Pop Culturalist Chats with AJ

AJ is a class-act, singer-songwriter-performer who is taking the world by storm. His virtual reality music video for “Tongue” is the first of its kind and has over a million views to date. He’s toured the world with Pentatonix, performing in front of millions. He is involved with charity organizations like DoSomething.org, the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters. And, did we mention that he is only 18 years old?  Pop Culturalist was excited to chat with him about his passion for music, his desire to bring people together, and why he’s now going to go by Alec Joseph.

 

PC: When did you know you wanted to be a musician?
AJ: That’s a great question. I feel like there is no exact time in my life. I’ve always been doing shows in school and at camp. Actually, I take that back. There was an exact time for me. When I was younger, I was performing, and I was also playing tennis at the same time. During one performance a kid came up to me and said, “Wow, your performance was really amazing. It inspired me to do this as well.” And then I thought, “You know, I’ve never had that experience with tennis—where I can really change people’s lives through it and inspire people. So why not pursue something that can really make a difference in the world with.” I was about 14, 15 years old when I decided to do that. Everything just took off from there, and I’ve been very, very lucky and honored to be on this ride.

PC: Has it always been important to you to use your platform as a way to help other people?
AJ: Definitely. I feel like—and I kind of just said this—but I feel like the reason I got into music in the first place was not that I was obsessed with singing and performing. It has evolved into that, and, yes, I love performing. But I really started with this all because I did want to make an impact on the world. Sure, I was a young kid who was so happy and just thought I need to spread happiness, but that’s really evolved over the past couple of years. I just want to create a connection with people across the world—whether it is happy or sad. I want to be a person who is a narrator and an explainer to someone in different circumstances; to say, you know, it’s okay to feel. It’s okay to feel happy, and it’s okay to feel sad. I want to be the person, through my music, to be able to make people feel something.

PC: So, then, what is your favorite part about being a musician?
AJ: That’s also evolved a lot over the past couple of years. At first it was just writing and doing the whole creative process. And it still really is that. I love creating so much, and I love writing a lot. I’ve gotten the opportunity to tour across the world over the past couple of years. That really has been my favorite part—being able to meet people in so many different walks of life and to get to hear different perspectives and different stories. It has been really, really incredible for me.

PC: What has been the biggest challenge in songwriting and with the creative process?
AJ: I guess trying to come up with a message that no one’s said before. That’s difficult because songs are really about the same core things: love, loss, and all those things. Music is a universal language that everyone can relate to, and it’s a feeling. Those [core things] are the strongest feelings in the world so you have to stay in that realm. So just trying to come up with something that’s in that realm that people haven’t heard before has been a little bit difficult. With my song “Tongue,” (which I’ve gotten really, really fortunate that it got to number one on the independent chart) for example, I feel like a lot of it comes creatively from how do you take that specific theme of love and loss and put your own twist to it? So in that song, for example, there’s a line: “Am I slipping off the tip of your tongue?” That can mean a lot of different things, in my opinion. It can mean: did you forget about me in a relationship? But, for me, it could also mean broken promises; people in the music industry saying that they’d be there for you, but then never really following up with what they said they were going to do. Just in any sort of circumstance, I feel like that idea of a broken promise is easy to relate to. So, yeah, just walking within that realm of trying to come up with something that people haven’t said before.

PC: Speaking of “Tongue,” how did you come up with the concept for the music video? Were you super involved with that, or did someone present an idea to you? How did that work?
AJ: So I actually met with YouTube. I think it was in May or June. They were showing me around the YouTube space and talking about this virtual reality thing. Of course, I’d heard about virtual reality and seen some things in virtual reality, but I didn’t really know the impact it could have. They basically said to me, “If you direct a music video in virtual reality, it will be the first major music video in virtual reality…and it will blow up.” I was 17, and I was like, “Can I do this?” and they were like, “Can we do this?” None of us had ever worked in the VR space before. So, it was definitely a trial and error process that we worked on for a few months. Now I can say successfully that it was the first major music video in virtual reality. It blew up to over one million views in about one week. We got really, really fortunate to team up with some awesome people in the video—some of my friends, Chloe Lukasiak from Dance Moms and Twan Kuyper, who is a pretty big influencer—to basically tell their own stories of broken promises within friendship and within relationships.

