Collin McLoughlin is a music producer, writer, and singer from Bedford, New York. As of August 2017 he has achieved over 2.8 billion views on his YouTube channel, has been featured on tracks with Dash Berlin, [1] Laidback Luke, [2] and Hardwell, [3] and was a member of Team Adam on Season 3 of The Voice.
McLoughlin began performing music at a young age. His first experience with guitar was in middle school during the 7th grade mandatory music class. Although he claimed to have not been initially interested in music McLoughlin credits this early exposure to it as an instrumental aspect of his development. He left Rippowam in middle school to attend Wooster School in Danbury, CT during his freshman year of High School.
McLoughlin began taking guitar lessons in ninth grade at Wooster School. Shortly afterwards he began to perform and write original songs. After his high school education McLoughlin attended Colgate University.
After his success with Nautical Young McLoughlin pursued a solo career, eventually linking up with rapper Sammy Adams and performing as an opener for several sold out shows with the artist including the House of Blues in Boston and the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. He credits this early exposure from Sammy Adams as an important stepping stone in his career.
The following fall McLoughlin set out to attend New York University's Music Business Graduate Program, only to take a leave of absence after one year to pursue his dream of being a professional musician.
McLoughlin's first YouTube video was released shortly after he took the leave of absence from NYU. The song covered in the video was his acoustic rendition of Swedish House Mafia's "Save the World", co-produced with former Nautical Young producer Garrington Spence. The video was shot and edited by Jon Kilmer, and since its release in May 22, 2011 the video has received nearly two million views. McLoughlin built off the success of this initial video by making a mashup based around Gym Class Heroes's "Stereo Hearts", and later several other videos with similar success. After releasing eight covers of popular songs on YouTube his channel swelled with nearly twelve million views along with over fifty thousand subscribers.