Photos by David Bower
Jess joy was ready to give up making music in 2020. The Los Angeles musician had quit her band Moon Honey after 10 years, and the pandemic left her unemployed. She was feeling the way a lot of independent musicians felt during the shutdown—like their artistic ambitions might not recover. Then, she got a text from Greg Saunier of Deerhoof. “I was not aware of Church of Noise until Greg Saunier texted me,†joy says. “He had nominated me for a grant to help finish my first solo album, PATREEARCHY, and I had won.â€
Founded in 2020 by Joyful Noise Recordings founder Karl Hofstetter as a response to the crisis the pandemic presented to independent music, Church of Noise uses donations to fund no-strings-attached grants to musicians in need. “It’s just a matter of realizing—or fearing—that there might be a lot of really good art and music that will not exist because of this pandemic,†Hofstetter says. “I thought, ‘Let’s try to combat that. Let’s try to make sure as much good art can come out during this time as possible.’†Having run Joyful Noise since 2003, Hofstetter had firsthand experience intervening in these kinds of crises. In 2015, the label released 50 Bands & A Cat, a lathe-cut 7-inch series the proceeds from which went to support Indiana-based LGBTQIA+ groups. A year later they released Thurston Moore and Bernie Sanders’s Feel It In Your Guts, a flexi-disc in support of Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. Two years after that they released Anal Trump’s grindcore compilation The First 100 Songs, sending all proceeds to Planned Parenthood.
When Hoffstetter launched Church of Noise the introduction video stated “in our backwards ass country, independent music has never been publicly funded,†but “churches seem to be the only institutions that our government consistently supports and recognizes.†He had a very serious goal of mutual aid, but his inclination was to pretend to establish a cult for the fun of suggesting that “churches should be fucking taxed†if someone like him can start one. So, he started a church. Hofstetter founded Church of Noise as a 501(c)3 non-profit with a jestful name that placed music in the same stratum as tax-exempt religion.
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Like a real church, Church of Noise collects “tithes,†or donations, from its membership in the form of either one-time tax deductible gifts or monthly support starting at five dollars. But it forgoes all overhead, so that all collections becomes relief aid to fund independent music. The church’s board is known as “elders,†and consists of JNR artists like Saunier, Yoni Wolf of WHY?, C.J. Boyd, Kishi Bashi, and k of Sound of Ceres. Hofstetter set up an open submission form through which artists can apply for grants, while also taking recommendations directly from the church’s elder board. By July of 2020, the early excitement around the non-profit generated four $1000, no-strings-attached grants to musicians.
The first round of funds went to Linqua Franqa, a rapper and activist from Athens, Georgia; Claire Rousay and visual artist Dani Toral’s vinyl LP and artbook project A Softer Focus; Kahiem Rivera, a Brooklyn rapper who used the funds to press his “Cement, Sand†b/w “The Bag†7-inch; and Hanna Benn, an experimental composer and singer. As of this writing, Church of Noise has awarded grants to 31 musicians totaling $31,000 in investments in independent music.
Elder k of Sound of Ceres and Candy Claws says the non-profit received a huge response early on, and that the first round of artists they funded were mostly elder referrals—musicians they’d encountered while touring or knew from their respective local scenes. “It was either people we knew personally who’d been hit really hard by the onset of the Covid pandemic,†says k, “or people we know who’d been looking for a break in the music industry for a while. It [ended up being] a special way to kick it off.â€
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Joy was one of the artists funded in the second round, and used the grant to hire two musicians—harpist Liza Wallace and bassist Davin Givhan—to perform on PATREEARCHY; the grant also went to fund the cost of pressing vinyl. But the impact of the Church of Noise, joy says, extends past financial support and into emotional support as well. “It was incredibly encouraging in such a low period,†joy says. “This was the push I needed to keep making music.â€
For 2024 grant recipient Oreo Jones, the grant came at a time when he’d decided to quit his day job in order to focus on music. The Indianapolis native and member of the rap collective 81355, was going through “a rough patch†in his life when he found out he was the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts grant. He used that grant to fund a trip to Madagascar to take 35mm photos and collect field recordings. Those field recordings were then incorporated into song sketches that became the backbone of his collaborative album with producer Ben Lumsdaine entitled NEPHEW. The grant from Church of Noise paid for the vinyl pressing, and the album was released on the Church’s own label. (Yes, the Church of Noise is also a record label.)
