18 April 2023
LAWRENCE (KSNT) – It all started when Max Cooper’s older sister was taking piano lessons from their grandma. At just three years old, he took it all in. Teaching himself by hearing notes and starting to play songs she was learning. Max followed the music wherever it went.
“His speech was a little slower to develop, but he would beat, like, beats, like even on his car seat,” Max’s mom and social media manager, Becky Cooper said. “You know we noticed like when we had music on, he was drumming the beats to the song.”
Max’s social media following started at a very young age. At just five years old, not even in grade school, Max wrote his first song on the piano. That video now has over 112,000 views on YouTube.
“I knew it was pretty special,” Becky said. “He was playing with both hands and a little bit more advanced for not even having lessons at that point.”
Now, 15 years later, Max’s following has grown to over 2,000 subscribers on YouTube, over 61,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 825,000 followers on TikTok.
“I first posted a video in 2019 on TikTok,” Mr. Pianoman, Max Cooper said. “I had barely any followers. But I posted a video of me playing a bunch of different movie intros, and it went viral really quick and the next day I had like 100,000 followers.”
Then the year 2020 came along and COVID-19 took over the world. Businesses closed, people stayed inside, and sports being taken away. Max took the opportunity to take to social media. This time, one of the world’s largest networks for sports news noticed.
“Everything was canceled,” Max said. “The NBA playoffs, The Masters, just so many things were canceled so I posted a video of me playing the themes of things that were canceled. ESPN found it, they asked if they could put it on their page, so then I was on SportsCenter. And then when I was on SportsCenter, other pages saw that, and it helped me even more.”
Fast forward to the present day, Max posts compilation videos almost daily.
“I get some of my best ideas from the comment section,” Max said “So usually, I just reply to someone’s comment and then make a video off of that. It’s actually helped me do really well recently too.”
Max’s social media presence isn’t the only way he expresses his love for music. He’s also in a funk band called ‘The Whips’. They’ll be on tour in mid-May, hitting up cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, Kansas City and more. Before that, a show in Lawrence on May 12th at the Granada.