Alex Goot @ The Space

The music industry today is dominated primarily by new media (social media). Most new artists come about because of YouTube posts, Twitter feeds or Facebook groups.

Alex Goot is an aspiring artist who has emerged within this generation of new media music promotion. Goot started out in the industry with YouTube cover videos (a new trend swarming the music world today). Unlike most YouTube cover artist, Goot is a true musician who finds a way to creatively rearrange every song that he posts.

Before the show, I was able to snag an interview with Goot, who was getting ready to perform and relaxing with a group of his close friends and band mates.

“The reason I started making YouTube videos is because I saw how quickly you could gain a fan base from them. I don’t want to use the word ‘leach,’ but it is a way to promote yourself under an already well-established song, and gain your own following,” Goot said.

Goot covers a variety of artists with many different genres. Somehow, however, all of his songs seem to fall under the same listening category. There is a consistency within all of his covers, which makes him fall under an unspoken genre (one that is hard to pin point).

“I would say my genre is more happy-piano-music,” explained Goot. “I am really interested in making people want to sing along, no matter what the style of the original song is. I’ll hear a song and think… ‘I wouldn’t sing it like that,’ or… ‘I should change that there,’ and all of a sudden I have an entirely new arrangement.”

The classic artists are the ones who influence Goot the most, such as Elton John, Phil Collins and the greats who laid down the foundation for the industry today. He says that in his personal life, his influences have to be his parents who have supported him through everything. He said he felt so lucky to have parents who allowed him to follow his dream of music because he never wanted to be sitting in a dorm saying, “what if?”

“Lightening” is arguably Goot’s largest single at the moment.

“This song was inspired by an ex relationship that was just really rocky,” Goot said. “Basically it is about the guy chasing the girl who he’ll never be able to have, and realizing that she’s just out of his grasp.”

He specifically loved all of the venues in Europe where he toured, and said it was amazing to see how the music lovers in every country knew English as a universal language and sang along to all of his performances.

He explained that when it comes to musically arranging his covers, he does what he can with that he knows instrument-wise and really just tries to rearrange it all his head.

Goot was such an amazing person to interview. He has great insight on the industry. As a fellow singer, I loved talking arrangements with him and hearing how he goes about changing a song to make it his own.

The show was incredible, and Goot really connected with the audience. I would definitely start listening to him if you haven’t YouTubed him half way through this article already (after all, that is what new media is all about).