MUSIC INTERVIEW: DIGITOUR 2011

The Musical Stars of YouTube Come Out to Play at The El Rey in Los Angeles, CA

On April 12th, The DigiTour, a history-making event, kicked off at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. The DigiTour is the first ever nationwide tour of musicians who have made careers for themselves on YouTube. For six weeks, they will tour the country, giving fans a chance to see their favorite YouTube stars live.  

 

Buzzine's Tanya Bershadsky talked with The Gregory Brothers (aka AutoTune The News), MysteryGuitarMan (Joe Penna), Dave Days, DeStorm, Ricky Ficarelli, and Nice Peter about what this means for YouTubers, how they feel about this tour, and how they got started. From some humble beginnings, amazing statsitics and careers have grown: Combined, the stars of DigiTour have a YouTube fanbase of close to seven million subscribers and more than one billion video views. Yep, billion.

 

If any of that translates into ticket sales (and it surely will), we can all look forward to seeing a lot more tours like this in the very near future.  

 

Dave Days Interview:

 

Tanya Bershadsky: How did you get started on YouTube?

 

Dave Days: I got started on YouTube in about 2007. I was working at Chick-Fil-A at the time, and I was on summer vacation, and there would be nights where I’d be just bored, hanging out. And I was watching videos, and I saw people getting views and subscribers, and I thought it was crazy how people could just post videos of themselves and get views and subscribers, and I started playing around with this whole video thing, and I started using Windows MovieMaker and posted a few videos. It didn’t really pick up until I posted more music videos and started experimenting more, but I started randomly one night, just having fun and playing around.

 

TB: Did you have a goal when you started?

 

DD: No. Well, I really wanted to get featured on YouTube, because every day, back then, there would be a new featured video. So I even made a YouTube song and I was like, “Oh, I hope I get featured, that would be so cool.” But that never happened, so…

 

TB: It didn’t?

 

DD: No. I failed. I never got featured. It’s still a dream of mine. I’m still waiting for that to happen.

 

TB: Did you have a video that crossed you over to YouTube fame?

 

DD: I’ve been doing it for like three years, and each video is different, really. They all have helped in different ways. The first one that hit a million was when I had like 10,000 subscribers. It was a picture of a girl and a girl’s legs, and it looked kind of sexual and it was called “Oh My God, This Girl’s So Hot.” But then when you clicked it, it was me, and I had this song and it was me calling them a pervert for clicking it, and it was a whole song. That was my first video that really jumped me up. But then I did these other videos that were parodies of Miley Cyrus songs, and they were like a rock version and they had a cardboard cut-out of Miley in them. And then eventually Disney contacted me and asked me to be in a video with Miley. Well, they said, “Hey Dave, we can do a video with Miley in your video.” And I was like, “What? All right.” So I did that, and the whole process really jumped it up.

 

TB: Was that Miley video your biggest rock-star moment, or was there something bigger?

 

DD: I’d say that was probably it, yeah. Because nobody really expected it, and at the end it was like, “Whoa, Miley Cyrus did this? In the same room? This is not good.”

 

TB: Tell me about being a part of DigiTour.  What do you expect will happen from this?

 

DD: I’ve never really toured. I’ve played shows in middle school and high school. A tour is definitely a new thing for us, especially YouTubers, so I don’t know how it’ll all pan out, but I think it’ll be a great learning experience for all of us, personally, business-wise, and all aspects, really. And I’m just excited to hit the road and live on a bus for six weeks with 12 other people. I don’t know how that’s gonna go, but I’m really excited about the whole experience.

 

TB: You’re taking it from your bedroom to a stage. What can people get in real life that they can’t get on their computer?

 

DD: Ear damage. Because I usually do a lot of rock music in the videos, to me, I feel like bringing it to a live performance is even more intense because I love that kind of music, and I love going to concerts. Whenever I go, I get all inspired, so I’m really excited to be able to play my music at a venue and not just off a computer screen or a YouTube video.

 

TB: I don’t know if you know this or not, but I asked on Twitter if they had any questions for you guys, and they asked if you were going to tour internationally. Australia particularly… 

 

DD: I know, I feel bad. Whenever I post a video saying like, “Hey guys, going on tour,” all the international people are like, “Do an international tour, please…”

 

TB: Have there been any plans for that, or do you think you’ll do that in the future?

