Charles Berthoud: "I don’t want my music to only appeal to people who play bass"

Social media bass guitar sensation Charles Berthoud has more than 28,000 TikTok followers, more than 99,000 following him on Instagram, and 742K subscribers to his YouTube channel. But he explains, it's not all about the numbers; it's all about the music...

What does your daily routine look like, Charles? 

"YouTube takes up about 80 percent of my time, whether that’s recording, editing, uploading, or promoting on social media. I do record on the side, as a traditional session bassist, for websites like Fiverr. 

"I do it all except the YouTube thumbnails, which my fiancée does for me. I might try and outsource some of the video editing at some point, but at the moment, it’s pretty much all me."

You have 742,000 or so subscribers on YouTube. Are those numbers important to you? 

"Well, it’s all relative. Three years ago, that number of subscribers would have seemed crazy to me, because I only had 3000 or something at that time. I’m really grateful to have that following, but sometimes I really don’t care about that, and I just want to make the best music that I can. It’s better to focus on the music rather than the subscribers, I feel, because the only thing I can really control is the quality of the music that I make."

Are print magazines regarded as rather quaint these days by internet stars? 

"I’ve never really read magazines that much, so I might not be the best person to ask. I did read them occasionally back in the day, but now I’m so involved in YouTube I guess maybe print media does feel old-school. I probably wouldn’t have said that three years ago, when I was playing live shows and hadn’t got deeply into YouTube yet."

Are people really going on YouTube to find good music, or are they just looking for something amusing? 

"Personally, I think people watch the clips for different reasons. It’s definitely a balancing act. I don’t want my music to only appeal to people who play bass. I love those people, and I do want them to enjoy my music, but I also want my music to appeal to people who know nothing about bass, which is why I try to get some humor in there."

• For more, see Charles Berthoud on YouTube.