WholeWorld Band app gets €2m funding

The WholeWorld Band app, which allows users to record and make music with major rock names using just an iPad or iPhone, has just had a €2 million (Australian $4.2 million) injection in funding. 

The innovative cloud-based free app was founded by Kevin Godley, one time drummer of 10cc and co-founder of Godley & Crème. Godley was one of the pioneers of music video technology in the 1980s, later producing clips for U2, Blur and Bryan Adams. 

Now his technology allows users to make and share music and video with the likes of Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters, Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music and Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart. 

The stars post backing tracks, and users can either build on these or have a jam session with them to create new songs. They pay anything from $1.99 to $17.99 for the privilege and bragging rights. 

The WholeWorld Band app first launched with a £5 million ($10.6 million) aid from investors including former U2 manager Paul McGuinness and major tech names as Cartrawler founder Greg Turley and Trintech’s Cyril McGuire. 

Early users were Stewart Copeland of The Police and David Gray, who worked with thousands of beginners. 

The latest round of investors include one time Digifone boss Barry Maloney and billionaire financier Dermot Desmond. 

This month, Copeland and Public Enemy bassist and producer Brian Hardgroove teamed up in a world-first project to find singers speaking in Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese to collaborate on one track. “This is the world’s biggest audition,” Hardgroove said at Barcelona’s Future Music Forum last month. The call-out, through WholeWorldBand.com, will see the singers perform live with Copeland and Hardgroove. 

Among brands involved in the project are Gibson Brands, which will track the auditions’ progress and post visual and audio entries on its Harmony Central muso website, and microphone maker Sennheisser. 

Hardgroove said that gear manufacturers are the “new record labels”, adding that they to be more innovative-thinking and musician-friendly.