 

DD: I’d love to do that, because I went to Australia one time, and I had like a little meet-up, and normally, if we’re having a meet-up in L.A., it’s like 40, 50 people. I went to Australia and there were over 300 people, out of the blue. It was crazy. I’d love to go internationally because I’d love to visit U.K… Pretty much every country. If I can name them all, every country.

 

TB: Are there any Internet rumors about you that you want to clear up right now?

 

DD: If you hear the show, there’s a funny little thing that we do about that. But I don’t know, are there rumors?

 

TB: I don’t know. Are there any you want to start?

 

DD: I’m really handsome and have huge muscles. It could be a rumor. I don’t know. They won’t believe that.

 

TB: Do fans ask you for autographs now?

 

DD: It does happen from time to time.

 

TB: Has anyone asked you to sign anything weird, and did you do it?

 

DD: I have signed a few weird places. I signed someone’s forehead, I’ve signed someone’s upper chest. I haven’t signed anyone’s…

 

TB: Underage or overage?

 

DD: Overage. Um-hmm, yes, of course. I guess those are the craziest places. I’ve signed one guy’s side, randomly. Just random places. But nowhere too crazy.

 

TB: Any word you want to end this interview on? Like, what’s your favorite word?

 

DD: Gosh, my favorite word is “fair dinkum.” It’s an Australian word.

 

 

Mystery Guitar Man Interview:

 

TB: How did you get started on YouTube?

 

Mystery Guitar Man: I wish I knew. I tried to discover how I got started on YouTube, but I don’t know because I found one piece of evidence that was one e-mail at 3:40 in the morning that was like, “You have signed up for Mystery Guitar Man.” So I have absolutely no clue why I signed up for Mystery Guitar Man or what I was thinking at the time. But hey, it worked out.

 

TB: Did you have any goals in mind when you started?

 

MGM: Not really. I didn’t have any goals in mind when I got started. I started doing it just for fun. Everybody had a YouTube account, I just signed up for an account just to subscribe to people, keep up with the videos on there, and eventually I was like, “I guess I’ll start posting videos too.” And I started posting dumb little videos of me going to the store: “Hey, guys, check me out next time, when I go to the store!” That kind of stuff.

 

TB: Things happened pretty quickly for you, right? What do you think it was about your videos that got made you so successful?

 

MGM: Things happened really quickly for me, and like two or three years ago I was sleeping on people’s couches and going to soup kitchens [laughs], and borrowing money from my dad every once in a while, so yeah, I was in a really bad situation, but eventually, things started picking up, and I think it was just persistence. And then also getting on a schedule -- telling people, “Every Tuesday, every Thursday I’m going to have a video ready, except for this Tuesday because we’re doing this thing…” So I think that’s one of the reasons too.

 

TB: Did you have a particular video or song that pushed you forward to YouTube fame?

 

MGM: The first video that kind of got me going was called “Guitar Impossible,” and it’s a video that’s now up to like 12 million hits. But I got like a million hits overnight because it got featured on the YouTube home page because they had editors back then that picked out really good videos. So it was a video that I spent, like, two or three days non-stop just editing over and over and over again until I got it perfect. And then I put it up, went to sleep, and when I came back, it had like 500,000 hits, which was huge for my channel back then. So that’s how I got started on YouTube as a career.

 

TB: What do you think doing this tour is going to do for your audience?

 

MGM:  One thing that I always like to do in my videos is connect with my audience. I find ways for them to send in pictures or… Right now I’m sending them a bunch of stickers, and I’m going to hide them all over the world and I’m going to put them all on a map and tell people to go find it. So I think that doing this tour is really going to help me connect with my audience, really get to actually meet people, because sometimes you can forget that there are actually people on the other side of those numbers on the bottom of the videos. [Laughs]

 

TB: This is tour is taking you out of your bedroom and onto the stage. What can we get on stage that we can’t get from your videos?

 

MGM: I usually spend, like, 16, 17 hours perfecting a video, getting the perfect take, and then getting the edits just right, two or three frames… So on stage, it’s a lot different, and I can’t do after effects on stage. So I’m figuring out different ways where I can do live stop-motion or live looping, which is something I do a lot in my videos. So I’m going to translate that in a way that’s fun to be on stage.