PC: You also recently toured with Pentatonix. What was it like doing that huge tour, and what did you take away from it?
AJ: I’m from New York City so being able to travel across the world, see different places that I’d never been but heard about like somewhere in the middle of America and the South, seeing how awesome and sweet these people are, meeting these different people, hearing their stories, and hearing how nice they really are was really, really awesome for me. And I just felt like the whole traveling experience was so awesome for me on that tour because I was able to connect with a lot of people across the world. And then, Pentatonix was so, so supportive of everything that I was doing; that was really incredible as well.

PC: Is there a place that you’d want to go back to that you went to on tour?
AJ: That’s a good question. People always ask me why, but my favorite parts of the tour were the South of America and the Midwest. I just felt like those crowds were very, very loud and energetic. Then again, I take that back. Everywhere, really, on that tour because of Pentatonix’s fan base was so energetic and so exciting. So, I guess, there was no one place that I wouldn’t not want to go back to. I really loved every single place, but I’d say [the South and Midwest] are the places that really stood out to me.

PC: In the future are there other artists that you dream of collaborating with?
AJ: Yeah, definitely. I’ve wanted my whole life, for multiple reasons, to collaborate with Rhianna. I love Rhianna. I think she’s really, really cool. I also might be in love with her so that might be another reason! She’s definitely on the top of my list. I call my music urban acoustic because I believe it’s a mixture of rhythmic music and singer-songwriter music so, on the other hand, I’d love to collaborate with someone like Ed Sheeran.

PC: Growing up, who were your musical influences?
AJ: Definitely Ed Sheeran and Rhianna. In addition to those, the singer-songwriters like John Mayer, Gavin DeGraw, and Bruno Mars. On the more rhythmic side, I’d say people like Neo, Usher and Justin Timberlake. I kind of fused those two different sounds together and created this weird urban acoustic sound.

PC: If you had to give advice to a young singer-songwriter/musician who was just starting out, what would you tell them?
AJ: That’s a good question as well. So I’d say two different things. One of them I’m going to quote someone who told me this. The first half of it is—and people have said this before, but I think it’s really important to really stay true to it—be original because you really are the only you. If you try to be someone else, if you try to sound like someone else, that spot is already taken. For me, I’ve already done so many things that if I tried to sound like someone, if I tried to look like someone, or if I tried to act like someone, first of all, it doesn’t come across as natural. Secondly, people aren’t interested in it because it’s already been done. So be yourself, as cheesy as that sounds; people say it because it really is a true thing. So, that’s the first half of it. And then the second half, a songwriter once told me. I think it was about three years ago. They said that you can be the sweetest, juiciest peach in the world, but there are still going to be people who don’t like peaches. So, you know, it doesn’t really matter if people don’t like you. It only matters if you like yourself and if the people around you really like themselves because that’s what’s going to lead to more success.

PC: That’s very good advice. So what do you have in store for the rest of 2017?
AJ: I’m actually really excited to tell you as one of the first people that I’m changing my name to Alec Joseph—which is what AJ stands for. That’s been something I’ve been toying with for the past couple of years, and I’ve just been trying to figure out when I wanted to make that transition. It’s a little more mature. I feel like it’s a little bit more, I don’t know, older and cooler. That’s how I want to be treated—a little bit more seriously. It’s not that I’m not treated seriously; I just want to be taken like a serious artist in this world. So, I think that will help. One of the other things in 2017 is that I’m really hoping to go on tour soon. As I said, being on stage and connecting with people has really, really become my main focus in all this. I love performing, and I love connecting with people all across the world. So I’m hoping to go on tour soon and definitely putting out a lot of new music within this next year.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

Guilty pleasure TV show
Westworld

Guilty pleasure movie
Movie, hm, I don’t know…The Hunger Games.

Favorite book
Catcher in the Rye

Hidden talent
I’m a good chef, I think!

Your go-to karaoke song
Go-to karaoke song is “Grenade” by Bruno Mars.

 

Make sure to follow AJ (now Alec Joseph) on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!

Photo Credit: AJ