Q&A with Tay Zonday

Your parents let you play Pro Skater 4 for 100 hours, but you couldn’t listen to Prince?
No, I don’t think I even knew who Prince was. I think I might have been afraid of what my parents might think of me if I listened to Prince. I was living very much in a sheltered, pop culture vacuum. I didn’t talk a whole lot. I didn’t speak a whole lot in my house. I think a lot of people relate to me now, particularly people who are emotive or people-readers. You know, some people, you talk to them, and you can tell they’re used to reading people. And I don’t really give off any emotions. I think it drives people crazy because it’s kind of like there’s nothing there. And I think I learned to be very controlling and very reserved and not give any external signs of what I think or what I believe in the home context in which I grew up—because any indication that I gave, in one way or another, would instantly be pounced on, and assumptions about who I was or what I did or what I believed or what I was turning into would be made. I couldn’t just sit and watch TV and laugh because what I was laughing at would be an indication of how I was growing up. My parents were very neurotic in that regard.

You couldn’t laugh at the TV because you were afraid of what they would think about you?
Most definitely. There is a name for that: agoraphobia.

Now you feel the same way about the press?
No, I think those people encounter me, and they are a little bit freaked out. I really don’t give off any signals. I think that kind of relates to my stage presence, too, sometimes. I did this song, “Can’t Dance,” about not being loose or not being able to let go and positively being self-aware and self-conscious. And I think that’s very much the case. I’m very calculating.

You’re very calculating?
At least in my personal endeavors. In my personal conduct and what I do with my body. Making music, definitely not. Maybe that’s the contrast. Maybe that’s why I make music on YouTube. I just put it out there, and whatever happens with it, I don’t worry about it a whole lot. But definitely, personally, I’m very reserved, very particular, very calculating.

Why don’t you do more covers?
Because they’re illegal, and I would be sued.

You could work that out. Get a lawyer.
Well, yeah, you pay an attorney $400 an hour.

You can make a record and pay them for rights.
But you can’t post on YouTube though. I would love to post covers on YouTube. I would love to like read Stephen King. I would love to do all this copyrighted stuff. It’s just illegal. It kind of sucks. And some people get away with it. Some fantastic artists get away with it—Esmee Denters for one. But there’s also been people with lots more subscribers than me who have been suspended for doing copyrighted covers. So it’s a crapshoot at this point. And I really think the legal system is a shame. I would read Stephen King even if Stephen King got all the money for it. I would do it for fun. So it’s just one of those unfortunate things where hopefully you kind of put your head in the sand, and five years from now, it will be all sorted out. So you can actually do covers. But yeah, I did Rick Astley’s "Never Gonna Give You Up." I did "Edelweiss." I’ve done them, and they’ve been popular videos that have been re-posted by other people, so I’m not legally liable. I almost feel like getting a ghost account, like getting my seven-year-old niece to post my covers.

Because your interpretive ability might be the most interesting thing about you. There’s no shame in that—Rod Stewart was the man.
Actually, I would be the first to say that. Because right now on YouTube, there are artists, songwriters, producers, videographers, vocalists. I don’t do all of those things well by any means. I think my greatest strength is as a vocalist, probably followed by, maybe, songwriting. Definitely not in videography, definitely not in production, definitely not in cherography. So if I teamed up with a professional choreographer, professional producers, professional videogrpahy, and probably even professional songwriting, because I think I'm hit-and-miss in that regard, too. I think that my vocals are my strongest point and the strongest thing I have going. But I think that the reality is, am I willing to make the sacrifices that would be necessary for me to do that? You know how the music industry works: $3 million in income and $3 million in debt—there’s all this money coming in, but I would’ve made more at McDonald’s. And if that’s what I need to do in order to get more talented production, more talented songwriting, more talented videography, then that’s not something I’m interested in doing. But there’s also the Dr. Pepper thing, which was very smart. I kept the rights to that; I think it was a great work from a production-value standpoint. You can talk about the ethics until you’re blue in the face. But I know a lot of artists for whom product sponsorship is much more appealing and much more ethical than the record deal at this day and age. So that’s always out there.