Gold Coast musician, Jacob Lee's hit 'I Belong To You' captivates people across the world, as it ticks over 100 million YouTube views (not a typo) after 5 years on the platform.

Making a big break, as an independent artist in 2023 can feel like an uphill battle. What with the seemingly constant algorithm updates, new platforms and ever-evolving landscape of mesmerising talent. 

Though, for one Gold Coaster, the fruits of his labour have seen a massive return. Jacob Lee has been writing and sharing music since 2015, and this month hit a whopping 100 million views for his song 'I Belong To You.' For context, fellow Gold Coaster Amy Shark has 12 million views of 'Adore', which is 7 years old. 'I Belong To You' was released 5 years ago with almost 10 times the views! 

We chatted with Jacob about his latest achievement, songwriting process and goals for the future. 

What do you think it is about this track that resonated with so many listeners?

I would say the fact that it's a wedding song helps. I think, you know, weddings are timeless and they always will be. So people are always looking for brand new songs to add to their ceremony or first dance.

I think in the past I've released various love songs and people have resonated with them. So I think it was almost like a good layup into this song. And honestly, I feel like it just kind of found its way into the YouTube discovery algorithm and just kept getting suggested to people and it stayed there, which is really nice. It's helped a lot in getting more people to find out who I am.

You wrote 'I Belong To You' five years ago. Did you anticipate this kind of like incredible response?

Well, no, I don't know if anyone ever expects this kind of traction on a song. No one knows. I swear to God. It's like even when you speak to labels and management, everyone is just like throwing a dart and hoping for the best. That's why music is so subjective. On the team, we might absolutely adore a song. And then the audience are just kind of like, yeah, it's nice, but we love this one, which was not even marketed or promoted.

Originally I wrote 'I Belong To You' for my brother because he and his fiance at the time were about to get married. And that was really it.

What I've found in my career is every song I think will do well doesn't. And the ones that I don't think will do that well tend to do better. So this was a very last minute addition to the album.

And I think it was the last song added. I took it to Matt Bartlem who was producing the record. And he was kind of just like, yeah, you know, it's nice, whatever.

And I was just like, I really like it. There's sentimental value in it for me. So let's just put it on. And it's done well. So again, you have no idea. You never ever do. And people who say they know, they don't. It just comes, I don't know if it's luck, but it's very unpredictable to know which song is going to do well.

Is your songwriting process different now from when you would busk in Surfers Paradise? 

I'm veering back to how it used to be lately, and I'm finding that to be a lot easier. For the last three years, I would say, especially throughout COVID, I was teaching myself production and writing more in Pro Tools and with like keys and synths and whatnot, which was fun and new. And I'm glad that I've kind of slowly developed the skill set.

But to be honest, I still find that I get a lot more of an emotional response lyrically when I have something more tangible in my hand, like when I'm actually playing guitar. So I've gone back to the guitar, and now what I'm doing is when I've finished a song lyrically, I'll take that into Pro Tools and figure out exactly what the sonics need to be for the song. 

And it might be electronic, but it starts as acoustic. I like the vast array of ways you can create, but for me, especially because my songs have always been very lyrical and I like to tell a story, having that tangiable, analog way of writing is really helpful. 

Are there any gems you picked up from your time on televised talent shows that you'd like to share with Gold Coast musicians?

One thing I would say is be aware of the fact that it's a reality show first. And that doesn't mean it's a bad thing, just know that it is.

They're trying to create an entertaining show for people to tune into. So that will always be their priority. I found for me because I was pretty much busking and performing in cafes prior to that, and mostly just doing covers. It was a good experience for me to understand what a production looked like, because everything I was doing beforehand visually was just with a friend at school with a little camera and that was it. So I got to see a big production and I got to perform in front of people who weren't just walking by, which was nice. So that was a good wake up call for me to like step into a brand new landscape.

I mean, if I'm talking to people who might be thinking about it, all I'll say, and this, I don't want this to come across as a negative, is that it's not going to make you an artist at all. It's going to give you traction if you do well on the show. And you might not even like the direction they push you in because they will find a direction for you and they will push you in that direction.

Speaking of the word direction, they tried to make me a One Direction looking character. They would say that. Like, they were literally like, this is the avenue we think suits you, straightening the hair and everything like that. And because I was young and naive, was like, okay, and then I just did it, which is fine. It didn't diminish me in any way.

I've found that a lot more of my success has simply come through consistency online regardless of the show. I don't think many people, even if any, remember me from the show, which I'm like stoked about. If you're looking for a very quick fix of attention, go for it. But it's not going to give you something long lasting. Even the winners don't have that half the time. Unless you get on the American shows, which seem to have a little bit more legs than the Australian ones.

