The Piano Guys, consisting of Jon Schmidt (piano), Steven Sharp Nelson (cello), Al Van Der Beek (music producer), and Paul Anderson (videographer) bring together classical and, well… literally everything else. Their mash-ups have become some of the biggest crossover hits on YouTube with over one billion views. “Who would have ever thought four middle-aged dads from Utah filming classically influenced music in nature could ever succeed at the outset?” asked Steven Sharp Nelson.
The name ‘Piano Guys’ is theirs by accident. “It’s horrible,” Jon Schmidt told me. “We have this buddy (Paul Anderson); he owned a piano store called The Piano Guys and he had asked me to help him market his pianos.” The friend’s fearlessness at placing his pianos in danger led to some incredible viral moments for the group. Jon tells us the initial response “exceeded” their expectations and because of it made a name change impossible. “We looked into changing our name, and we found out that we would lose millions of hits on this channel… so we just had to stick with the name of his YouTube channel, which was The Piano Guys. So poor Steve has to be known as a piano guy for the rest of his life and I look like the biggest jerk on the planet.”
It may seem like an overnight success story but music has been a lifetime journey. Both Jon and Steven had opera singers in their family; for Jon it was his father. “I was the youngest in the family,” he told us. “My oldest sister was a piano performance major. She was amazing. She’s the best pianist in the family. I grew up listening to her accompanying him on German art songs… it was a great musical heritage.”
The progression to music was natural for Jon. “I just fell into it. It was just sort of an expectation. I guess it would have been weird if it didn’t happen.” Jon briefly experimented with guitar but quickly changed his mind. “It hurt my fingers so bad.” Thankfully, though, he was able to discover piano was his true instrument. “I didn’t have a mom forcing me to do it. So I guess, you know, hats off to my mom.”
Jon looked to his big sister as a role model, admitting, “I don’t know if she ever got paid, but she just gave me weekly lessons and did kind of the classical regimen that she had.” His musical world expanded in junior high with exposure to Billy Joel and Mannheim Steamroller. “I was really captivated as a 13-year-old as I listened to their first album… Mannheim Steamroller kind of blatantly mixed old and new and it just intrigued me. I thought it was so cool. I think it really influenced the original music that I started to write as a teenager and into my 20s.”
Jon actually won a scholarship to study music but decided not to take it. “I had always heard these horror stories of how hard it is on your family so I wanted nothing to do with it. I just kind of wanted to do it on the side.” His intention was to study for an MBA but it was eventually Jon’s wife Michelle that helped him decide music might be worth the risk after all.
“When my wife and I got married we kind of made a decision together. You know, try to figure out what we wanted to do for a living. I had been doing music on the side and putting out recordings for fun and playing benefit concerts. I had already sold several thousand albums… We thought let’s just give music a try for a year and took a risk.”
That year quickly stretched from one to two and then just kept going. “It was a decision that I made with her that’s what allowed me to do it. It’s something I’ve never felt like I could impose upon this poor person that decided to marry me. So, once we were married, that’s when it kind of became an option.” To this day Michelle continues to be a confidant, “She’s got incredible musical instincts. And I counsel with her, she’s my best person to counsel with.”
Jon released nine albums and collaborated with many different musicians but Steven Sharp Nelson immediately stuck out as unique. He remembers at the time that Steven was “the kind of kid that didn’t need sheet music, he could just improvise.” That innate understanding was liberating for the duo and Jon’s admiration is evident. “He was just a genius.”
It took a few more years for Jon to discover Steven’s gift for comedy and it inspired him to change the tone of their shows. “I thought: what if we put a vocal mic in front of him and just banter back and forth during the show and it was such a hit… the audiences just went nuts. They just thought that it was such a great addition because it just brought this like Smothers Brothers vibe where we could highlight what I think is world class, comedian, comedic talent and timing that Steve has. I mean, he actually could host a talk show or something like that. He’s that quick minded.”
Musically they both had the classical background but the desire to explore. “We both had this musical tendency to mix the old and the new. We saw eye to eye on that, it was a real uncanny unity.”
Steven Sharp Nelson has shared, “Our favorite thing is to find a way too be on the fringes of possibility. We like to combine things you would never expect to find together—but are close enough to make sense. It has been our mindset from the beginning.”
