How did you go from having the idea of being somebody who makes videos where you talk about music to actually doing it?
I never thought I would be making videos about music. I had always wanted to make films since I was a kid, and that naturally turned into me trying to make YouTube videos when I found out how hard it is to get into actually working on films. It evolved from me testing out talking about albums on YouTube, to then doing movie reviews and trying some gaming commentary, and then it finally stuck, for whatever reason, when I was giving my opinion on music.
When you say stuck, do you mean for yourself or for people watching it, or both?
Both. I love talking about music, but I never thought of myself as someone that has interesting stuff to say about it because I’m not super proficient in music theory or anything like actual critics, so I never thought I would have perspectives that people would be interested to hear about.
I’m curious if there was a point at which, as you started doing more videos about music, you realized, “I’m really comfortable with this. This is what I’m going to do.”
I think it was when I started to see more comments saying that I expose people to different genres or artists they’d never heard of, and it’s now their favorite thing. I thought, “That’s such a cool thing to be able to do,” because I know so many small artists I would love to put out there, and I love exposing people to different music they otherwise wouldn’t have heard of. Seeing that that was actually happening and how grateful people were, I knew this was something I loved to do.
As you were transitioning into making videos about music, what doubts did you have to get over, and what new things did you have to learn?
There was a lot of doubt like, “Do I have anything meaningful to say?” I get comments like “Anthony Fantano clone” and stuff like that, and I think, “Yeah, I don’t have a place here to say anything.” But then, after a while, I found what my voice was in the scene and the purpose I had to show people different angles that they weren’t looking at before.
How did you go about finding your voice? Or if that wasn’t such an intentional thing, how did you know you’d found your voice?
It was really hard, and I don’t think I found it for a while when I started. I would just see how people that were doing well in the scene acted and made their videos, and I’d be like, “I’ve got to be this sensational about this.” After a while, I felt like I couldn’t do that forever. I’d have to be myself and be happy just being myself on camera and talking about what I know. I saw that, after a while, it would result in more dedicated fans and a stronger fan base, so it’s worked out a lot.
How did you land upon the hallmarks of your videos? For example, the choice of using a ton of green screen and stock footage, or the explosion and the green or red text at the end of every segment.
I wasn’t doing that for a while when I was starting. I would just record myself at my desk with some lights on, but I never thought I was someone funny or entertaining. I always think my edits and the way I can edit myself is a lot more entertaining than I actually am, and that evolved into me trying out green screen. I already had a green screen from making projects in film school, so I experimented with that, and I felt like I could do a lot of funnier, more interesting little edits that complimented my style more.
I’d love to hear more about your film school background and any ways that’s influenced how you make videos.
It wasn’t really film school. I say that, but I majored in film production at a state university. It affected the way I make videos in the way that I learned narrative and what I enjoy in videos. I think seeing everybody’s different perspectives on making projects in an environment like that is really beneficial when you’re creating, because in the long run, film school and majoring is really not needed, but getting to see what other people are doing and being in an environment like that is really helpful when finding your own voice and creating.
I imagine that much of what you do is solitary, so hearing you say that makes me wonder if there are other ways in which you take cues from other people or directly work with other people to make your videos happen.
Most of my stuff has been entirely me up until just this year. I have a great editor who’s editing around half my YouTube videos because I finally was working myself to death, but it’s really hard for me, as someone that likes having complete control over my videos, to give up that kind of reign. I hate seeing a video from my editor and being like, “He did a great job, but I have 20 things that were how I envisioned it that he didn’t do,” and I hate to give a big list of changes. It’s really hard to give up that stuff, but I’ve found that in the long run, you’ve got to do it to stay sane.
What parts of your process do you wish people knew more about?
A lot of listening to stuff I don’t necessarily want to be listening to. That’s the hardest part of my GENREPHOBIC series. It’s hard for me when I’m like, “I want to be giving what I’m listening to the solid chance it should get, but I want to listen to this new album that came out today,” or I don’t want to be listening to 50 metal songs. I found that scheduling helps a little bit, like, “When I’m done with this, I can listen to the 10 new releases that came out today.”
Do you mean scheduling as in, “I’ve blocked this part of the day out to listen to a new genre,” or what you were saying along the lines of, “Once I’ve listened to this thing, I’ll just go ahead and listen to the things I don’t know if I’ll like”?
What you said first. Usually, if I’m doing a genre video, I’ll have at least half the day sectioned out where I’m listening to it, but I’ll be doing other stuff in between, like writing a script for another video and editing, but I’ll be listening to whatever genre, and then, I give myself time afterward to listen to what I wanted to listen to.
I also want to ask about your process for scripting your videos. Tell me about that.
I used to script a lot more in my videos. As far as my genre videos, those are super easy to script. It’s like a couple sentences. I’ll jot down my thoughts and just, in general, things about the genre. But for YouTube, it’s weird. The videos people have gravitated toward have been my videos that aren’t scripted at all except the intro. I used to work so hard on video essay-type videos, but they never resonated until I started making the kind I’ve been making recently that are kind of reactionary, just yapping about music casually, which aren’t scripted at all. It’s surprising to me that it’s what people like to see from me.
Between editing and scripting and other parts of your process, which are your most favorite? Which are your least favorite?
