My first viral video: TikTok's "Handpan Man"

Brut America

TikTok's "Handpan Man" keeps going viral online with videos where he drums on a strange instrument ... But playing the handpan also saved his life.  He told us how it all started.

Transcript

00:00I studied psychology in the hopes of helping crazy people.

00:04Now I sit in a forest, playing music on a UFO,

00:07talking to people who don't exist.

00:09And I realize, I'm the crazy one.

00:11My first ever viral video,

00:14which by the way, when I first started playing the handpan,

00:17I was awful. It was really bad.

00:25I had my daughter record the video of me just sitting in the snow playing the handpan.

00:29That video was the first time I ever experienced,

00:33like, oh my god, there's people that I don't know watching my video.

00:38And that was really inspiring to me and exciting.

00:51What sounds better? Jacket on?

00:53Jacket on?

00:58Or off?

01:01You know, I was the kid that was always tapping on something.

01:04I started playing drums at the church, on stage, in front of a crowd of people.

01:08And it was exhilarating and I felt like I was, you know, a little rock star.

01:12My family, we have a history of a disorder called bipolar disorder.

01:20And my father had it.

01:23Part of the bipolar disorder is, you know, really struggling depression and anxiety.

01:29And my father, he really had a hard time accepting that that was who he was.

01:35My father committed suicide when I was 11.

01:39Over the years, I've learned the more often I let out the pain inside of me,

01:44the less power it has.

01:47I started a garage band with a couple of my friends from church.

01:50And again, fueling this desire to be, you know, this rock star.

01:54Later in my teenage years, obviously reality, you know, kicks in.

02:08I finished my degree, got married, had a baby, got a job, got divorced.

02:16And life was really miserable.

02:18It was one of the times that I hit rock bottom and I was starting to have suicidal thoughts myself.

02:25Depression, anxiety, I couldn't sleep.

02:28I was trying to remember happier times and trying to remember what might bring me out of the hole that I was in.

02:37And I remember playing the drums when I was a kid.

02:41And I remember just sitting at that drum set and closing my eyes and just getting lost in the rhythm.

02:49And everything else just fades away.

02:52And that's what playing the drums has always been to me.

02:56It's just letting everything else go.

02:59I took my handpan and went downtown in the city I live in,

03:03just sat down on the sidewalk and opened up my case, started playing music.

03:07People started giving me tit money.

03:09One, two, three, four.

03:16And I started to play the drums.

03:18And I started to hear from my girlfriend about the things that were happening on TikTok.

03:21So I got on TikTok and, holy smokes, it's been like a year and a half now.

03:27And I've got right around 4 million followers.

03:31One of my first ever successful videos on TikTok.

03:38It was just me sitting in front of the camera and not playing a handpan.

03:42Life is like a fart.

03:43Try and force it.

03:44It'll just turn to shit.

03:45And I set a quote that was one of my favorite quotes from when I was a therapist.

03:52And then after that, I just kept on experimenting.

03:55And I just kept on experimenting until I realized that I was doing it wrong.

04:00And I realized that I needed to figure out the right way to do it.

04:05as a therapist.

04:05And then after that, I just kept on experimenting.

04:08And I, honestly, I came to the point where I realized

04:11that music only posts are not successful.

04:16What sounds better?

04:17Easter M&M's or Hershey's eggs?

04:21So you have to be creative and you have to figure out

04:25different ways to get people's attention.

04:27Trust me, if I could just play music

04:30and have people want to listen to it,

04:34I think that would be amazing.

04:35Somehow I figured out to make that happen

04:37during my live videos.

04:39I'm living my dream now and it's been amazing.

04:44And I have every reason to want to be alive.

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