 

TB: I asked on Twitter if they have any questions for you guys, and the number one question was: Do you want to go overseas with the tour, whether with DigiTour or without? Do you have any plans for that?

 

MGM: I’ve been overseas a lot. Whenever I go to whatever country for whatever reason -- it might be a meeting or something -- I always do a little meet-up with my fans, and we had one in Munich in Germany, we had one in Bali and in Fiji. [Laughs] And all these people always show up, like around 10, 12 people if it’s a really far away country. So we’ll see how this first DigiTour round goes. And I hope we’ll be able to go overseas one day.

 

TB: When you go over there, do you play? Or do you just do meet-ups?

 

MGM:  No, just do a meet-up where people get to come and say hi and things, or usually I set it up right near a movie time so we can all watch Rapunzel or something like that.

 

TB: What would you say was your greatest rock-star moment so far?

 

MGM:  The other day I got my first paparazzi, which was kind of creepy. [Laughs] So the guy was like, “Let me take a picture of you,” as I’m getting into my car. I’m like, “No, no, no! No!” and then I punched at his camera, which wasn’t a good idea. [Laughs] 

 

TB: Where did that happen?

 

MGM:     We were just eating sushi, and as we were coming out, some guy was like, “You guys are famous, right?” Like he didn’t know who I was. [Laughs] I guess it was a half-paparazzi moment. But I guess the biggest rock-star moment I ever had was when we were flying to Taiwan and this guy who’s like 8’30” comes up to me and he’s wearing like a suit in the middle of the airport. So he comes up to me and he’s like, “Hey, you!” I’m like, what did I do wrong? He’s going to detain me or something. He goes, “You, you’re the…” And he didn’t speak any English at all, but I’m like, “Oh, yes.” So I pulled out my glasses and put them on, and he goes, “Oh, oh, Mr. Guitar…” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m Mystery Guitar Man.” So that was kind of cool.

 

TB: Are there any Internet rumors you’d like to take the opportunity to get rid of?

 

MGM: Yes, my eyes are not lasers. As much as I want that to be true, my eyes are not lasers. But I do have a button on my glasses that, if I press it for 30 seconds or more, lasers do shoot out. So that’s the biggest Internet rumor that I want to clear up today.

 

TB: Do people ask you for autographs now?

 

MGM:     Yeah, which is kind of crazy. I don’t see myself as a celebrity or famous or anything, but people come up to me and they’re like, “Oh my God!” Which is cool.

 

TB: Are there any strange things you’ve signed?

 

MGM:     Upper thighs is something strange that I’ve had to sign. Upper chests. Mostly upper things, which is really good, because now I have a fiancé so I need to stick to the uppers. [Laughs]

 

 

Ricky Ficarelli Interview:

 

TB: Tell us how you got started on YouTube…

 

Ricky Ficarelli: It only started about 11 months ago. I put up my first video, and my second video was a cover of Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” I’m a drummer, but I do drum covers, and that’s like my little stitch on YouTube, and I just take copies of songs and play drums to them. But I did a drum cover to Justin Bieber, and around the same time, Justin Bieber played drums on like American Idol, or some show to that effect -- I don’t remember which one. But pretty much around that same time, I put up my video. This was all by mistake. Well, good mistake, it turns out. But everyone was searching Justin Bieber drumming, and that’s when my channel really took off and I started getting tons of hits because I was the only one that had a video like that at the time, and the tags were just right and all great timing.

 

TB: When you started, did you have a goal? Or you just wanted to put your stuff out…?

 

RF: When I started YouTube, I would have to say my goal was I just wanted to play drums and I wanted to just be a musician, and I just hoped, from putting up videos of me playing drums on Youtube, that a gig would come my way, and a gig has. So it’s been great.

 

TB: You’re playing drums on everybody’s shows? On everybody’s set here?

 

RF: I would say I’m the main drummer on the DigiTour. I’m Dave Day’s drummer for his full set, and I’m DeStorm’s drummer for his full set, and then throughout the show, I’m any time someone needs a drummer for just a little thing here and there, they grab me. [Laughs)

 

TB: Let’s talk about joining DigiTour? What do you think this is gonna accomplish?

 

RF: I think this is really a breakthrough, great idea, because so many people watch all these big YouTube guys, and you never see them live. And I think that this whole DigiTour idea really has the potential to be something great -- something like Vans Warped Tour or any of those big festivals -- Bamboozle… I really feel like, in maybe four or five years, or even a few years, this can really take off as something that is really branded and has a name for itself. 