What sort of role do you think the platforms like YouTube play for independent artists now and into the future?

I think there's still the most profound thing we have. I think these days, especially when I say these days, I feel like the oldest human. But like these days, it seems like almost everyone, if not everyone, is always talking about the algorithm. And it never used to be that way. And that's because the algorithms weren't as strong, so it's become more prominent. But I'm trying to figure out how many people are out here creating art versus content.

We used to only have to compete with other artists and musicians, but now we're competing with the chefs and everyone else. And the people dancing on TikTok, which is fine. It's nice to have a new challenge. But it's made us feel like we need to be content creators, too.

It's made us feel like we need to do, whether it be gimmicky or not... Some sort of performance for the camera that isn't what we're used to or what we want to do.

But it feels like it's the only avenue. I'm reaching a point now where I honestly feel like a lot of individuals on social media are looking for the authenticity again. Because when you scroll through, it just feels like everyone's just trying to grab your attention and they are. They want to make money. Want to grab a name for themselves. There's nothing wrong with it. But if you're trying to be an actual artist, a lot of the time you're not creating for the attention, you're simply trying to generate something within you, whether it be subconsciously or not, that might resonate with other people.

And I think indirectly that's going to get you more attention than you trying to like take it from everyone.

You know, so that's at least my pathway now. It's like, I really love the fact that I can go on Instagram Live right now and I have all these people from like Saudi Arabia going, I've heard your song and I'm like, how? That's incredible and I would never ever want that to be taken away.

But I think we need to, I don't know, shift our perspective a little bit on socials so we enjoy it more and put ourselves out there to the truest extent instead of waking up and thinking I need to create like a machine otherwise I won't get seen.

I've built my brand off of meaningful songs. So, I don't know. I feel like I'm in a pretty good position to continue on that trajectory. Starting now, I don't know. I mean, I kind of still feel like I am starting to a certain degree, but if you're releasing your first songs now, regardless of the social media and all this external stuff, I think the process is the same in that all you need to do is continually write things that are true to you. 

Honestly, if you go to YouTube Shorts or TikTok or whatever, a lot of the time, those who break through, they still are unique. And then you find all the people who go, oh, this has worked for someone and they just follow along.

You're always going to get copycats, unfortunately. But I still always resort back to trying to just maintain a level of authenticity because at the end of the day, when you speak to people face to face, it's what they want.

Do you have any advice for local musicians just starting out?

I would say success is a lot more simple than they make it seem. And I'm still  nowhere near as successful as I want to be.

However, I still feel like I can see the trajectory of what most successful people in the industry have done. And that's remained consistent with like one or two things. You know, I think we're all kind of looking at our email lists and then we're looking at how many times we can comment back on YouTube and how many times we can post today on Instagram and all this.

And I just think release songs, man. Release a song a month if you can. Put a music video out with that song if you can.

And then in the interim create content that is beneficial to that. Repeat, repeat, repeat for a few years and you'll have an audience. You just will.

And I think what we find is that people stick to something maybe of that nature for a few months. It doesn't work and then they move to something else and it's like this constant cycling of beginning and it just doesn't work. So finding your niche, finding your sound, obviously making sure it's authentic just so you don't burn out. Then wait four years or wait seven years. And you'll get to a place where people really dig you.

Or at least that's what I've found through my experience in releasing my first songs in 2015 and just releasing all the time. I found that it got me to a place where I had a massive Spotify audience, a big YouTube audience. And now I'm trying to almost come back to that because the last few years throughout COVID I've branched off into other things, which have been nice. But obviously when you take attention away from one thing, that will diminish. So I'm in the rekindling phase now to take my own advice and do that again.

What's next for you?

There's a bunch of new music coming. So, the rest of the album, there's five more songs on that. They're pretty well done. I'm just putting them into distro now.

And then the plan for me, and this is just like straight piggyback off of the last thing that I just said, is that I want to try and release at least a song a month next year. Ideally two.

When you speak to a lot of people in the industry, they're like, you need at least a month or whatever to promote. It's like, f**k off. No, you don't. Like you just put out songs all the time and you don't always need to try and create a hit. You can just create consistently good music and one of them will branch off.

Like I said, you don't know which one of them is going to work anyway. That's my plan, at least. It's just to release a whole bunch of meaningful music, lyrical songs, stuff that actually hits people in the emotions as best I can. We'll see how it goes.

Stream Jacob Lee's music on Youtube (more views can't hurt!)