The School of Greatness - 12 Alex Day: Hacking the Music Industry by Leveraging YouTube to Skip a Record Label

Episode Date: April 4, 2013

Topping the charts of the UK we have a YouTube Star this week on the The School of Greatness. He is a young gun from the United Kingdom currently living in London and he is best known for a a song he wrote and produced called Forever Yours in 2011 that sold over 50,000 copies […]

Episode number 12 with the YouTube musical sensation, Alex Day. Welcome to the School of Greatness. Each week we bring you the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. My name is Lewises, and I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, and former pro athlete. And I'm on a mission to find out how we can all achieve a higher performance in life. Please leave us your comments on iTunes and join us online at schoolofgreatness.com

to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it. Hey, hey, hey, what's up, greats? I hope you are having a fantastic day today. And our next guest is Alex Day. Speaking of days, he's a very creative young musician. He's actually the first musician we've had on School of Greatness. So I'm excited to share his wisdom and information with you. Before I actually talk about some of the cool things he's done, I want to just check in with you guys. I appreciate so

much all the positive comments you guys are leaving over on iTunes and on the site, on all different posts. We've had some amazing guests on here. So if you have any requests for guests or any type of people, any other people that are athletes or business people or musicians or anyone at all, feel free to leave a comment on the blog at schoolofgreatness.com or you can head over to my Facebook page, facebook.com forward slash Lewis Howes and just say, hey, I want you to have this guest on or hey, bring this person on. Just leave some thoughts

or you can also always chat with me on Twitter at Lewis Howes, which many of you have been tweeting the episodes and saying some cool things to me. So it's been fun to interact with you guys there. So please keep the interaction coming. I want to do a quick shout out to our sponsor, which is onnit.com. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com.

And I just did another interview with another friend of mine, Lissa Rankin, who is a medical doctor who had some severe illnesses and learned how to heal herself through the power of her mind. Now, I know that sounds a little crazy, but we'll get into that next week as it's the next episode. Alex Day is a young gun from the UK, currently living in London. And he's best known for a song that he wrote and produced called Forever Yours back in 2011. And he made it to the number four on the charts in the UK singles after selling 50,000 copies. And he's going to talk about his experience.

Now, he's an unsigned artist. And he sold 50,000 copies in one week of this song. And he did some amazing things over the last few years, building up a great audience on YouTube, currently almost 700,000 subscribers. But he's going to share with you some great ideas on how he built this audience, how he's leveraged it to build his own businesses, all through the power of YouTube, and growing an audience online. So with that, I'm excited to introduce to you Alex Day, who's going to share with you some of his latest ideas on disrupting the music industry and doing his own thing online. So with that, I hope you guys enjoy this interview.

Hey, how's it going, Alex? I'm fine, thank you. How are you? Now, I am doing great, and I got introduced to you through a mutual friend of ours, Ryan Holiday. And I never actually heard about you until he sent me an email with a link to, I think, a TechCrunch article or some type of Forbes article or something about you. some type of Forbes article or something about you. And it was immediately intrigued. One, because you've used the power of the internet to kind of blow up your brand and create this amazing audience to take action on things that you want them to do with your music. And also, you've built a business for yourself through music. And my brother is actually a famous jazz violinist.

He's the number one jazz violinist in the world. So he tours all over the place. And I've seen him hustle as a musician for 20 years or something. So I know how hard it is for musicians to actually make it. And you've done it, pretty interestingly, in a short amount of time at a young age through YouTube. Is that correct? Yeah, basically, yeah.

Now, when did you start making videos on YouTube? Back in 2006, right? Yeah, August 2006. August 2006. And what was your original goal? Oh, I was bored. I was in college when I was 17. And my dad does freelance video editing so I learned from him

like I used to make little videos on my mac at home and I showed my friends and family and stuff and they were like little comedy videos and things and they liked them but I wanted feedback that I knew I could trust so I put it on the internet where the feedback is very honest and fortunately enough people like them there as well so I I just slowly started building up an audience there. But yeah, really, it was just, I want to make something. So I make it, and that was the outlet for it. Right. Now, I'm assuming it started off pretty slow for the first 20 or so videos,

and then it started to grow. Is that correct? Yeah. I can't remember in terms of videos. I mean, I was on about 400 subscribers for a long time. I remember when I hit 1,000. It took about a year for me to hit 1,000. Wow.

Yeah. And now you have 673,000 it looks like, right? How many is it now? I can tell you. Yeah, 673,000. Yeah, I should have trusted you. So I've got your profile up right here. I'm checking it out.

So you've got, so it took you a year to get 1,000. You're hovering at 400 for a while. And then when was like the breakthrough of the exponential growth? When did it hit 10,000, 100,000? Did it all kind of happen at the same time? What was that like? Yeah, there were little spikes.