 

TB: This all happened for you very recently, thanks to Justin Bieber…

 

RF: Thank you, Justin Bieber. Bieber Fever. [Laughs] 

 

TB: Have you had any rock-star moments yet?

 

RF: Yeah, it’s really crazy, just being on this tour and from all my subscribers and all this. I’ve had time… I would say the best feeling is just like when you’re walking around somewhere, like in L.A. or wherever I am -- California, Florida, wherever I’ll be -- I’ll be walking around some mall, maybe I’ll be at some store buying something, and then they’ll be like, “Oh, you’re that kid that plays drums on YouTube. I watch your videos all the time,” and it’s just like, “Wow, cool! [Laughs] You know who I am, that’s crazy.” 

 

TB: Have people asked you to sign autographs?

 

RF: Yeah, I’ve signed autographs and stuff, and [laughs] I’ve done that a lot lately, and it’s just like, “You want my autograph?” And I had to work one out. I didn’t really have one until like a month ago because I never thought I’d have to sign anything.

 

TB: Is it crazy? Is it a crazy autograph?

 

RF: It’s just a big R and then I-C-K-Y, and then I put a little heart on the I because, you know, for the ladies. [Laughs] If it’s a guy, I won’t put the heart. Just kidding. I don’t care. [Laughs]

 

TB: Do you have any idols that you’d really like to play with?

 

RF: I love Hip Hop and Rap, and I idolize myself after Travis Barker a lot. I really look up to him, so if I could play with somebody like Lil Wayne or Rick Ross or Kanye West, or any of the big rappers like that, that’s the goal. If I could be a drummer for an awesome Hip Hop artist…

 

 

The Gregory Brothers Interview - Andrew, Sarah, Evan & Michael:

 

TB: Before we start, since there’s so much going on, is there anything in particular you want me to ask you about? Because you just won an award…

 

Michael Gregory: We’re in a development deal with Comedy Central for a pilot.

 

Evan Gregory: That’s a ways out, though.

 

Sarah Gregory: It’s a little nugget.

 

EG: It’s not a show yet.

 

SG: Not a show yet, the tour’s mainly, obviously, the big thing.

 

TB: Tell us how you guys got started on YouTube…

 

SG: It was a dark and stormy night…

 

MG: I heard of this site called YouTube, where you can put up videos, and I didn’t believe it existed, but then I put up a video. So I proved that it existed just by having my own video on there.

 

EG: It must have been seen by two, three people -- moms included.

 

MG: It was at least two or three dozen. It was way more than two or three.

 

SG: That’s true. Come on, Evan, be fair.

 

EG: But then we kind of kept at it, and eventually dozens and dozens of people saw our videos.

 

MG: Excluding moms.

 

TB: When you started, did you have a goal for putting videos up? Why did you post them?

 

MG: I’ve never thought about that before.

 

EG: We never had any grand design that our videos would follow some long-term arc. We mostly just wanted to make music that we thought was catchy and make jokes that we thought were funny, and it was kind of for our own amusement. But then as it caught on, we just put more and more effort into it.

 

SG: In particular, we were all watching the news together one day and realized that we were really bored, we were falling asleep, and even more specifically, we weren’t dancing. So we thought that was a real problem and one that we could fix.

 

MG: That was a major problem with the news. It did not have a baseline, and that’s a really bad problem. So just imagine you’re watching the news and all of a sudden it’s like [sings], “bow-bom-bom,” and you’re like, [singing] “Yeah!” And then you start thrusting your pelvis. That’s the way that the news should be. So we thought that we could fill that gap. We had to do what we had to do. We had to do what the universe wanted us to do.

 

TB: Can you tell us what video pushed you over the edge? What song – how did that happen?

 

SG: There were a couple of really important milestones in our online journey. I would say the first one that really put us on the map was “Auto Tune the News #2.” Rachel Maddow liked the video and picked it up and put it on her show, and from then on, it was just a little bit higher each time.

 

MG: This last summer, we crossed a larger viral threshold with our song, “The Bed Intruder Song,” which was a collaboration with Antoine Dodson from Huntsville, Alabama. So the song that we co-wrote with him, based on an interview that he gave in a local news interview, became a big YouTube hit and eventually migrated its way over to the conventional billboard charts.

