The Alchemist

With the crowdfunding platform Patreon, DIY musician Jack Conte set out to provide a livelihood for the entire creative class. Is it more than just a band-aid for a broken system?

- Jonah Weiner

It’s 11:16 am on a Saturday, and Jack Conte—bright-eyed, bushy-bearded—is zigzagging around a cramped Los Angeles recording studio, dodging eight musicians, two cameramen, a sound engineer, and a profusion of instruments, cords, and mic stands. “Let’s do it!” he cries out, sounding martial and chipper at once, like a high school drama teacher. Conte’s been here since 9 am, leading everyone through a packed day of recording. When the clock strikes 11:17 and the doing-it has yet to commence, he cries out again, “Let’s do it, let’s do it, let’s go!”

Together with his wife, the singer-songwriter Nataly Dawn, Conte is one-half of a band called Pomplamoose. They’ve spent 11 years together building an online following, mostly on the strength of their idiosyncratic, hyper-proficient pop covers—Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” featuring eight-part harmonies, a xylophone, and a toy piano (9.5 million YouTube views); Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” arranged for upright piano, jazz bass, and an old Polaroid camera repurposed as a percussion instrument (11 million views). When they started out, Conte worked on the band full-time; he and Dawn would usually play all the instruments themselves. They also did all the arranging, filming, and editing. Making one video could take a week.