When I had 4,000, I did this thing called the vlog tag game, which is where you say five facts about yourself and then tag, so just say five other YouTubers, and then they have to do the video as well, and then they tag five people and so on and in about two weeks it went all around all of YouTube which obviously the YouTube community was much smaller at the time it was 2008 and in about two weeks I went from 4,000 to nearly 10,000 because everyone who made a video said this is Alex's tag game you know so everyone's kind of click like following the chain and going back um so that that was a big spike in 20 2009 um i started reading twilight on my channel chapter by chapter

wow um making little kind of commentary videos about each chapter of twilight because i thought that would be fun and that's that ended up as a whole series of about 20 videos that took about a year and a half to finish. And that got a lot of traffic and attention and things. And then the biggest spike was in December 2011 when my first big single charted in the UK. Now, I want to get to this single in a second because this is the interesting story I want to talk about but but you said in a ted talk that you gave a tedx talk that the death of steve jobs was the beginning of something new for you can you talk about what that was yeah um well it was just uh as i said you know when i started making videos it was just i wanted to make videos

so i wasn't thinking of where it was going or i just thought i have idea for a video i'm gonna make it and same with songs I would write a song but like this this is a song I've written and it's all kind of aimless I guess and and um realizing yeah once once Steve Jobs died I sort of is like snapped me into gear that you know I'm kind of drifting doing all these different things and getting by and it's fun and stuff but i want to really focus on one thing and be amazing at it and so the thing that i knew made me happiest was was making music um so i decided that yeah it kind of gave me something to focus on but you didn't know you've never never really recorded a song you didn't know about production you know but you didn't know about any of that did you well i really so i've released i've released two albums by that point okay um but i'd never i didn't produce those songs myself so i'd

just be in the studio having them kind of done for me um with a friend of mine who is also a music producer so he just did it for me um but i like i write all the songs and everything and yeah without him i didn't really know if I could do it and so first I started looking for other producers that didn't really work and and then finally I thought I kind of I don't want to just keep stalling and never have these songs made so I'm just going to try it myself and it's just a lesson learned if you know the studio ends up time um but I kind of took it one step at a time and it was okay you know I got better at it now this was when you produced the song for the Christmas special right yeah uh Forever Yours was the third

song I'd ever produced okay myself and I just yeah I just really liked it I liked it a lot more than the other songs that I'd turned out and the Christmas number one is like quite a big deal in the uk so it was just a fun goal to try and to try and aim for and just aim as high as i can you know try and be the top selling single the week of christmas so now tell me what this this whole charts thing is for christmas the number one thing now is it like uh everyone because there's whole odds to this or something like you can place bets on this. So how does this really work? Yeah, it's just,

um, so, you know, like as with any music chart, people just buy songs and whatever song sells the most is the number one. Um, but at Christmas there's whatever song is number one on Christmas day is the rule.

And it, that becomes the Christmas number one. And that, I don't know how that happened, but culturally just sort of is quite important, um, to, um to to us so yeah they like bookies will take bets um on who you think the Christmas number one is going to be and different artists will well it used to be the case that kind of big artists would all release songs the same week and they'd all kind of compete and it would be this big you know does your favorite band get number one or is it another band?

And it used to be really exciting. And now it's not so much with the internet and reality shows kind of releasing songs around Christmas. And it's just it doesn't have that same, yeah, excitement, attraction to it. So I'm hoping to kind of bring a bit of that back. Gotcha. Now you hit the number one, right? I got to number four.

Number four, okay. But you beat out Justin Timberlake. That's the big thing, right? I released an album two weeks ago, March 17th, and it got to number eight on iTunes when Justin Timberlake was number nine. So I very proudly screenshotted it. That's what I saw. But the Christmas special was something different you came in at number 4 but you said you beat out I think you said who were some of the big names you beat out then well it was

Coldplay was number 5 and Adele, One Direction were all it was really weird because there was the X Factor winners which was number was there was the x factor uh winners single which was number two um there was the the big songs championed by radio one and radio two which is a big radio station in this country um and then there was me and then there was everything else so so it was

very strange yeah wow now now what did that feel like when you were i guess top five during christmas yeah incredible i mean um christ Christmas Day was the day we found out. I say we, like my family, because I was around. And so we were listening to the radio and stuff, and we found out at the same time as everybody else. And, yeah, I didn't know how the sales had gone or anything. So it was amazing. And I think so much better because I knew I had got myself there.

Like, I can't imagine Coldplay all sitting around the radio going yeah we're number 5 didn't have that same meaning to them. They're probably thinking who's this Alex Day kid who beat us out I doubt they cared they probably got like a phone call from their manager like the day before just being like you're number 5

and they're like yeah good they were number 1 the following week so they ended up happy. They got their moment, too. Right. Now, how does this work? Is it a matter of paid downloads on iTunes, or is this like plays on the radio,

or how does it work for the rankings? It is just paid, because I know in the U.S. the billboard includes AirPlay, and I believe YouTube streams now as well as sales but um but yeah in the uk it's just sales and i found a loophole in the chart which helped which was that um if you release a remix of your song um so if someone bought the song and they bought the remix it just counts for the chart twice effectively it's like they're buying the same song twice um so you can release as many remixes as you want so on the day my song came out it came out 11 times with like various different versions so anyone who really wanted

to support me by buying the song 11 times could do that um but it also wouldn't be a waste of money for them because i was making there was you know a different version every time right that's interesting so did anyone else done that before where they created multiple like two or But it also wouldn't be a waste of money for them because I was making a different version every time. Right. That's interesting. So had anyone else done that before where they created multiple, like two or three tracks? I've never seen that before. And I haven't seen it since, which I find weird because it's still a rule that you can just exploit if you want to. Interesting.

