Meet Josh Zimmer | Musician & Content Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Josh Zimmer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Josh, why did you pursue a creative career?
Like most of the things that have worked out in my life, I don’t think it was ever a conscientious decision. Pursing an artistic career just sort of fell naturally into place for me. For as long as I can remember, being creative was the thing I gravitated to the most. When I was a kid, a did a lot of drawings and crafts. When I became a teenager, all I wanted to do was play music. In my early twenties, I dabbled a bit in filmmaking. I usually prefer to work on projects by myself rather than working with others so when the pandemic hit, that became the perfect time to go full force with my own music and social media. Since then, I’ve stayed (mostly) consistent with everything. This has allowed Project Atlantic to grow into what it is today.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m both a musician and a content creator. I started playing bass when I was 13. Since then, I’ve learned a bit of guitar, piano, drums, and singing. While I know my way around those instruments, I am first and foremost a bass player. I’ve played bass in a bunch of different bands over the years and while that’s always been great, I did eventually want to work on music that was just me, myself, and I. That’s what Project Atlantic is, a single person making DIY indie music in his apartment. Over the course of about a decade now, I’ve released 3 albums and a handful of singles.

While the music aspect of Project Atlantic has been going on since my early twenties, the social media aspect is a bit newer. When the pandemic hit, I made it a priority to go full force into learning everything I could about what it takes to gain a following on social media. It took a long time to find what worked for me. At first I was just posting photos on Instagram, but when TikTok started gaining popularity (in addition to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts), that’s when I started gaining momentum with my following. At first, I was posting videos posing questions to other musicians such as “How many instruments do you play?” and “What’s your favorite chord?”. While these videos did well and got me a bit of an audience, the person I was being on camera wasn’t really representative of who I actually am. I was trying to be more loud and animated than I actually am in real life. I was putting on the persona of what most would associate with a typical online social media influencer. That just isn’t me.

I eventually leaned more into creating content that was sarcastic and humorous. Saying something goofy in a monotone voice is more inline with my actual personality. For the most part, who I am now on social media is just an exaggerated version of how I see myself. With this change in style, my audience grew pretty drastically.

The most popular series of videos I’ve made is me counting along to time signatures in songs. I was seeing a lot of content creators posting videos of themselves doing things every day until something happened. There was a guy playing Buddy Holly by Weezer every day until the lead singer, Rivers Cuomo, duetted him. There was another guy doing a specific dance every day until he got a girlfriend (as of now, he’s still doing it). I thought, “why don’t I do a parody of this ‘every day’ trend? Something so incredibly specific that it would just be ridiculous”. I’ve always noticed a little rhythmic change in the theme song of the PBS kids show Dragon Tales. The video I made presented me with a tired blank stare on my face counting along to the music. The caption read “Day 84 of listening to children’s show themes every day until I hear a time signature change”. Once the change hits, my eyes widen with a surprise look on my face after finally finding the obscure thing I was looking for. The camera then zooms into my eyes. I thought the idea was funny, but also thought something like that would be too niche to get a lot of attention, To this day it’s one of my most popular videos and I’ve made probably upwards of 50 more like it with different songs. I’ve received so many comments like “I do this when listening to music too”, “I have no idea what this means, but these are always funny”, and “That’s why I thought that part sounded different”. Who knew that something I listen for in music that I thought would be too obscure of a thing would catch the attention of so many people?

Finding what worked for both me and my audience took quite a bit of time. In fact, there are days when I still feel like I’m still molding and shaping Project Atlantic into what I want it to be. The most important lesson I learned was that persistence is key. I’ve reached so many milestones in both my music and social media. Those milestones have been reached because I’ve continued creating. If a song doesn’t sound good, I look at what didn’t work about it and release another one that will hopefully sound better. If I put a video out and no one thought it was funny, I make another and see if the humor in the new one lands. There is an ebb and flow to creativity and how it’s received. If I want to put out something that’s – in my opinion – successful, I have to keep creating until it happens.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
In NYC, I’m big on a few places. Chelsea Market is a must see for both the food and the environment. There’s an excellent Mediterranean place there called Miznon that has probably the best pitas in the city.

Central Park has what seems like an infinite amount of things to see and do. I especially love walking through to listen to and support the musicians busking.

For drinks, dinner, and especially entertainment, I’m a sucker for Birdland. As someone who is both a fan of New York and jazz history, Birdland is probably my favorite place to see live music. While it’s technically a different venue than the original, you can’t go wrong with it. Especially if you’re looking to hear authentic NYC jazz musicians do their thing.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There’s a few people that I owe my success to. The first two are my mom, Joanne and my dad, Dave. They’ve always been in full support of me pursing music, even pursuing it in college and as a career. It’s cliché, but I hear so many stories of musicians who wanted to pursue music as more than a hobby and their parents told them it’s not a “real job”. My parents never once said that phrase to me. Growing up, they paid for my music lessons, my dad took to a bunch of great concerts, they went to the majority of my live performances, and they helped me in finding a college to study music at. I’ve been nothing but encouraged by the both of them.

The other person is my wife, Julie who is also a musician. I started really pursing social media and content creation right before we got married. Since then, she’s been the number one person I go to when I have good news to share. When I feel something Project Atlantic related has been successful, I don’t celebrate it by myself. We celebrate it together. She excels in helping me realize just how much my hard work can pay off. I always feel like she has my back.

Website: https://www.projectatlantic.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectatlanticmusic/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@projectatlanticmusic

Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@projectatlanticmusic

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2qb9O78ndyxJEilBpRYNbx?si=5pzkrcJdRFmNqHXnTBOQkA