 

TB: Wasn’t there a double rainbow somewhere?

 

SG: You cannot forget the Double Rainbow.

 

MG: That was sort of the video that inspired us to cross over from the world of just auto tuning the news to auto tuning fantastic moments that are happening in the world around us, and I suppose, to some degree, led up to the “Bed Intruder Song.”

 

TB: Let’s talk about DigiTour. Why did you guys agree to do it? What do you think this is going to turn into or do for you?

 

MG: We’re really excited about DigiTour because lots of our fans don’t really know that we exist and are real people. They think that we are CG apparitions on the screen that…

 

EG: Just exist on the glowing screen…

 

MG: Yeah, we just had a million dollar budget and animated it all. But really, we’re real people. And so if they come to concerts, then they’ll see us in 3D and know that we really exist.

 

SG: I’m mostly excited for DigiTour because I often envision our fans bopping their heads and shaking their booties in their office cubicles, and I just want to see that live. I just really want to check out all of our fans’ booty-shakes.

 

TB: How about that tour bus? How do you feel about that? Have you toured before, or is this your first time?

 

SG: We have toured before.

 

MG: I have a feeling that the hum of the motor is going to make us feel like we are in our mother’s womb. We are going to sleep better than ever before…and hopefully therefore sing better than ever before.

 

EG: Honestly, the tour bus is fly. That’s the number one reason we went on the tour, because when we toured in the past, it was in a minivan with the four of us and all of our gear and a PA, with no air conditioning. And we booked all of our own shows and drove from place to place and slept on floors and had, frankly, a very fun time. But the benefits of being in a tour bus that has its own bathroom are not to be sneezed at.

 

MG: Another amazing thing about the tour bus -- I don’t think a lot of people know this -- but it actually has its own special P.O. Box that travels with the tour bus, just for Netflix movies. So I have my subscription to 12 Netflix movies at a time. They’re just going to be delivered in the middle of the night, in the morning, in the afternoon, directly to the bus from whence I return them.

 

TB: Have you guys had rock-star moments? What’s been the greatest…?

 

S: Tell the story about respect. My favorite rock-star moment actually happened to the guys, not me. [Laughs]

 

EG: We occasionally get recognized by fans now and again, and oftentimes it’s folks asking for a picture or something like that. But one of our favorite moments happened on the subway in New York when a young gentleman came up to Michael and myself and, without any mode of introduction, simply came up to us and said, “Your music, I respect it. Your videos, I respect it. Everything ya’ll do, I respect it,” and then he left.

 

MG: I actually had, I felt like, my very first rock-star moment today. We’re on tour with a couple of other musicians that have been on much, much larger and much more legitimate tours than we’ve ever been on, and Alex, our guitar player, and I were leaving the green room to go out to the bus to grab some stuff off the bus. And I hung a right out of the green room to walk out the front door of the venue, “Hey, let’s go to the bus out the front door,” and Alex is like, “No, no, Andrew,” and just opened up the emergency fire door to walk out to the bus. And when I walked out that emergency fire door towards the bus, I sort of thought, “This is it. This is my first rock star moment right here. I’m just going out the fire door. Going out the fire door to the bus.”

 

SG: I think your next rock-star moment is gonna be after the show when that emergency fire door is lined with fans screaming your name!

 

MG: I’m scared!

 

EG: Oh no!

 

SG: We have a guy doing security for us on the tour. That’s pretty rock-star. 

 

MG: He’s freaking huge.

 

SG: I feel so secure on this tour.

 

TB: Do you want to talk about the award you just won?

 

SG: Talk about rock star moments…one of mine is that we just won a Comedy Award from Comedy Central. Hello!

 

EG: That’s a TV channel known for musicians.

 

MG: And known for rock stars…

 

SG: [Laughs] I’m using rock-star in the broader sense of the word.

 

EG: Understood. We won an award that was presented to us by Will Ferrell, and that was pretty cool.

 

SG:  Pretty awesome.

 

EG: The title of the award was the Comedy Award 2011 for Best Viral Original, and that of course was given to us for the “Bed Intruder Song.” 

 

TB: Any Internet rumors about you guys that you want to dispel right now?

 

SG: To set the record straight, I am not a literal brother. I am a sister-in-law to Michael and Andrew, and a wife to Evan. But I feel like I hold and earned an honorary title of Brother, and that is why we are The Gregory Brothers.