Yeah. I think that's a smart way to kind of bend the rules and make things happen to achieve the goal you want to achieve. So kudos to you on that. Thanks. Yeah, I was just looking for any way I could have an edge really by doing something that other people weren't doing. So I just mined the chart rules PDF trying to look for little things like that. So yeah. Now, did someone give you that suggestion? Or are you just researching and saying, oh, this might be kind of cool to try this out? Yeah, no, if you go to Official Charts UK website, then there's, you can download the chart rules as a PDF file. And I just read it and just trying to look for anything that would help. And yeah, when I read that, I, and I phoned up the charts people as well and confirmed it because it seemed like it was almost too good to be true, but yeah.

That's crazy. So how many downloads in that week did you, did you have? It was a hundred000 around the world. Wow. Now that's purchases? Yes. Wow. And that's all 99 cents or how does that work? Yeah. And then 53,000 of that was in the UK. Wow.

And it was around the world. And half of those sales were remixes. Wow. Half of the 50 those sales were remixes. Wow. So if you wouldn't have done the other additional 10 tracks or whatever, then you wouldn't have made it. Yeah, no, it literally doubled the sales. Amazing. Now, how much work did it take you to do in order to create those extra tracks? The whole thing was, like, the most work I've ever put in.

The whole thing was like the most work I've ever put in. And it felt really awful for most of it because I was, I'd spend every day, you know, writing to radio stations, sending letters, sending CDs, trying to get people on Twitter to request the song, writing letters to journalists, emails to journalists, just anything that I could think of to just get the song out there and i had like no replies at all and every time i saw a story about the contenders for christmas number one i'd always you know follow up with the person who wrote it and say oh by the way i'm also doing this thing um and and it got to yeah the day before the song came out

and i thought i don't know how this is gonna do and it might not even get the top 100 you know and it's it could be just awful um and so it was it was such a relief when it worked and then suddenly when it got to number four on itunes suddenly everyone messaged me back and said amazing um so yeah that was great but it's it's so hard to do like it's hard for me to say you know if you want to do this too you can because it's really hard like you have to be prepared to have it not work out and still go for it anyway. It's hard to put that much energy into something that you're not sure if it's just going to be a waste of time. You have to be pretty committed. But yeah, the remixes themselves, some of them I did myself, so I book a day in the studio to do them.

Some of the others I got friends of mine to create alternate versions and remixes so I could kind of showcase them as musicians as well. Now, you wouldn't have been able to do that without your YouTube audience, am I correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't do gigs or anything like that. All of my audience is from YouTube. All from YouTube.

So, I mean, but selling, what did you say, 100,000 downloads, right? There's no way, that's basically from the music video and the audience that you built up over the last few years since 2006 through 2011. That's how you sold 100,000 downloads, right? Yeah. From the community.

Now, I think you mentioned in the interview somewhere that you never saw your fan base as fans, but instead realized you were all just bored kids. And you mentioned that earlier. So what does that exactly mean? And if everyone's all just bored kids buying your music, should we all be trying to find an audience of bored kids? Or what do you think? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think they're bored in the sense that i don't ever want to

take them for granted like i don't feel like you know they're super super passionate and i can ask them to do anything and they'll do it because like they're not sheep you know so it's it's easy for people to to forget that about the internet like i've had radio stations where um loads and loads of people on twitter will be requesting the song or making a real noise about it and and then the next day i kind of try and email the person and say oh how did you get did you get a good reaction and they're like oh well you know it was busy on twitter like like they're not real people like it doesn't count and they're still you know that's just how they're getting in touch um so i think they're yeah i don't want to take them for granted, but I do think it's easy to write off people online as just being like, oh, they're just bored kids on the internet, and therefore their opinion doesn't count.

Like, you know, you can convince people to click a button, but it doesn't mean they actually would go into a record shop and buy your CD. And that could be the case, but I just don't like that assumption. Right, right. Now, I want to know how you explain your massive reach. Now, I don't even know how many people are actually on YouTube. I'm assuming well over 100 million, but who knows? It might be billions, I think.

I don't know. In terms of people who have signed up with an account. Yeah. Yeah, I have no idea. It must be at least a hundred million. It's got to be a hundred or two hundred million who have signed up for an account. And I would say I'm assuming that with almost 700,000 subscribers that you are probably in the top 1% or quarter percent for most subscribed YouTube accounts.

