Music duo and YouTube stars Pomplamoose visited MTSU for a Q-and-A session with students in the Wright Music Building Thursday afternoon.
The duo have gained a large fan-base by independently recording and releasing covers and original songs to YouTube. Their YouTube channel, PomplamooseMusic, has amassed over 102 million views since 2008, with their most popular video, a cover of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It),” being watched over 10 million times.
Although they were a half hour late for the event due to travel issues, vocalist/bassist Nataly Dawn and multi-instrumentalist Jack Conte answered a vast array of questions from students and staff in the time allotted.
Questions mostly covered the duo’s unorthodox rise to popularity and the business aspects of being an independent artist.
“What Pomplamoose does is very different than what Coldplay is doing,” Conte said. “This a small business version of a band. We’re the Mom ‘n’ Pop corner store of bands.”
Dawn and Conte emphasized that they tried several social networks to expand their fan base, but video was the medium that launched their success. In their words, it was the “spaghetti that stuck to the wall.”
“Try a million things.” Conte said in an interview after the session. “Keep refining your process until something sticks.”
Despite the hard work it takes to be an independent artist, Pomplamoose couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.
“We get to wake up in the morning and go to a recording studio and play bass and piano,” Conte said. “For us, that’s living the dream.”
Pomplamoose will play at Mercy Lounge tonight at 9 p.m. in support of their new album, “Season Two.”
Another version of this article was published by the The Tennesseean.
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