot of the struggles (technical, professional, and personal) that go into making this thing happen. Our community is arguably one of the best parts of Ampwall and something that nobody else has like we do.

We believe that the sustainability of our platform is crucial, so we’re trying to avoid the “grow-at-any-cost” mindset that pressures tech companies to raise a ton of money then run at a deep loss. This means that while we’re free for fans to use, we charge a small yearly subscription fee to artists. It’s best to compare us to Bandcamp Pro, but unlike their $10/month fee we start at a comically low $10/year (that’s like $0.83/cents per month). This lets us ensure that the platform’s cloud costs are covered, helps us keep our transaction fees low, and lets us invest energy in building things that simply bring joy but might not directly bring in revenue. It also lets us avoid a ton of spam and abuse that fills free-to-upload products; long term, we expect this will keep Ampwall’s content higher quality while others fill up with AI spam.

Do you consider Ampwall to be a Bandcamp alternative?

Absolutely. As far as we’re concerned, we were the first direct competitor to Bandcamp to enter the market and match them nearly feature-for-feature. We’re at or beyond feature parity with their Bandcamp Pro subscription feature in most ways and we’re chipping away at the areas where they still have a technical lead. They had an almost-20-year head start and they benefit from immense resources as a borderline monopoly in this domain. Calling back to my intro to your last questions about comparing us to other platforms, we’re really proud of the immense progress we made with a tiny team in a very short amount of time.

What have been the biggest obstacles when building Ampwall?

Maintaining engagement is a tough one. Much like being in a band and releasing a new album, we see again and again that you can do great work and you can put it out into the world but if you don’t put in the work to get it in front of people, it won’t reach its potential. And on top of that, the way you get it in front of people matters a lot. This is stuff that everyone struggles with, it’s not unique to Ampwall, but when you’re competing with a few very dominant corporations in an underserved domain, it gets even harder.

As artists, we’re all used to this argument that we need to be constantly releasing, constantly driving engagement on social media, constantly fighting for relevance and space in the various algorithms. This is all true in Ampwall’s position, too. I’m very confident as a software engineer and when working with our users to solve problems. I’m not great at marketing. As a result, Ampwall’s growth has been slower than it needed to be, maybe, because there are only so many hours in the day and I’ll always prioritize building something to help people over everything else. (Just look at how long it took me to deliver this interview to you!)

If you ask me, this sense that we must constantly remind those around us that we exist is one of the most dehumanizing parts of being a musician in 2025. It’s antithetical to the way so many of us want to create and share our art. Finding ways to help artists break out of this cycle is one of the big goals for Ampwall.

Fortunately, we’ve made a lot of friends who are more than happy to help fill our skills. One of our earliest users is running all of our social media and doing a phenomenal job by focusing on promoting our artists, not just Ampwall as a platform. Some of our earliest users are now moderators in our Discord server. We’ve had a lot of people reach out to contribute to design. And in general there’s just this sense of support and optimism in every area where our users hang out that’s incredibly uplifting.

What does the on-boarding process look like for artists? 

There are a few quick steps. You create a free user account, and we recommend you join as a person instead of your band/label since you can add multiple artists under one account. Then you sign up for a subscription, it’s $10/year to start uploading music, and we do this so we can keep our transaction fees low and give equal attention to features that aren’t directly tied to selling stuff. After that, you connect a PayPal account, and then you can add your band/artist page, upload images, music, merch, etc,… like you’d expect with any direct sales platform.

There are a lot of areas that are optional but highly encouraged. Going back to the Discord server I mentioned earlier, it’s really phenomenal. Anyone who subscribes or makes a purchase is able to join. It’s full of people from all over the world who are making music. A ton of friendships have been made, people collaborate on work, they share mixes, they seek advice, they buy each other’s records. It’s an extremely fun and positive space. 

What can fans expect from Ampwall at this time?