Now, what is it about you specifically or your music that makes people connect with you and makes them want to subscribe and be an avid follower? I don't know. I often wonder this myself because I've always sustained, well, as I say, i never got into it with any objective um i said that i just wanted to make things and so something like there's a lot of different things that i do like so this twilight series that i did um some people i get a lot of

influx of new people that just wanted more of that they wanted me to read twilight and then once i was done they wanted me to read new moon and then once I was done, they wanted me to read New Moon, and that was my channel. That's what they cared about, is read all the books, and it's going to be amazing. And anything else I talked about, they didn't care.

And then there were some people that had been watching me for years that didn't really like the Twilight thing, and so then whenever a new video of those came up, it was like, oh, come on, let's do something else. So it's a hard kind of balance, and similarly, there's people that subscribe to me because they like my music there's people that subscribe don't like my music but they still just watch anyway um because they like other things i

do so i've always just tried to it's just kind of a hub of things that i am interested in or that i want to share and i yeah i haven't i haven't stuck to any rules of these are my demographics and this is what I should stick to so I don't really know why that many people follow me, I think I just got lucky I think it's, when I first started on YouTube, the front page of YouTube was just a playlist

the same no matter what country you were in, whether you were signed in or not, it was just one playlist and there was five or six videos on it so every day they would put a new video on the top and the one at the bottom would get bumped off and I'm lucky in that a couple of times while that was the case I've got they selected one of my videos or a couple of videos to put on those playlists so um so I'd suddenly get you know the next day I'd go to work and my workmate would say I went on YouTube last night and you were there, which is weird.

And also I started making YouTube videos at the same time as a lot of other people, some of whom are now much bigger and have a bigger audience than me, but because we knew each other, we helped each other out on the way up. Right, right. I think it really comes down to the same as anything, in that it was kind of a combination of luck and knowing good people. But also, I like to think that it wouldn't have worked out if I wasn't at least making kind of good stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think luck is like, you know, having the foresight to have good timing to jump onto something when it's new and you can see that it's going to grow.

I think building relationships is always the strongest factor in success for anything, and you did that as well. And then also, I think you're not giving yourself enough credit, but consistency over four or five years is really what helps people take off in anything. And it sounds like you were consistent. You've created over 100-something videos, and you gave people interesting, unique content, which is what they wanted. So I think you've created over a hundred something videos and uh you gave people interesting unique content which what they wanted so i think you've done an amazing job you should give yourself

give yourself a little more credit my man i know i know british people don't like to play it down a little bit but we americans like to brag a little bit so i'm gonna brag for you yeah i guess the same i mean i yeah i have made a video once a week but it never felt like each video is its own reward right so right it's like i have an idea for a video let's week but it never felt like each video is its own reward right so right it was like i have an idea for a video let's make it and so i made it and then that was like cool that's done now and then next week it'd be like oh another video you know so i i uh if someone had said to me sustain a youtube channel for five years then that would have been a really daunting task like that because it's just a field of little milestones right right now so tell me what's

like do you have a is this full-time for you or do you still work another job no i just do this i earn more money from music sales than i do from youtube uh adsense but it's it's enough to live on yeah wow okay so you're now a full-time musician but you don't play any concerts right yeah have as your audience requested you know you play a gig or or do like a small tour yeah i think they'd like that i mean it's it's the whole thing of um if you if you you have a relationship which is primarily online with a creator or whoever you like on the internet um making that experience physical is always very meaningful i think so anytime that there's um like a convention or any any time where you can kind of meet one of those people in real life it's it's always exciting and it makes it feel more

tangible and validated so yeah i think i think there would be a demand for that it's not really because of that i don't do it it's's more the joy that I get in making music is in the making of it, like I like being in the studio and putting all the instruments in and seeing it kind of come so I have a new song that I wrote last week and right now I've immediately booked the studio so next week I'm going

to the studio to record it and mostly the reason I want to record it is because every time I want to listen to this new song I've written I have to record it. And mostly the reason I want to record it is because every time I want to listen to this new song I've written, I have to make it exist. And I want to just be able to hit play, just listen to it, just enjoy it like a song

without having to also create it every single time. So if I can kind of make it really cool in the studio, make it exactly how I want it to be, I don't have a plan to be like, then I'll release it or I'll make a video. In the short term, it's just I want this song. You just want to have it. Yeah, I just want to have it. So you't have a plan to be like, then I'll release it or I'll make a video. I'm just the, in the short term,

it's just, I want this song. You just want to have it. Yeah. I just want to have it. So you'll have to play yourself every time. Yeah. So I don't,

and then afterwards I'm kind of like, ah, yeah, this is really cool. I should share this or I should make it whatever. But with, with playing live, I don't,