 

Andrew Gregory: The main Internet rumor that I would want to dispel is that, as you can see today, we’re better looking than our Wikipedia picture. The picture was taken after three days of not sleeping…

 

SG: [Laughs] You’re right.

 

AG: Of driving around in a dirty van and not showering. And for some reason, that’s the picture that Wikipedia editors have decided best portrays us. But that is false.

 

EG: That is a good point. I was trying to think of maybe some rumors we could start. The only thing that came to my mind was, I’d just like to throw out there that Sarah is an angel that fell from heaven.

 

SG: Thank you, honey.

 

EG: [Laughs] I think they covered everything.

 

 

NicePeter Interview:

 

TB: Tell us how you got started on YouTube.

 

NicePeter: I hooked up with a company called Maker Studios. They kind of discovered me. I was a pretty frustrated musician, pretty frustrated comedian, and I was kind of banging my head against the wall. That’s how I always describe it to people, like just walking and trying to get through a wall that you can’t. And they found me and they turned me the other direction, and they gave me some guidance and support, and they opened up the world of YouTube to me. And I remember the first time YouTube opened up to me was the first time I noticed somebody put the word ‘first’ on my comments on a video. And that’s when I realized, oh this is a live experience. This is actually happening. That kid was excited to be the first person to comment on this new video I put up. And that was a real awakening to me. And I guess the second time it really opened up to me was when somebody left me a comment that said, “Make vlogs,” and then I made a vlog. So we started a conversation; they said something, I said something back to them. And that was about a year ago, and that conversation has not stopped, and it’s grown into a really big conversation, and it’s a lot of fun.

 

TB: How did Maker Studios find you?

 

NP: Maker found me through a young man named Lloyd Ahlquist, who runs a comedy theater in Santa Monica called the Westside Comedy Theater. And they were looking for writers, I think, and he sent me that notice, and I submitted some scripts and they were terrible. But they found one of my songs that I had performed, and they thought that was pretty funny, so they brought me on to write and record music, and it took off from there.

 

TB: Do you have a song or video that pushed you from nobody to Internet fame?

 

NP: My first big hit on YouTube was a song called “Shaycarl and the Shaytards,” and they’re a family who vlogs about their life every day, and they have about a half a million people watching them every day. And I was really inspired by them, truly. And I didn’t just want to write the song because they were a big deal -- I really appreciated what they were doing. And I wrote this song, and they ended up using it on their vlog, so all of a sudden, in this one day, half a million people saw me singing a song about their favorite family in the entire world. So they started coming over to my channel and checking me out, and that was a big day. I was at a party… And I used to get e-mails on my BlackBerry every time I got a new subscriber, and that day I got 10,000 e-mails, and it was pretty ridiculous.

 

TB: Do you have any idols or people you look up to?

 

NP: In case you can’t tell just by looking at me, I really look up to Mystery Guitar Man. I’ve stolen his glasses bit -- it protects you from the harsh lights. So I really look up to Mystery Guitar Man because he taught me how to reach beyond myself and make videos that I didn’t know I could make yet. So he makes things that haven’t been done yet, and it really inspired me to make videos that I couldn’t do yet. So I started growing as an artist, growing as a musician, growing as an editor, and that helped me out a lot. So I’d say I look up to him quite a bit. There’s a comedian named KassemG, who kind of was my Obi Wan Kenobi of YoutTube, and showed me the ropes and showed me how to be more confident in myself, and how to just say what I wanted to say, and the people that like it will listen. The people that don’t like it, I don’t really want to talk to them anyway.

 

TB: So your dream is coming true tonight – performing with Mystery Guitar Man…

 

NP: Yes, in a way. Honestly, my dream came true two days ago at a dress rehearsal because I got Mystery Guitar Man to say, “Wow,” at something that I had done, and that was pretty neat. I built him this little effects pedal for his light gimmick. And just to be able to sit there and work with him -- someone who I had learned so much from, to be able to show him something was a dream-come-true for me. So yeah, that was really exciting. And to be performing with him tonight, that’s just ridiculous. But if I take my life a year ago and compare it to what I’m doing right now, yeah, it’s a dream-come-true in its own way.

