Pomplamoose is one of the bands with the biggest following on YouTube.
The band formed in the summer of 2008 by the talented Natalie Dawn and Jack Conte.
At the beginning, their collaborations included covers of popular songs, which were published together with their brilliantly crafted creations, in their YouTube channel Pomplamoose.
In the following months their covers became famous and their outstanding musical ability was recognised, the word spread and they quickly turned into an online sensation. By 2009 they sold over 100,000 songs, mostly via iTunes and their constantly evolving website Pomplamoose.com.
Yes, they are a couple. An example of love and work that grew into a creative duo respecting their individuality.
What does Pomplamoose mean? - The name comes from the French word “pamplemousse,” meaning grapefruit, which appears as their original logo.
Their musical style is an experimental mixture of indie ballads with a modern twist named “VideoSongs,” where “what you see is what you hear.” No lip-syncing of voice or instruments and no hidden sounds. All instruments, sound effects and vocals are shown in the videos in synchronisation with the music, making the videos uniquely dynamic, clearly conveying the emotional load invested in their production.
Before Pomplamoose Natalie and Jack were producing their own music separately with a unique personal stamp. Two true artists writing their own creations and building up their own style as they excelled in their craft.
Destiny put them together and they found love and an emotional and artistic affinity that will place them among the stars.
Natalie (Natalie Dawn Knutsen) is a singer and song writer and has the most incredible voice you will ever hear. She taught herself guitar and took some bass lessons; now she plays most of the bass sections for the band.
She wrote her first song at the age of 12 when she was living in France. Besides her natural musical ability she has a Masters in French History from Stanford University and studied French while living in France and Belgium.
Listen to her music in her space at MySpace and also her own channel in YouTube, there are also links to buy her album.
Jack (Jack Conte) started making music long before the creation of Pomplamoose.
He composed his first song at the age of 6, after taking piano lessons from his father at home. In his teens he switched to jazz lessons and later, also at Stanford University, he majored in music and composition.
Jack picked up playing other instruments by experimenting with them and now he has a wide selection that he uses in his recordings at his home studio. His videos show a mosaic of instruments being played in sync with the songs.
Although his lyrics convey all types of inspired messages, he uses them to guide his voice as another instrument, pushing the boundaries of range to extremes.
Conte’s creativity in video production appeared early in his career with one of his first hits Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, a video that was featured on the front page of YouTube in 2008. Since then it has received more than 700,000 hits and shows a fantastic scenario of solitude, intrigue, hope, love and frustration.
His musical style is unique and has served as inspiration to many. It is a testament of how far you can go towards achieving your goals, working on your own in your “home/bedroom studio,” whilst keeping originality and musical excellence.
In the last couple of years there has been an exciting emergence of responses and original creations resulting from the sense of freedom and enjoyment that people see in Jack’s videos. His influence has opened up doors to musical and artistic expression.
Thanks Jack and Natalie for leading the way and shining a light on people’s creative paths.
Listen to his tunes at his page in MySpace and also his own channel in YouTube, where you can find links to buy his songs and albums.
Together on the road
Pomplamoose’s videos are edited by Natalie. She takes the multiple takes of all instruments and voices and syncs them up with the final mix of the song using Final Cut Pro.
Keeping track of the nearly one hundred layers, she shows the relevant instruments or voice as the song progresses arranging them in a fun and entertaining way.
Jack does the audio mix, the edits and mastering of the songs. He uses Pro Tools and a plugin package called “Native Power Pack” from Waves. This software has one of his favourite tools, a limiter “L1” that makes audio loud and rich without distortion.
The band has the conviction of publishing their songs independently. They refuse to sign up with traditional record labels and want to promote collaboration and free expression.
Their work goes beyond the beautiful voice and presence of Natalie and the vibrant musical exploits of Jack; they are contributing in changing the way music is made and distributed, taking full advantage of evolving social structures derived from technological developments, where technology is not the star but the medium.
One of the messages they want to send to new artists is that they have the responsibility to take their projects to completion and to publish them for the benefit of the world.
Don’t get fixated in one idea as tomorrow you will always have a better one. Get your ideas out as quickly and as thoroughly as possible and avoid a backlog of frustrated thoughts.
Spend whatever time is required to make your project better but don’t wait until the product is 100% polished. Get it to 95% and ship it out. Release it when it is good enough and says what you want to say, then move on to the next one because there are more projects waiting to come out.
Despite making a name for themselves uploading their stuff to YouTube for 2 years, they only had a few live shows. Their resolution for 2011 was to make more live appearances.
They are now producing a weekly show called “Hey it’s Pomplamoose” streamed live for all to see, the latest of which was a high definition collaborative effort broadcast via Ustream on Tuesday 29 March. A rare appearance as a quartet with Ryan Lerman on guitar and Carlos Cabrera on drums. They shared their favourite tunes and played requests from people connected via live streams and chat rooms from all over the world.
If you missed their shows, they are available in their Ustream recorded videostream channel.
Alternatively, there is a more complete collection of performances with table of contents and edits on jamesbondhv’s YouTube channel.
Have a listen to Pomplamoose and you may also fall in love
| Little things (1 million hits) | Making out (½ million hits) |
Mr Sandman (2.9 million hits) | Telephone (6.8 million hits) |
Find many more songs on the Pomplamoose channel in YouTube.
Awesome invitation to the live show
And now ... THE SHOW, for real, at Loudville Studios in Sausalito, CA
(thanks to jamesbondhv)
Images
¤ All images edited by ren@rt. Source: YouTube, Pomplamoose.