I don't have the drive to, to perform my music for people. I'd rather than just listen to the music or watch the videos. Cause that's how I'm choosing to showcase my, my music for people i'd rather than just listen to the music or watch the videos because that's how i'm choosing to showcase my my music sure now with with um the music industry basically going in a million different directions you've got pandora you've got spotify you've got itunes you've got all these different things happening a lot of people are coming out you're seeing successful artists without record labels um someone came out recently and hit number one i forget the guy but it's a really catchy song and he doesn't have a record label do you know yeah macklemore whatever and

so what is what is keeping you do you are you getting offers from record labels do you plan to work with one in the future if they give you the right amount or do you see yourself basically leading the trend of you've already got the audience you can create whatever you want and sell it and make a great living doing it yourself that you don't need the label i've um i've always been open to label discussions i've yeah i when when people say you know he's an independent musician or whatever it's i'm not sort of flying that flag. It's just that I'm doing it the only way I know how to. At the moment, that's on my own.

Not that there's any problem with that either. But, yeah, I've always been open to record label discussions, but I've always also been honest about saying, you know, like, so I had some meetings after Forever Yours happened, and with each one, I kind of said, you know, what is it that you can offer me? trying to be but just asking um and that's I learned a question that record labels are not prepared for because they tend to they I think they they have this there's this expectation that if you're being called in for a record label meeting it's like you're about

to make it and there's a they don't have to explain themselves you know they you have to impress them and not the other way around so from saying well you know i've done this much on my own so theoretically i could keep doing this on my own that would be hard but i'm also willing to give that a go but what can you do that would help me instead um and yeah they they didn't really have an answer to that they they sort of would say very vague things like we can take your music to the next level or you know things like that and um yeah we never really got anywhere so as i was interesting now what um do you have a whole marketing team behind your your music or is it pretty much all just you right now and your buddies when you're creating videos and you're in the studio and kind of just doing it on your own?

Yeah, no, I don't have a manager. I don't have an agent. I don't have a radio plugger or anything like that. I basically, yeah, I go into the studio and record. Usually I write my own songs. There's been a couple of times where I've done covers or whatever. But in general, I write my songs. I'll produce them in the studio, play every instrument instrument usually through like keyboard synths or or other things um and then it gets put online through tune core submits

to itunes um the music video i pay for myself and i have a friend who's a cameraman who i hire to make it look good and another friend who's good at special effects so i'll sometimes get in if i need him to most pretty much all the people in my music videos are um friends of mine that give up their time in most cases for free um they because i've in a lot of cases i've met them through them making youtube videos and me making youtube videos and having mutual you know having in common so um so yeah it's funny because i'll always see articles where you know they're like alex they made a music video starring loads of youtube stars i think of it like that i just think i just got my friends in my video because they were up for it um but i guess they also do happen to have

their own followings which helps you get more subscribers and views as well when they share it so it's all good yeah that's that's great. Now tell me, there's a lot of struggling artists, musicians, entrepreneurs just in general out there. But let's talk about musicians because that's what you know the best. What type of advice would you give to maybe a singer songwriter or just an instrument player who's trying to build their own business. They've got their own songs and they're trying to really build an audience and get it out there. What are some tips or advice that you would give for that type of person? Maybe they're struggling. They've been working really hard for a few years. Don't see a lot of traction, maybe just a little bit of wins here and there, but are reallyling what should they be doing should they be trying to position themselves to get a

label and go that route should they be focusing on creating content and building a following online what do you think um it's hard because i think my situation is is quite like i don't know how anyone would emulate it because I just happened to have sort of fell into it, I guess. Like I wasn't trying to follow a system when I did it. So if someone sort of did all the same things, I don't,

I don't really know how well that would go. I definitely would, would say don't aim for a label. Um, but you know, try and build up your own, your own fan base and stuff. Cause that's,

I mean, I don't really call my audience fans because it just sounds like... I don't like making the assumption that they like me. Is that weird? They follow you. I always refer to them as my audience or my subscribers. Right, right.

I can understand people that would just watch my videos and be like, oh, he's cool, but they wouldn't describe themselves as a fan of me and I don't want to put that on them. But I guess fan base is the most appropriate word for this so we'll use it um yeah like building up a fan base for your music I think is the best thing and and also like I know people that are that or I've seen people that are independent musicians and they're struggling and it annoys them that I kind of claim that I'm an independent musician and like

I'm doing it all myself and all this stuff when they're like, well, you've got this massive YouTube audience. So, you know, we can't just replicate that because you, you have these benefits that you don't, that other people can't just get. And yeah, I guess like, I mean, it's overlooking the sort of seven years it took to get me to that point. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So when I say, it's overlooking the sort of seven years it took to get me to that point. Yeah, right. I guess to get to Brooklyn.

Yeah, so when I say, you know, all you have to do is just, you can be independent and you can release music yourself and spend five years developing an audience first. It's hard. But the biggest thing, okay, there's two things. So I don't think that you should focus on an hour. I think you should just focus on one song. And I think, first of all, from a cost perspective,

it's easier to record one song than it is to record 10. So you can save money that way. And then, at least for me, it helps me focus on the quality of my music so much more. There are definitely songs that I've written and I'll be like, yeah, these are okay. I wouldn't mind hearing this. I could put it on an album.