The community care built into Church Of Noise has created opportunities for its grant winners to engage with JNR and its artists. Kishi Bashi lent strings, horns, and synths to “The Tree†on Linqua Franqa’s LP Bellringer, while Linqua Franqa rapped on “Make Believe†from Kishi Bashi’s new album Kantos. Cedric Noel, like jess joy, went from grant recipient to Joyful Noise artist with the release of Hang Time in 2021. Laura Fisher, a 2023 awardee, became a member of jess joy’s live band. When Oreo Jones was finishing NEPHEW, he asked 2020 grant recipient and elder Hanna Benn to add vocals. Benn is one of many former recipients who’ve gone on to become elders, along with jess joy and Karima Walker. (A requirement of 501(c)3 non-profits is that board members must rotate.)
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Since becoming an elder, jess joy has successfully nominated experimental arranger and pianist Laura Fisher; the Afrofuturistic, alternative R&B artist TwoLips; and Baton Rouge beatmaker The South (while also appearing on The South’s new self-titled album) for grants. Her hope is that the non-profit continues to expand into a well-known mutual aid network for experimental artists.
“In my opinion, if it wasn’t for original artists putting out work despite economic challenges, all music and art we consume would be commercial—100% advertisements and fascist propaganda,†joy says. “Original artists are key to preserving and advancing culture and emotional expression. But what happens if capitalism is so crushing and exhausting that artists do not have the resources of energy, time, and money to self-fund and produce their work? We lose so much as a society.â€
Church of Noise is at an inflection point. Membership has waned, and retention has been an issue, which has put a strain on the number of artists who can receive funding each quarter. And while the Church could adjust its model—using a percentage of its donations towards promotion, for instance—Hoffstetter would much rather keep the focus on initiatives that directly impact art and artists. So, in addition to the grants, he’s building a sanctuary in Indianapolis.
On the outskirts of downtown Indianapolis is an arts community locally known as Nobody City. The neighborhood is home to the JNR headquarters, and soon, in a gallery space at the front of their building, there will be an actual church for The Church of Noise. Construction is nearly complete on a Church of Noise temple where both local and touring artists are invited to record in a studio at no charge, and leave with lathe cut pressings of their music. Its most unique feature will be an altar art installation by Jeremy Boyle from Joan of Arc in a room that Hofstetter is calling The Sound Sanctuary: A plant containing receptors that detect changes in its electrical conductivity, and convert those changes into audio. If a person interacts with the plants, waters them, or even shines a light on them, the plant’s living response alters the sound waves. The house plant band is on an infinite live stream, so that even those who can’t visit The Sound Sanctuary will be able to tune in remotely. “It could be your sleep music,†Hofstetter says.
When it opens, The Sound Sanctuary will be free to the public, and Hofstetter says bands invited to record at Church of Noise can manipulate signals from the house plant band to use in their session. “Bands need other things now,†Hofstetter says. “They need a place to get records made. They need a place to experiment. They need a place to listen to Apple fucking surround sound. And we can offer all of that. I see it as a fun way to explore music. To give a peaceful place for people. And to give services to artists.â€
Four years since Church of Noise was founded, the world has returned to some idea of normal: Restaurants and nightlife are back. The American economy is adding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. But even that accepted “normalcy†perpetuates an economy in which independent artists can barely afford the costs of touring, recording, and pressing physical copies of their music. Since lockdown, some venues have tightened the parameters they use to select touring acts; some even taking cuts from artists’ merch sales. Streaming platforms like Spotify are demonetizing their catalog unless an artist meets a threshold of plays. The economy has recovered from the pandemic, but Hofstetter views the crisis of independent music as ongoing. The Church of Noise is “trying to help,†he says, “but we’re not gonna fix the problem.â€
“It’s sad to say, but it’s kind of essential that the public understands that if they care about music they need to support it in the same way that they would support a non-profit,†he says. “I’m not just talking about Church of Noise. Any band. Anyone trying to create things. It’s just so impossibly hard to start something these days.â€
