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They played at Lollapalooza, have opened for Portugal. The Man, and have day jobs as programmers.
Nick Frosst , the Centennial State - beginner of $ 5.5 billionCanadian AI startup Cohere , has been a musician his whole aliveness . He differentiate TechCrunch that once he get down sing , he never exclude up . That ’s still true today . In addition to his full - time line at Cohere , Frosst is also the front piece of Good Kid , an indie rock band composed entirely of coder .
Good Kid is n’t just a grouping of friends jamming on the weekends in someone ’s garage . The band has 2.3 million monthly Spotify listeners and recently played at Lollapalooza . It was appoint for the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciencesbreakthrough radical of the yearat the Juno Awards this year and open for the bandPortugal . The Manwhen it tour Canada last fall .
Good Kid was formed at the University of Toronto in 2015 as a by-line , Frosst say TechCrunch . All of the member were in the computer skill political program except one , guitar instrumentalist David Wood , but they all win over him to alternate . Good Kid launched its first individual , Nomu , at the closing of 2015 . Nomu ’s musical medley sounds like a nod to indie dad rock group Two Door Cinema Club , with Frosst ’s vocals ringing out in a style that could be compared to Bloc Party front humanity Kele Okereke . Both Bloc Party and Two Door Cinema Club are inspirations for the mathematical group .
“ We did n’t really have high hopes for it , ” Frosst admits about releasing that first single . “ We just wanted to create something that we like , instead of recording a bunch of songs . It did much better than we thought it would . ”
Good Kid dropped a handful more bingle until releasing its first ego - titled EP in 2018 . The striation has gone on to release four more albums , the latest of which came out earlier this year .
About a year after the band ’s debut album came out in 2018 , Frosst launchedCoherewith Aidan Gomez and Ivan Zhang . Cohere has since grown into a top - watched startup offer up AI manikin for enterprises . The companyhas raised more than $ 970 million in venture capital from backerslike Salesforce , Nvidia , Cisco , and Oracle , and is presently valued at $ 5.5 billion . Although Good Kid ’s profile has continued to grow , Frosst say that he ’s inside to be able to be a player at that level , but Cohere and working in AI is his tangible career .
“ Cohere is my life ’s work , ” Frosst say . “ I spend the vast absolute majority of my meter [ on ] Cohere and euphony is a affair I get to do and unroll and loosen . ”
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Frosst said find balance between the two has n’t been too difficult . The band meet doubly a calendar week for two - hour practices . When Good Kid goes on spell , the set bangs out a full sidereal day of remote employment — everyone turn as a programmer — from the coach before taking the stage at Nox to play show . Frosst said he actually finger he might be able to center substantially on his workplace for Cohere when they go on tour because it preclude him from having too many meeting .
“ I think they are additive , ” Frosst say . “ I really consider being able to wager euphony assist me with my job at Cohere . It clears my head and gives me a dedicated clock time to focus and makes me a smarter person . ”
But even when the members of the dance orchestra are focused on making music , they are still cogitate about AI . In the band ’s first undivided Nomu , produced years before Cohere was launch , that first call used the melodic phrase “ languages suffer , token unknown , ” a acknowledgment to the tech upon which Frosst ’s ship’s company would one day be found .
When the band got to roleplay on the last Clarence Day of Chicago ’s Lollapalooza festival in August , Frosst say it was an incredible experience . He admitted that prior to that , he actually had never even attended a melodious festival , countenance alone played at one . Good Kid go on at 1:45 p.m. and opened the stage set with its song “ No Time to Explain , ” play just hour before one of the group ’s intake , Two Door Cinema Club , withdraw the stage .
Frosst says he feels thankful to be hold such a successful musical calling without the fear that it wo n’t sour out , a dynamic not common in the music industriousness .
“ make to follow to music for fun , getting to get from creativity and not for career aspirations , I ’m very prosperous to have found myself in this situation , ” he said .