But you suddenly think of it as, okay, would I be happy for this to be like, yeah, these are okay. I wouldn't mind hearing this. I could put it on an album, but you suddenly think of it as, okay, would I be happy for this to be the only song I released for the next, you know, a few months? Would I be happy to make a music video for it? Make a big deal about it? Send it to every radio station in the country.

Suddenly it's like, Oh, actually no. And it makes you work harder on the songwriting. I think. So you, so you think release each, don't worry about the whole album,

but release each song as if it's the album itself. Is it the only piece? It's a standalone. Yeah. And it feels like, I think it feels, it makes the songs better, I think.

Right. So you feel more satisfied that you're making good stuff. It kind of gives each thing that you make its own chance to shine, which is kind of nice. And I also think it's better for the audience because if they're waiting, like two years or something, you can album and you know you don't have anything whereas if you if you took the same songs that would end up on that album and release them every three four months then it just doesn't feel like as much of a wait you know people can stay interested in in what you're doing so that would be the first thing i'd say is just just don't worry

about an album until you've got just get one song that you're happy with and then keep going from there. And the other thing is, yeah, to not do it unless you really enjoy it. Like there's a lot of people on YouTube that will do it because they just want to be famous or they want to try and get something out of it. And the internet is very good at spotting cynical – it has to be pure. It has to be pure like it has to be authentic um it's very strange how how well online audiences are at detecting if if something doesn't feel legit and if they're trying to get something out of you so you know people are going to respond if you're genuinely enjoying it and and they make youtube videos because you want to get into making youtube

videos and let it be its own reward and don't try and do it as a means to an end. Interesting. So what's inspiring you every day right now to keep doing what you're doing? And what's kind of like the goal for you over the next few years? Oh, man, it's, I always say that it's like with regular jobs, if there's a sudden change, say you work in IT, and then they say, say oh we're changing the operating system in six months time we're going to give you training we're going to you know roll this stuff out and you'll get time to get used to it whatever on youtube that doesn't happen on youtube you just wake up one morning and they go 16 9 now you have to relearn how to make videos and or like it's in hd now so right deal with it they're always changing

something right yeah so in order to figure out what i would want in three years time i feel like i have to predict what the internet would look like so hard to do and you imagine what internet was like kind of in three years ago oh my gosh um so yeah so it's really hard to say but um i'm i'm trying to just take it one step at a time, like I'm recording this new song and the thing that I guess keeps me going is just knowing that

I wouldn't be able to do anything else There's obviously times where it gets really hard or if you release a song that they don't like as much as the last song you released and they're like, oh, go back to your old style or whatever like you always get kind of those kind of people and sometimes it can it can suck and you feel like oh maybe i should just you know or you send out your 100th email to to someone that doesn't reply that day or like a

radio dj and you just feel like i was pointing this um But I know that not doing it would just feel worse. You know, I have to keep doing it just because I have to. It was like, well, I just make music. That's what happens. Right. Now, when did you know that you were onto something big? Because obviously it was a few years of you with, you know, just a few thousand subscribers. Probably no one was listening to your music except for your mom, your family, and your friends.

When did you realize that, wow, people actually enjoy my music and they're willing to pay for it? And this could be an amazing career for me. I may never have to get another job. I could just do this. Well, I moved out of my mom's house uh march 2010 and i um at that point had released both my first album came out october 2009 um and that was about half of the money that I made a month. And then the other half came from YouTube revenue. So combined, it was enough for me to get to move out, pay rent. So I guess I guess that was the moment that I was kind of like, I can actually because I didn't pay rent when I was

living with my mom. But yeah, that was that was kind of the freedom moment, I guess. And then the next realization after that was with forever yours kind of really taking it to a new level. I mean, that's a big check for you. I mean, you were probably making, you know, I'm assuming around a couple thousand dollars a month, maybe more, maybe less from AdSense and some iTunes sales here and there. But then come Christmas, 2011, a hundred thousand downloads. That's, that's a nice little check

right yeah it was it was big um well part of part of the thing i said was that i wanted to give all of the money from the ultimate versions to charity and i wasn't trying to be all like high and mighty about it it was and i actually kind of i don't like talking about it because i don't like people that like make a big deal but oh yeah i gave all this money to charity like they're a dick just shut up like i i don't like it like they're rubbing deal. Like, oh yeah, I gave all this money to charity. They're a dick, just shut up. I don't like it. They're rubbing it in my face how good they are. So I don't really like talking about it.

