Andrew Rooney had uploaded more than 1000 drumming videos to YouTube before the first lockdown hit and overnight he gained international recognition.

Most of the New Zealander's early videos were just of himself practicing and various performances.

More recently, the musician has been doing interviews, performance recordings and reaction videos to drumming performances.

He has a degree in Jazz Performance and, aside from being called on for studio and live gigs, has been teaching the drums for 13 years.

The YouTube channel Andrew Rooney Drums has grown exponentially over the last two years and now has just under 82,000 subscribers.

Notable guests on the channel have been world renowned Benny Greb, John Hammond, Elizabeth Zharoff, and Ash Soan.

Nine-year-old child prodigy Nandi Bushell, who shot to fame after challenging Dave Grohl to a drum-off and then performed with the Foo Fighters, is also a fan of Andrew Rooney Drums.

'Thank you so much for your kind words. P.S. it was Taylor's son with him at the drums. Love your channel. Love and respect,” Nandi Bushell commented on Andrew's reaction video to her performance.

Along with Andrew's YouTube success, he has been asked by Modern Drummer magazine (one of the most famous drumming magazine worldwide) to contribute and has joined the Drumeo team, which is arguably the largest drumming education platform worldwide.

Andrew kindly made time for us via Zoom and told us about his newfound success.

'I was counselling at a summer camp in the States when I realised that I needed to quit the job back in New Zealand and go to music school,” Andrew says.

'Everyone thought I was crazy, I mean, study music? What are you going to do? But I did it and the rest is history. I became a tutor and a full-time drummer after that. It was the best thing I ever did.”

Starting a YouTube channel was something Andrew says he did more for his own improvement as a drummer and not likes or subscribers.

'In music school our professors recommended we record ourselves as much as possible- it's the best way to improve. I wish I had started doing it earlier, but that's how my channel started- me looking to get better. For me it was purely a practice log,” he says.

The subscriber success wasn't instant.

'I started the channel in 2013 and the first video that went big was not until the COVID lockdown in March/April 2020. There was a long history of seven years of constantly uploading with over 1000 videos on my channel, there was no thought of likes or getting an audience,” he says.

Helen King, who runs HK Productions, specialises in podcast editing and helping podcasters launch.

Helen sees success as a factor relative to the podcaster.

'I think for independent podcasters success can mean different things. Based on looking at his (Andrew Rooney's) social media and his YouTube and having a listen, he has found his niche and he has really catered to it well,” Helen says.

She feels that this is potential formula for success for other would-be podcasters.

'Finding one's niche, especially for independent podcasters, can catapult them into different platforms and help them define what sort of niche they want to service and then create content specifically for that niche of people and I suspect that's what Andrew's done with the drumming world.”

When asked what advice Andrew would give a podcaster/YouTuber starting out in an arguably already saturated market he shares his thoughts on his own success.

'That's the million-dollar question and I'm definitely no guru. I had so many videos on the channel, eventually one was going to hit. The original intent was never to be famous or grow a big audience, the question you need to ask yourself is would I do this anyway? Is this something I need to do? Would I listen to this? There is no magic formula,” Andrew says.