Jack Conte, known as JackConteMusic on YouTube, is a YouTuber and multi-instrumentalist most well known for being half of the duo Pomplamoose, his music videos, and two high-profile controversies in 2014. He is also the CEO and co-founder of Patreon.
Biography
He was born in San Fransisco in July 12, 1984. He started playing piano from the young age of six. He would later teach himself multiple instruments in his teens.
He attended Stanford University, where he met Nataly Dawn, with whom he would later fom Pomplamoose. They began dating in 2006.
Videos
Like Pomplamoose, his early videos would take the form of video songs, which consisted of two rules :
- What you see is what you hear (no audio-syncing for instruments or vocals)
- If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds)
Music
His earlier music style draws from experimental, progressive and alternative rock, jazz fusion, pop-punk and blues. Recently , his music style evolved more into dance, EDM and pop.
Controversies
In October 2014, he was intially, indirectly caught up in the GamerGate controversy, as Zoe Quinn (the subject of the controversy) had her games funded via Patreon. Shortly after, he was directly involved when he and Patreon were pressured to remove "The Sarkeesian Effect", a documentary on the controversy. The documentary (as well as its creator's page) is still active as of January 2015.
In November, he wrote a blogpost on blog-site medium.com detaling the finances of Pomplamoose's fall tour in 2014. The band made $137,000 on the tour; they lost $11,819 as their expenses amounted up to $147,802. The blogpost has 150,000 hits in two days.
He was immediately criticized by the public as well as fellow musicians due to what was seen as overspending in certain budgets. He responded with a Q&A webcast shortly after.
Trivia
- He plays piano, drums, bass guitar, guitar, accordion, organ and percussion.
- Most of the equipment that he bought to start off Pomplamoose were bought at a yard sale.
- He is the co-founder of kickstarter company Patreon.
- He also specializes in filmaking.
- He voiced the "teenage boy" character in The Sims 2.