One of their arrangements was combining “Pachelbel’s Canon in D” with music from U2. John told us, “I think it’s a cool concept to do a mash up. It really makes people intrigued.”
The very first video to go viral was “Love Story meets Viva la Vida.” Jon credits his kids for this inspiration, “I was trying to do something that they would think was cool, you know, the insecure dads always trying to get their kids to think they are cool.” His intention was “to arrange “Love Story” in a real epic way to match the words that my kids used to describe why they liked the tune. I had that in mind as I was arranging it and then it got so big that it didn’t feel like it could end and I was like what can we do now? I just had this crazy idea to have it go into Coldplay and I thought people would think it was weird.”
The reaction, in fact, was completely the opposite; within the month it had hit 1 million views. “We were so excited. We were getting emails from all over the world, somebody wanted us to come do a concert in Malaysia. Oh, wow. They thought we were a big act and they’re like, be in our concert series in Malaysia… it was an amazing experience.”
Those years of work since childhood had let to this “instant” success and then came the other videos and the tours; it still is surprising to them. “We didn’t think it would go big. We didn’t think we would be performing at the Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House and all that. We didn’t, we were just kind of helping Paul out, you know? And then it just, it just took off. And here we are with this weird, awkward name going.”
It’s not just the name that is confusing for many fans. Because their music covers so many styles and genres it can be hard to fit The Piano Guys into a neat box. But we were delighted to hear Jon confirm that the designation that best suits them is indeed classical crossover. “I think it’s the best…. I think that’s where we fit.”
Jon and Steven have consistently put their families first, saying no to touring during the summer to prioritize time together. It’s something rarely heard of in the music industry that often puts profit over anything else, but it’s clear that The Piano Guys have determined to do things their way – and that includes being open about their faith.
“Right from the start with my wife and I trying to figure out if we should do music, it just felt like something that that we should pray over and I think that we got a real push a real definite push, do it. And it overcame a lot of misgivings that we had.” Jon shares how American painter Minerva Teichert inspired him when he learned she would always pray before picking up her brush and also reading about the father in The Hiding Place . He thought to himself, “Why don’t I do that… I should be doing this in my life, you know? And it’s been awesome. We do it with The Piano Guys when we encounter problems and I honestly feel like some of the solutions have been awesome. Just where it’s like yeah, that wasn’t us. So it’s been something we rely on, a real asset.”
This process was true for their arrangement of “The Mission: How Great Thou Art.” Jon told us, “That’s one of those tunes where we were running into problems all the time trying to combine those songs. And we literally just kept praying, just kept getting cool solutions. One of the solutions was just to bump that song, just bump it over one beat and it worked. We never would have thought of it.”
The East coast will have a chance to experience The Piano Guys live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) on Wednesday, September 14th. It will be a show for the whole family. Jon is especially proud of this. “The thing that I love as we get this feedback all the time is, that ‘We were there with the whole age range with our family and everyone loved it’ and that is the coolest thing to hear.”
“Sometimes we’ll play upside down with the hands crossed. Steve has his loop pedals and his effects boxes, he rigged a TalkBox – the the things that he does. He’ll play as cello, like a percussion instrument he plays with a kick drum. You’ve never seen a cellist like this, the way he has evolved over the years, he’s just brilliant… It really should be called The Cello Guys. It’s really such an injustice.”
Fans worldwide can continue to enjoy The Piano Guys through all major streaming services and can expect much more music to come. Jon recently installed a studio in his home which he is ecstatic about: “I am just in heaven, being able to use the studio as a writing tool not worrying about hassling everybody… because I love trying every last option and then picking the best one. That’s what I love, now I can do it. I’m just so excited. I feel like it’s a renaissance for me musically. And I’m just having so much fun.”
Purchase tickets to see The Piano Guys Live in Concert now!
Wednesday, September 14th at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $49.50-$79.50.
To purchase, contact NJPAC at 1.888.GO.NJPAC/1.888.466.5722 or visit NJPAC.org.
Watch the full interview with Jon Schmidt on our YouTube channel
This interview is thanks to April Thibeault from AMT Public Relations.
