May 15, 2017

Meet Tris Coffin of 51-Soul and CopperSound Pedals

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tris Coffin.

Tris, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and in 2006 I moved out to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music where I studied Film Scoring and Jazz Composition. On top of a full load and two Majors I worked as a restaurant manager (Downtown Boston) and as a sales associate at an electronics store in Natick. My 90 hour a week work schedule and 15 hour a week school schedule left little time for much else but did give me a solid work ethic.

In 2010 as school was coming to an end I formed an “original music” group, with the best players at Berklee, and named it 51. After 2 years of writing and touring in Europe and India I decided that we should also perform top-40 songs in order to subsidize our Original material. It was a great call and for the first time in my life my music was able to completely support myself and my friends.

Two years later (2014) the group was doing great and I had free time, keep in mind I was used to working all day every day and now I only worked weekends. I decided to start teaching music again and picked up a job at a south shore music store. It was then that I met Alex Guaraldi, a young man who was building effects in his bedroom. I had one of those feelings and told him I would like to fund his project and turn it into a company. So we started a strict 3 day work week and built it from the bedroom to the garage to the second garage. In just a year and a half it has grown to a 4 person team and has been featured on the front of some of the biggest Guitar Magazines in the world.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been a tremendous amount of work. There is no easy road that I have found in life, although both businesses are successful, both also demand 40+ hours a week of work to keep growing. There are always times when a company has to struggle to make a decision, often risking what might seem like to much to lose, however it tends to be those moments when you learn the most in life. I have grown to love the challenges.

Please tell us about 51-Soul and CopperSound Pedals.
51 Soul Specializes in getting a group of people to have a great time! We are interactive and love dancing and performing for folks. As far as what sets us apart; we started as an original group with the best players in Boston, we also love the soul vibe and there’s not a tone of that in Boston. The general seen plays a lot more Rock then we do (not to say we don’t through a few rock tunes in the mix). We, being Jazz players primarily, are great at improvising to fit the mood or event. A lot of groups have a hard time “going with the flow” so to say.

CopperSound Specializes in Boutique Sound Effects. Since the big “Micro Brew” boom the world has been looking for hand built (crafted) anything and everything. I took that idea, applied it to both Companies, and ran with it! When it comes to unique “you can’t find it anywhere else” vibe, both companies deliver 200% of the time!

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I don’t know… I guess I would have loved to meet Alex (CopperSound partner) 6 months earlier so we would be where ever we are going to be 6 months from now? Either way I’d have to say you can’t look back at things with regret. Any lesson learned is just that. If you don’t learn from it and move on it only “slows your roll” (to use some hip lingo).

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