 

TB: Let’s talk about joining DigiTour…

 

NP: DigiTour is amazing. It’s something that came together better than I ever could have anticipated. I’m really only a special guest on a couple of shows, and I really wish I was going along with them for the whole tour. But it’s exciting. They have tour buses, we’re at a huge venue, we’re doing interviews... For someone like me, who was always kind of a homegrown musician -- I was playing in the Midwest at little dive bars and stuff -- to be on this kind of tour is really exciting. And a lot of these people have never performed live before, and a lot of this audience has never seen a live performance before. You’ve got computer nerds on both sides coming together in the real world, and it’s pretty exciting.

 

TB: Have you toured before?

 

NP: I have. That was what I did. This is me actually returning to my comfort zone. I used to perform live for eight or nine years -- that was all I did. So I’m new to YouTube, and it’s cool to cross those two worlds together here. 

 

TB: Any internet rumors you’d like to dispel?

 

NP: No, I’d like them to keep circulating.

 

TB: Would you like to start any?

 

NP: Crocodile Dundee is not actually from Australia -- he’s from Germany. That was this rumor me and my friend started a couple of years ago. It didn’t take off. So no, I don’t have any Internet rumors about myself, I don’t think.

 

TB: Do people ask you for autographs?

 

NP: Oh yeah. Even before the show started, there were some kids outside who asked for an autograph. And what’s great about YouTube audiences -- they’re a lot different than your conventional rock and roll audiences, because they really just want to say “hi” to you. When you’re a YouTuber and you’re doing these vlogs and these videos for people, it’s not so much that you’re a big superstar and they’re fans; it’s that you’re kind of their friend, and you’re there and you make them happy every week, and they make you happy every week. So it’s really kind of a relationship that you’ve built, so it’s not the typical star-struck reaction, and it’s cool. It’s like saying “hi” to someone that you’ve always wanted to meet, on both directions. Because sometimes people say their screen name and I’m like, “Oh, I recognize…yeah, you leave great comments.” So I like signing autographs, I like saying “hi” to people, and I like seeing the expression on their face when they recognize you, and they see you in real life and they realize that you’re a real person, not just a person on the computer screen. You’re not just this big. I saw John Cusack in real life once, and it was pretty weird, but it was pretty cool too.

 

TB: Was he shorter than you thought?

 

NP: No, but his head was huge. Enormous head. I hope I don’t have that big of a head. I think that makes you look good on camera, actually, when you have a big head. I think it plays well.     I have a tiny head, so I’ll never be in the movies. I’ll get over it.

 

 

DeStorm Power Interview:

 

TB: Is there anything you want to talk about or not talk about?

 

DeStorm Power: We can talk about whatever, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about my momma, I don’t want to talk about my finances, and that’s it. Those are the only two things I don’t want to talk about, but you can talk about whatever the hell you want.

 

TB: Tell us how you started on YouTube…

 

DP: I was working in New York City as a musician, writing songs for mainstream artists. I read an article about YouTube —  I was actually just using YouTube as a storage device to store videos. And then I saw other people were doing it, I said, “Wait a minute, these people are not doing something that I can’t possibly do.” So I started a lot of random things, and then it just came together and I started to grow on YouTube.

 

TB: Who were you writing music for?

 

DP: I was writing music for Trey Songz when he first started, I met I mean a few of Whitney Houston’s A&Rs and we were going to do some writing with her. So quite a few people over at Atlantic and Universal, so it was pretty cool.

 

TB: Did you have a goal when you started posting videos?

 

DP: When I first started posting videos, my goal was to blow up. I did have a goal…and here I am. I set a goal and stuck to it, yeah.

 

TB: Do you have a particular video or song that sort of pushed you over that edge into YouTube stardom?

 

DP: Not really for me. It was just gradually putting up great content, and then from there just taking that content and just keep on putting up good content, because I knew it would continue to grow. So I wasn’t trying to do viral videos, I was just trying to do great videos.

 

TB: And why do you think you were successful? What is it about your material?

 

DP: A lot of people say it’s my personality, but I don’t know why. I think they have issues. But it’s cool, I accept that. And also, I was on beatbox tracks, and a lot of people weren’t making full-out instrumentals with their voice, so I would take the entire instrumental and the track and the song, and make it with my voice, and I was pumping them out twice a week. So they were pretty impressed. And I learned editing too. I didn’t just have that sideways video, that blurry video or anything like that. So it was pretty cool.