But the reason I'm bringing it up now is because it was more of a case of if I'm making, or not making, but if someone is choosing to buy my song 11 times, I didn't really feel like a fair, 11 times from that. really feel like fair right 11 times from that from one song right yeah it just it just felt a bit lazy i suppose so i said like i'll earn the money like you buy the actual song then that's you know that's the money that i'm earning and any of the other remixes like it helps me in the charts it'll be part of this fun kind of goal that we're trying to do but all of the money from the remixes goes to um world vision it was so that also was part of i think why some of my friends who did remixes they got on board because they would they were doing it because they just wanted to help the cause it wasn't like they were going to get any profit out of it either um and so we all made that you know pretty clear um so yeah so most like over half the money that I made, I didn't keep.

I didn't obviously have tax and stuff. Right. I mean, it was still nice, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it was a nice chunk of change, but yeah. So tell me, what are all the different ways that you make a profit online right now? I know YouTube, AdSense, plus itunes but are you making do you get sales or commissions from like pandora and spotify or anything else online or is it pretty much those two major things no um so okay yeah there's youtube there's music sales um spotify streams

and things do come in yeah um obviously they're not that much as has been widely documented but it doesn't really matter to me um if any of my songs are played on the radio you make a slight amount on that um i also there's a couple of oh and and merch like physical cds and t-shirt sales and posters and things i'll sell online so that that brings in a nice amount and then then I also have two businesses. One is a card game that I co-started with my cousin that we invented together. And we just have a website for that and we sell it. It's just its own thing.

It's just a card game. It's kind of like Uno, but just sillier. What's it called? Sopio. S-O-P-I-O. Is that the website? It's sopiocards.com. Sopiocards.com.

Okay. We just made like a WordPress website just so we could sell the cards. Yeah, so that's done kind of cool. And that's just an extra kind of little thing. And we actually don't take money out of it generally. We just leave it all in there and then it just pays for itself. Sure. But every now and then if we get like a lot at once we'll split like an extra little bonus each right and then there's

at the start of this year i started this badge thing it's kind of like boy scout badges but for adults um and it's called life scouts and the idea is like you know when you're growing up like up to the age of 18 you're constantly rewarded for all the knowledge that you have um and there are loads of systems in place to give you those rewards but then when you are past 18 there aren't really those systems in place and i think it's because when you're or you don't really care so much about the knowledge people have you care more about the experiences they've had like if you were bad at maths i wouldn't really care if you've been to the pyramids, that would be exciting. So I set up this thing called Life Scouts.

It's basically a Tumblr where every few days a badge image appears that will say, you know, bungee jumping badge or you've seen the Northern Lights or whatever. And if you've done that thing, then you reblog it or share it on Facebook, Twitter and just story. And then you can also buy physical pin badges that you can collect as well

to show the things that you've done. So that's another thing, which I don't think has made any profit because the physical pin badges are really expensive. But again, it's an idea that I liked enough that as long as it doesn't lose money, I don't really mind. I just want it to exist. I mean, I'd like it to be profitable, certainly. I'm trying to think of ways to do that. But yeah, now that little project. That's cool. I mean, I'd like it to be profitable, certainly. I'm trying to think of ways to do that. But yeah, now that little kind of project.

That's cool. Now, what is that called? Life Scouts or My Scouts? Life Scouts. Gotcha. Okay, cool. And tell me about, so those are all the different businesses and the ways you profit online. And you're mostly, I'm assuming that you're using youtube to promote those other businesses as well correct yes right um now tell me i want to know because you're a young guy and you've kind

of disrupted the music industry in your own way what do you feel is going to happen in the next two or three years in the music world in the music world of business the music world of business? Well, I don't see it changing massively because I think two years in 2011, everyone was hoping that the music industry would have changed more than it has. So I'm not optimistic that the music industry will change too much in two years' time, but I kind of think even though it won't change,

it will increasingly not matter that it's not changing because people will just find their own methods. So, yeah, while the kind of traditional business models, I think, will stay the same, I think there will be more people, hopefully, like me, that are just coming out and doing their own thing and being more successful, and like, you know, Macklemore, who right just do it and not worry about it right who's your favorite um who's who's the person or the band that you were inspired by growing up oh um so everyone has like two or three bands that their parents always listen to that you kind of grew up with and with with me it was uh sting and queen were the two that my mom man sting is so good

yeah so those are those are the two that i like grew up around um but then green day inspired me massively when i was a teenager and like i first bought a guitar around i think the same year american idiot came out sure and so the first like that was basically the reason I started learning guitar and I learned I can probably play every song on American Idiot like the guitar part the drum part like I know that I know them all every bit of them so yeah so Green Day were massively kind of instrumental in in that that's cool who all right who uh who inspires you right now what are the big artists i really liked bruno mars um when he released his first album i thought he was like he released amazing songs and um his his new one i'm not as hot on which is kind of a shame but

uh but yeah i still respect him a lot as a songwriter and um it's kind of weird because it feels like you know everyone everyone's there's this culture online where everything's recommended for you and it's all about your individual niche and stuff and so i don't feel like people are making popular music anymore by which i mean like music that is kind of mass appeal music um it sort of feels like everyone has to find their niche and appeal to their their niche and sometimes the niche is like gangnam style is a very niche song right but it just happened to cross over in a popular way but it's not like a typical song that was made with mass appeal in mind if that makes sense yeah it's kind of like the macarena or whatever right huh it's kind of like the macarena hey macarena it's like yeah