Our fan experience is an area where we’re devoting a lot of energy right now. Our listening experience on the site is great; our audio player follows you as you browse, so you can explore without having to leave a tab open or wait for a song to finish. You can create a profile and customize it, share your library, create lists of albums for curation purposes. We launched playlists recently, too. I’m working on a mobile app right now (literally open in another window behind this doc!) and we have big plans to create a world-class experience.

What’s on the roadmap for the platform? 

We spent the first two years very focused on features for artists, reaching and exceeding feature parity with Bandcamp. Now we’re working more on the fan experience. We’ve got the aforementioned mobile app, we’ve been revamping our search and discovery experiences, we’re going to redo our homepage, and we’re looking for ways to make it easier for someone to find something to listen to no matter what page they land on. There’s a lot of stuff that we’re excited about but I can’t talk about it yet, of course, though we are very open about progress and challenges in our Discord. Anyone who’d like to get involved should sign up and join us there!

What changes in the digital music landscape do you see over the next 5 years? 

People are burnt out on large platforms owned by large corporations. We’ve seen some interest in decentralized tech and platforms, some more successful than others. I think we’re likely to see some amount of fragmentation: more small sites, services, and platforms that cater to specific communities as opposed to cacophonous “everyone you know is there” platforms. For artists, this would mean the return of official websites, message boards, chatrooms that bring together communities and serve them.

AI is going to accelerate this. I sound like such a doomer but I think we’re on the cusp of the Internet becoming completely unrecognizable as AI imposters flood everything. We’ll need new ways to verify that the people we’re talking with are actually people, that the music is actually human. In my opinion, platforms with a heavy community focus that involve real-world interaction will be the most powerful way to fight back.  

What in your opinion are the biggest challenges for music artists atm?

Cutting through the noise and finding your community always stands out to me. This isn’t something new but it is getting more challenging as music production becomes easier and more accessible (a good thing as long as we exclude AI) and discovery becomes more ad-driven and algorithmic (a bad thing for artists who aren’t gaming the algorithms). This has downstream effects on the economics of being a music artist who’s trying to survive or even break even on albums and tours. The emergence of AI adds to this pressure substantially as bad actors and the platforms themselves (Spotify) sprint towards AI sound to “content” at the expense of working human artists.

Not to sound like a broken record but this is why we see our mission as building thriving communities above all else. Everyone coming from a DIY scene, especially folks who remember a time before social media, knows that independent scenes are powerful incubators for the people who participate in them. We think that no music platform has really captured the full scope of what it means to be part of a music scene. Some get close but there’s a lot more that can be done.

What are you listening to at the moment? 

I tend to fixate on a small number of albums at a time, listening on repeat pretty heavily while I work. I listen to a lot of music from Ampwall, naturally: I love basically everything yk Records releases especially this really fun album by Dave Paulson called “Sandusky, Ohio”,  the new Weeping Sores (which I did co-produce but I just love it so much), Gelwaz, Am I in Trouble?, and a lot of others. Outside of that, I’m all over the place. I listen to Caroline Polachek constantly, she’s basically my number one dream Ampwall artist. I love “Hounds of Love” and can loop that for days at a time. I’ve been listening to the early Metallica albums more than usual. The new Japanese Breakfast. Finnish funeral doom legends Shape of Despair. Depends on the day!

Where can people follow you and/or Ampwall? 

You can sign up for Ampwall via ampwall.com and during that process, you can choose to join our mailing list which we use sparingly. On social media, we’re most active on Bluesky as @ampwall.com and Instagram as @ampwall. Once you’ve subscribed to Ampwall or made one purchase, you can join our Discord (there’s a button at the top of the screen) and our whole team hangs out there all day every day. We post frequent candid updates about what we’re up to and we work closely with our community to get feedback, prioritize work, and test features before they get announced to the world. Anyone can also email me any time, chris@ampwall.com, and they can reach our general contact box at hails@ampwall.com.