Tired of that same old Spotify playlist from two years ago? When handed the aux at the party, you have no idea what to play. ‘50 Shades’ playlist is too much of a commitment right now. Don’t fret, adptd’s got you covered! Adptd (pronounced like “adapted”) is an up-and-coming music curation platform with the newest music from small artists. This week, I got to sit down and chat with founders of Adptd. Ryan Stensgaard, a fellow University of Scranton student, and his hometown friend, Ben Frigeri from The College of New Jersey to discuss their newest venture into the music realm.
Name: Ryan Stensgaard
School: University of Scranton
Grade: Sophomore
Major: Electronic Commerce
Hometown: Parsippany, New Jersey
Name: Ben Frigeri
School: The College of New Jersey
Grade: Sophomore
Major: International Studies & Spanish
Hometown: Parsippany, New Jersey
HC: Can you tell me what exactly adptd is?
RS: It’s a music curation platform that features mostly experimental, electronic music.
BF: Adptd is the needle in the haystack for you. It finds the music for you. It sifts through the over saturation of music online.
HC: How often do you post?
RS: We try for every day.
HC: how did you guys get started with this?
BF: We were both friends in high school, and we were both kind of thinking about doing it for a while, and we both just ended up texting each other and starting it. It was something that was on both of our minds for a while, so we just had to actually sit down and talk about it.
RS: Yeah, we did band together, and turned out we had the same tastes in music. Ben texted me in the middle of last semester, and we figured why not?
BF: We talked about it over Facetime because we were both in college still. It was around November when we started talking about it, and we launched it in December.
RS: In November when we Facetimed for a couple hours, we opened up a Google Doc and brainstormed about what we really wanted it to be. Over the next couple weeks, we started to actually develop it and establish a framework for our platform.
HC: And where did you guys come up with the idea? Why did you decide to start adptd?
RS: We were brainstorming about it and at first we didn’t really know what our idea was going to be. We wanted a way to put our music interest out to the public. So, we figured we’d base it around a youtube page. Originally we wanted a blog, but that’s for the future. Baby steps for now.
BF: Whenever we had the aux at parties in high school, people would always ask what we’re playing. So, we figured if our friends liked it, maybe other people would like it, too.
HC: Where do you guys find your material in terms of music and pictures for your backdrops?
BF: Soundcloud for music and Instagram for pictures. I follow a couple people that I like because I also have a photography account, and I like their photos a lot.
RS: More of the same for me. Soundcloud for the music, and I usually pick a song based on people I follow. Usually I go on the discover tab to find other things I’d like. I use Instagram for pictures, too. I don’t follow a lot of photographers, but I search using a hashtag (like #vsco).
BF: We have a couple of photographers that we like to use too, small town friends (like @jessica.t.photo and @p.keats on Instagram).
HC: Do you guys have any music aspirations yourselves?
BF: I actually produced for a little while. But until adptd gets running smoothly, I haven’t done that too much. Once it gets set up I would like to do that, or at least work somewhere in music.
RS: Ideally, I would be very happy in the future if I had job somewhere in the music industry, but I’ll see where adptd goes for now. I have DJ equipment, but I’ll maybe try that down the line once I have some time and adptd is more established.
HC: What are your hopes for adptd?
BF: Just to keep growing and being an outlet for good music. It’s hard to say right now.
RS: Yeah, we’re still very early on (like 2 months in), but I like where we’re going. And we’ve been growing pretty steadily. Right now we’re just trying to connect and expand our audience.
BF: Yeah, follow us on social media!
HC: Do you guys take photo/music suggestions?
BF: Yeah, we do. Two of the songs I used for our winter mix were songs my friend showed me, so I’m always down.
RS: We have contact into on our social media. Yeah, by the way check out that winter mix on social media, Ben put a lot of time into that!
And, in case you want to listen or submit picture or music suggestions, here are their social media links!
Instagram: @adptd_music
Facebook: @adptdmusic
Soundcloud: @adptdmusic
Twitter: @adptdmusic
Youtube: @adptd