Musical side-project turned viral sensation

TMZ ON THE VIRAL RISE

On March 25, Too Many Zooz played the Bluebird Theatre in Denver. After the concert, the Sentry had the opportunity to talk with one of three musicians that make up the Brasshouse band trumpet player Matt Doe about the band’s background, their rise to fame from online vitality, and what they think about the crowds in Denver.

Doe grew up in Boston, Mass., where he played piano until age 11. He started playing the trumpet in order to avoid playing the piano. “My parents told me if I got good at trumpet, then I could quit piano, so I did,” Doe said. “But, the ironic thing now is that I actually like to play piano more.”

Already being quite musically inclined, Doe moved from Boston to New York at age 17 and attended the Manhattan School of Music, where he would meet one of his current bandmates, Leo P. A few years later, Leo would introduce Doe to David Parks in the subway, in their first meeting of what was soon to be Too Many Zooz.

“The first time I met David was when we were playing together,” Doe said. “I didn’t even know his name. We didn’t really talk much when we first new each other just because we are both pretty reserved people, but there was definitely a musical connection with him. It was really easy to play with him.” The resulting musical connection seemed to lead the band to their eventual rise to viral stardom.

In 2014, a video recording of the band playing in a New York subway station was uploaded to YouTube. The nearly 12-minute-long video has accumulated over 3.5 million views and was also circulated on Facebook and Twitter. Since of going viral, Doe shares that the band has definitely done a lot of growing up.

“It’s not just a fun musical side project that we do. It’s a business, and we all take it a lot more seriously now,” Doe said.

Their viral video has gained the band a lot of attention, especially from one person in particular—Beyoncé. After seeing the video, the superstar R&B performer asked TMZ to perform with her and the Dixie Chicks at the CMA Awards. “It was a pleasure, really. It was a great experience,” Doe said. “It’s just weird, you know, the power of the internet, and word of mouth, and stuff like that. But, there’s no complaints on our end.”

When the band isn’t playing on live television with iconic artists, they are producing music and focusing on creating more sounds and also staying true to their original sounds for their upcoming EP release to cater to new and old listeners. Their most recent adventures are taking them on a select city national tour of the country which included a stop-over in Denver.

TMZ’s most recent visit to Denver was only their second tour stop. “Denver’s crazy,” Doe said. “People really love music here. It’s an amazing and great feeling showing up to places like Denver and people show up, they bring their friends, and they love it.”

TMZ is set to release their EP this summer, and they plan on releasing a national tour schedule at the end of this year.