Cobus Potgieter
YouTube drummer, South African Cobus Potgieter, has delighted his worldwide fan base with the release of his fifth series which includes a cover version of one of Kelly Clarkson’s latest releases, My life would suck without you.
The track, one of 16 in the series, has notched up over 120,000 views since it was uploaded two weeks ago. Most views have come from the United States, Great Britain and Canada with a huge following also coming from Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and South America.
The White Series has entrenched Potgieter as one of the channels top 100 musicians where his current ranking is 95. Almost half of the songs in the White Series have been released which includes Blink 182, Fightstar, Paramore, John Mayer and Breaking Benjamin. This week will see the release of a further four tracks and will include songs from the Dave Matthews Band, Incubus, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Yellowcard. The tracks, which are released every alternate day, have helped maintain the interest of fans.
The White Series follows the Michael Jackson tribute which included four tracks, Beat it, Black or White, Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean. This mini-tribute series' topped over 100 000 views in only four days. His drum cover of Beat it was the second most rated video by a musician on YouTube on the second day of its release. The combined views of the MJ and White Series in the past month now totals over two million views, that’s an average daily view count of 70,000.
“Luckily there has been a progression from the earlier series which included the overhead, tri-cam, duo-cam and blister series. The latter series earned Potgieter 11 blisters during the record-breaking recording.
Potgieter took a more relaxed approach for the White Series which he had hoped to take about two months but which eventually took longer. Potgieter does his own post production.
When asked on the background to the name for the series, Potgieter says, “it just happened that during recording I didn’t wear my traditional black t-shirt and instead wore a white one with an accompanying white armband. It’s just a visual thing.”
For Potgieter, the “ah-ha” moment of this series was undoubtedly the Kelly Clarkson track because it has a ton of energy. This recording shows a whole new level of energy - just awesome.
Potgieter says the response to the White Series has been, “incredibly good, almost too good. The response has been overwhelming and much bigger than the last time. It has been insane.”
The White Series was produced before the equally popular Michael Jackson series, and hence fans won’t see the TRX cymbals or Jobeky kit.
Potgieter’s next milestone is a “instructional and documentary”
For the editor
Cobus Potgieter, the 22-year old YouTube drummer who grew up in Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape, is internationally recognised for his videos on the social network channel, notching close to 18 million views.
Potgieter began playing drums at the age of 16 and posted his first video in August 2006. In late 2007, he loaded his first hit track, Nsnyc’s Pop, which was his top viewed video with over 1,4 million views.
Over the past three years, he has posted five series of videos on the channel, each using different camera angles and editing techniques. His first series was the "overhead series" featuring 10 videos which was released in June 2007. This was followed by the "tri-cam" series featuring seven videos and the “dual-cam"
On November 11, 2008, Cobus Potgieter uploaded the Hybrid series (he used the acoustic and electric kits combined) which comprised 17 videos, including Avenged Sevenfold's Afterlife, Vanilla Sky's Umbrella (a Rihanna cover) and the Jonas Brothers Burnin' Up.
This was followed by the Michael Jackson tribute series which included four tracks, Beat it, Black or White, Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean. This mini-tribute series' topped over 100 000 views in only four days. His drum cover of Beat it was the second most rated video by a musician on YouTube on the second day of its release.
Cobus Potgieter cites Tony Royster Jr, Derico Watson, Carter Beauford, Travis Barker, Mike Portnoy and Thomas Lang as his main drumming influences.
Potgieter currently lives in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
