Q&A with musician Dustin Kensrue

Vanderbilt Hustler
The Vanderbilt Hustler: Several of your most popular songs on Spotify have over 3.5 million streams. What do you think of Spotify as a platform in general?
Dustin Kensrue: It sounds like an impressive number, but it doesn’t translate to any sort of monetary compensation worth noting. I think Spotify could eventually be something really helpful for artists, and it already is in certain ways – I’m appreciative of people who are trying to find ways to stream music that isn’t piracy. However, it’s fairly absurd how the views translate to dollars and cents. A lot of the money goes directly to the few major companies that own record labels that the artists never sees.
The larger issue, in a post-Napster world, is that music has been de-valued. People are happy to buy a cup of coffee, buy an app, but they have an idea that music should be free. Changing a mass generational understanding of something is difficult. I think the convenience and mobility of streaming isn’t going to go away, but I’m hopeful that more and more people actually start paying for subscriptions.
VH: Your first album, Please Come Home, came out in 2007 to immediate success, including promotions at several late-night talks shows. What was that experience like? Do you intend to continue to donate album proceeds to charity?
DK: We stopped donating proceeds from records to charity because it was kind of a nightmare. We still try to work with charities through benefit concerts and B-sides that go to charity. We feel fortunate to do what we get to do. Music is a platform to raise awareness about things, and we do a lot of work with Invisible Children.
I had a lot of ideas kicking around for album for awhile that I finally decided to do the night that I finished recording ...


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