it crossed over yeah like a song like Who Let the Dogs Out. Right. You know, that's an obviously popular mass appeal song. It was designed to appeal to a mass audience. And people don't really make songs like that anymore. I mean, Who Let the Dogs Out is, I guess, not the best example. But, yeah, I always try and think about that. Like, I don't really have, I don't feel like I have a particular style. I find it really hard to describe when i say to people that i'm a musician and they say what kind of music do you

do i just want to go pop music but that sounds so vague right i'm not going to know what that means anymore um so what would you consider is your style what's your genre then well yeah i don't know see especially because i you know i don't most most artists when if they're releasing or recording to a kind of album strategy they'll think about you know what sound't most most artists when if they're releasing or recording to a kind of album strategy they'll think about you know what sound do we want this album to have and that kind of thing whereas i just record them one song at a time so i just think about what's best for this individual song interesting um and the style kind of changes from song to song instead of from from full length to full length right i yeah i don't know like i just I think it's just happy. Just happy pop music.

Is that a new category? Happy pop? I hope not. It shouldn't be. There's loads of that already. Interesting. All right. Final question, my man.

What is your definition of greatness? This is called the School of Greatness, and it's all about helping people become the best version of themselves throughout all channels of their life, sports, business. So what's your definition of greatness? It's changed a lot in the last year, actually, because I always thought the sort of meaning of life, sorry to get heavy, is to sort of be remembered, like to make your mark on the world to do something that that outlives you um and that's in hindsight a very selfish attitude because majority of people don't do that uh and so like their lives are still valid so that was really dickish of me um but that's just how i used to feel i used to think i wanted to you know i want to get songs in the charts.

I want to be remembered. I want to have my songs playing in 100 years or whatever. But now I think it's more about just being kind, which is really sad. But, I mean, like, yeah, I guess it's based in the same logic, the idea that I originally thought, you know, well, if I'm just going to die and eventually, like, no one's going to be here and only my, like, descendants will be here, then the most valuable thing to do is to provide something that can be passed on, like Shakespeare, you know, his story on that kind of thing. I have that same starting point of thinking, well, everyone's just going to die, so it's all sort of meaningless. But then my conclusion now is,

well, then we should just make the time we all have together as pleasant as possible and not try and be horrible. And yeah, just be as good a person as you can and not do anything that will upset people on purpose. So that's, to me, what greatness is. Nice. So you're saying being kind now but also creating something that will last longer than you're around is kind of i think that that like that

used to be my sort of success used to be gotcha yeah it was like you should make something that that lasts a test of time but now you don't care yeah now it's like you know just be happy and and live a good life and and be nice to the people around you. Interesting. And the funny thing is that if you're creating stuff that makes people happy now and you're not worrying about it, actually the end goal of what you're creating, your music,

then it's probably going to end up sticking around a long time anyways. Yeah, well, I hope so. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Well, you got a good approach on it, man. I appreciate it. Where should people find you online, Alex? Oh, hey.

I mean, alexdaymusic.com is my Tumblr, and it's kind of a hub. So there's links to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube all on there. So I'll just say that one link, and then you can find your way. But yeah, alexdaymusic.com or my music, you know, my music's on Spotify or iTunes. Perfect. Alex Day, you're the man. I appreciate it,

brother. No problem. Thanks for having me. And there you have it. Great. I hope you enjoyed this and I want to thank Alex so much for coming on. Make sure to go check him out at alexdaymusic.com

He's got some very cool videos. Check out his merchandise, all of his awesome music. He's an inspiring dude and we're going to link up some great links that he talked about here on the show notes over at schoolofgreatness.com.

Just check out for the Alex Day interview, and I will post his video from the TED Talk, which is very inspiring as well and shares more of his story. With that, guys, keep the comments coming over on iTunes. Leave us a review if you feel inspired. As my review of the week, I'm going to announce is from Josh Coates, who says, The podcast is awesome. Such

a great podcast. So nice to hear someone young and modern with so much wisdom to offer. The interview with Grant Cardone changed my life. Overall, it's just a lot of great wisdom for life, business, and the true meaning of success. Side note, love the dubstep. So Josh Coates, thanks so much for leaving that nice comment. And there's lots of other great reviews. Feel free to leave us your thoughts over there on iTunes. And I appreciate each and every one of them and all of your feedback. Hopefully, we're making the audio sound a little bit crisper and better from now on. Got some new equipment for you guys.

And I'm always going to be improving it to make it better for you. With that, I hope you enjoyed this one. And I'll see you guys next time on the School of Greatness. Remember the time when we stole the whole day? Nobody knows it, we took it away. And it will be forever mine. And it will be forever yours. Now we own the night and it can't be undone