 

TB: You’re taking what you do on a computer to a live stage. What can we expect from you on the live stage we can’t get at home?

 

DP: I am going to be doing life things that they don’t see me do at home. For example, I’m doing a piece called “Random Topic,” in which I’ll help the audience tweet certain things to the DigiTour’s tweet site -- their Twitter -- and I’ll just rap about it, freestyle about it live on stage. You can’t see that at home. [Laughs]

 

TB: I asked Twitter what they wanted to ask you guys the most, and the number one question was: are there any plans to tour internationally, whether with DigiTour or personally. Do you have any plans to do that?

 

DP: If this tour is a success, I want to go international. I am not going to say I’d rather go other than nationally, but my international fans show more love, believe it or not, and I’m ready to rock. If this goes well, which it looks like it’s going to do, I’m ready to go international. All they’ve got to do is just let me know and…I’m gone.

 

TB: What made you join DigiTour? What do you hope to accomplish?

 

DP: My hope for being a part of DigiTour is just to give back to the fans, that’s it. I’m not looking to do anything else but show the fans, show face, because a lot of times you get so much love from the fans via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, but you never get a chance to give back to them. You never get to see them unless they have an event -- one event a year. So now that we can give back, I’m here live to show them love and just try to give all of them some type of attention like they’ve been giving me. That’s it.

 

TB: Have you had any rock-star moments? Have you had anything crazy happen, or awesome…?

 

DP: Because of YouTube, I got to kiss Rosario Dawson. Ooh! Hey Rosario! Where you at? What’s up, girl? No, I got to do that, and Usher grabbed my hat and he rocked it on stage. So I had quite a few moments that people would see as rock-star moments. I didn’t see them as rock-star moments because I’m heading for the stars, baby. I’m just letting you know. You can take that out in post- if you want, but I’m going for the stars. So that’s it, you know? I’m going to try to stay calm. I’m not going to go wild in the interview.

 

TB: Are there any idols that you hope to perform with in the future?

 

DP: In the future, I want to perform with very talented artists. I’m not going to name any particular names…

 

TB: Is there anyone you love, like Prince or whatever?

 

DP: I love Michael Jackson, you know [sounds frustrated]. But there’s a lot of good artists that I would like to perform with, but I don’t have anyone in particular. If they’re good, I’ll perform with them.

 

TB: I haven’t asked anyone else this, but is there any dirt you want to give us on anyone else?

 

DP: They’re all whack. I mean all them… No, I’m just joking. [Laughs] No, they’re all good. Everybody works hard, and I don’t really have any dirt because, before I got into YouTube, I used to say, “What are they doing? They’re just putting these videos up and, oh my God, how can you just do this every day?” But then, after starting to do it, I realized that it is one of the hardest jobs you can possibly have, and I have had 30. It’s tough. 24/7, like 16 hours a day, every day. And it’s real-time responses from the fans. If they hate it, they hate it. If they love it, they love it. It is tough. If anyone’s ever tried to build a YouTube channel, they realized, to get a million fans, it’s one of the toughest things. Even companies -- they put hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it’s so hard. It’s really hard, so I respect every YouTuber. It’s a lot of work.

 

TB: But you love it…

 

DP: I do love it, but it’s a lot of work, and I do love it. I just hate when people try to downplay it, and they don’t realize, so I just look at them like, “I did your job. This is harder.” So it’s tough, yeah.

 

TB: Are there Internet rumors that you want to dispel right now?

 

DP: I’m not getting into drama. [Laughs]

 

TB: No, about you that you want to set straight…

 

DP: Hopefully, after this tour, there’ll be a lot of rumors that I can set straight. We’ll see, but for right now, no, there’s no rumors about me that I don’t know about. I don’t…there’s some relationship rumors. They’re saying I’m dealing with this person or that person. I am single. So ladies who keep saying I’m married, I’m not. Coming to a city near you. [Laughs]

 

TB: Any city you’re looking forward to going to?

 

DP: I can’t wait to get to New York. I can’t wait to go back to Baltimore, since I came up in Baltimore. Doing the South will be fun, Austin over at Emo’s will be fun. All the cities, I’m pretty sure, are going to be very interesting. I guess we’ve just got to wait and see.

 

The first DigiTour appears in 26 US cities between April 26 and May 15, 2011.