When I have an actual project I’m scripting out, I love the writing process and researching and getting to do a deep dive on a niche topic. I sometimes love editing, but when I’m doing it every day, I start to hate it. Recording is sometimes my least favorite part, because it can be a little daunting when the videos aren’t scripted at all, where I’m like, “What if I have nothing interesting to say today?” But it’s worked out for the most part.
On the note of it working out, as much as I kind of hate this word, I’m curious about growing your channel. To be able to do what you do for a living, you have to make yourself known to people and get enough subscribers and sponsors. Can you talk about balancing that need for growth with maintaining your voice and perspective?
I used to focus on growth a lot more. I’m finally fortunate enough to be at a position where I feel like my YouTube channel’s pretty stable, my videos do well, and I can make what I want to right now and not worry about growing. If I had a really analytical mind and wanted to be the biggest YouTuber ever, I feel like I could be doing a lot more, but as far as how much I can do on my own, I think I’m in a really good spot where I get to work on what I want to work on and not really think about how much I’m growing.
How did you learn that it’s okay to not be doing this all the time? Because that really is a hard message to remember.
It’s so hard, and I’m still trying to tell myself that, because I find myself working nonstop sometimes, which sounds silly to say when I’m a YouTuber. It’s like, “Oh, working, making little YouTube videos,” but I’ll edit for eight hours a day, and then I’m like, “I forgot about this genre video that I didn’t finish,” and I’m editing for another two hours, then, “Oh, I forgot about this script.” I’ll be inside working on videos all day, and it really affects my mental health after a while. It’s something I’ve been trying to be more cognizant about lately, just taking it slower for my own well-being.
Is there something you wish you’d known at the beginning of this journey that you know now?
Probably how important outside help is. That’s been the biggest thing for me, because for so long, I was like, “I don’t want to have anybody involved with my stuff. I want to make everything myself.” But I think in any artform, you have to recognize that collaborating in some way is essential.
Your videos get plenty of views, but the YouTube algorithm used to be far more favorable. If you ever get discouraged about your view counts, engagement, or anything that falls under the category of battling the algorithm, how do you find encouragement again?
It’s weird for me. The way my brain works, if I have a video that’s flopping—I don’t know if it’s healthy or not, but I’ll immediately start working on a video and be like, “That video wasn’t good enough. I have to make a video that’s better,” and I’ll start working harder on that. Probably not the best way to go about it, but I’ve learned to look less at the statistics, because I’ll see ranking nine out of 10 on my latest video and I’m like, “Oh God, I’m doing nothing.”
At what point do you consider something to have fully flopped? Is there a point past which the initial impression that something has flopped becomes “it hasn’t” or “it has”?
It’s hard to tell with YouTube sometimes, because it will seem like a video is flopping but it will gradually pull viewers for a long time, but it’s hard to recognize that as a success when I’m looking at the initial stats and want to see immediate tons of views within the first couple days. Even if it drops off after that, for some reason, that feels more like a success, which is a weird thing.
It’s interesting to hear you talk about this, because with the Substack publication I run, I’m having to unlearn the notion of, the first few hours will tell you how your post is doing and what people think. In reality, engagement comes over a number of days. I’m curious if your experience is similar.
Yeah, because there have been videos that I think no one is watching, and then suddenly, even six months later, it’ll suddenly grab a ton of people, a huge audience. You just never really know. And some videos don’t get a ton of views, but it’s so much more meaningful for the audience that I don’t mind as much. I’ve had videos I’m really proud of that are received extremely well, and they might not get the most views, but I feel like it’s equally as important.
How do you decide which topics are for Shorts and which are for full-length videos, or is it not really a distinction for you?
It depends on how much I have to say about a certain topic. There’s certain things I’ll find myself suddenly really passionate about that I could talk for 20, 30 minutes about, and then sometimes, there’s a new album and I want to be like, “This album’s good. Listen to it,” so I’m not going to make a whole video on it. But it randomly happens that I’ll see a movie—I used to upload videos on my movie channel—that, suddenly, I feel like I have to talk about for 30 minutes, so I make a long video.
Do you have any interest in fusing your interests in music and movies on your channel? Because sure, it’s easy to see them as separate things, but the vast majority of good movies have a lot of music.
It’s something I would love to do in the future, and I’d love to focus more on my movie channel too because it’s something I’m really passionate about, but I’ve really been focusing on, I guess as you said earlier, growing the channel first. I feel like I mention movies a lot in my videos, and the relation they have to music as an art form is really interesting to me.
Is there anything else you have in mind for the future of the Blustre YouTube channel?
I’d love to do some collabs, because it’s something I haven’t done a whole lot of, or even any. It’s something that makes me anxious, so I know I should probably do it.
I’d love to hear more about what you just said: “It makes me anxious, so I know I should probably do it.”
It’s generally something I try to force myself to do. Being approached to do this interview made me anxious. I was like, “TCI is such a great publication. I can’t believe they would have me on,” so I was like, “I have to do this.” The thought of collabing with someone like Anthony Fantano or HIVEMIND, they’re so cool. It makes me anxious, so I should probably do it.
Is there anything more you wanted to say about creativity, or in response to any of my previous questions that you feel like you didn’t quite get to say when I first asked them?
I really hope if my work does anything, it opens people up to some art they wouldn’t have experienced before.
Blustre Recommends:
No Now by Clarence Clarity (album)
Hot coffee.
Bad horror movies
Listening to a genre you hate
This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Max Freedman.