Jeremy Katz Music

Jeremy Katz Music, a production company based in New Jersey, is the world's first producer of corporate team-building, employee engagement, and recruitment music video initiatives that incorporate parodies of popular songs.
Background
Jeremy Katz Music is owned by Jeremy Katz. Katz is a 2014 graduate of Yeshiva University in Manhattan where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Music.
Katz plays 15 musical instruments, including electric guitar, drums, piano, bass guitar, mandolin, saxophone, electronic keyboards, acoustic guitar, ukulele, xaphoon, banjo, harmonica, upright bass, bouzouki, and violin. He handles all of the music production duties (recording, mixing, editing) as well as the video production tasks (filming, lighting, editing, directing) for the videos that he creates.
Employee engagement and team building videos
Katz specializes in music video production services for corporations that are seeking to offer a unique team building activity for their employees.
Katz’s first client for this service was Shell Oil Company’s lubricants division, which hired him to produce a safety initiative video for a corporate event. Shell employees wrote the lyrics to a song parody of Meghan Trainor’s #1 pop hit “All About That Bass” called “All About That Goal”, the goal being zero accidents in the workplace. Using these lyrics, which were emailed to Katz from Shell’s Texas headquarters, Katz performed and recorded the song in New Jersey, then gave the employees instructions on how to create lip sync video footage featuring all the project’s participants. This raw footage, which was uploaded to a file hosting service, was downloaded by Katz in his New Jersey studio. He edited his audio with the employees’ lip sync video, and the resulting segment, which is posted in the Events/Team building section on his website and posted on his YouTube channel, was debuted at a Shell business gathering, and continues to be presented at company events throughout the world.
According to David Soza of Shell, who hired Katz for the project, “Jeremy’s creativity and talent, combined with his ability to effectively communicate and deliver a music video that satisfied our unique business objective, was outstanding. The team and our executives were very impressed with ‘All About That Goal’, which has inspired and motivated employees to become more engaged at work. Even though Jeremy was working in his studio in New Jersey and our team was in Texas, the entire project was assembled in less than two weeks, and was executed flawlessly.”
In 2016, Katz was hired to produce a music video recruiting tool by startup company Campus Pursuit, which connects students with consumer brands through daily interactive scavenger hunts on college campuses. The goal of Katz’s video was to encourage students to apply for Campus Pursuit’s brand ambassador internship program. The ambassadors organize and lead Campus Pursuit scavenger hunts at major schools across the country.
To create the video, Campus Pursuit’s current brand ambassadors on campuses from across the United States wrote the lyrics to a parody of One Direction’s top ten international pop hit “Perfect”. Using these lyrics, Katz performed and recorded a soundtrack for the new production in his studio, and gave the ambassadors instructions on how to record their own lip sync videos of the song. He then edited his audio with the ambassadors’ individual lip sync videos, and the resulting clip - which is prominently featured on the Campus Pursuit website - is now an integral component of the company’s recruiting efforts for ambassadors at new campuses where the company will soon be operating.
“I was impressed by Jeremy’s ability to publish our video within such a short time frame,” says Shachar Avraham, co-founder of Campus Pursuit, whose clients include PepsiCo, NBCUniversal, NFL SUNDAY TICKET, Kettle Brand Chips, and others. “From the initial music recordings, to the outtakes, to the editing, he made every effort to produce a final product that we were beyond satisfied with. It’s almost shocking that he’s a one-man operation.”
Jeremy Katz Music YouTube Channel
Katz also produces cover songs and parody videos featuring a variety of hits in multiple genres. Katz sings all of the vocal parts and performs all the instrumental parts in each of these videos. He also handles the engineering and mixing of the audio portions of the videos as well as the lighting, shooting, editing, and special effects of the video segments.
Katz’s cover song and parody videos include:
* “Under Pressure” - Queen/David Bowie
* “Sorry” - Justin Bieber
* “Take On Me” - A-Ha
* “Hound Dog” - Elvis Presley
* “Sherry” - The Four Seasons
*
* “Y.M.C.A.” - Village People
*
* “Have a Drink On Me” - AC/DC
* “Fight Song” - Rachel Platten
*
* “Want To Want Me” - Jason Derulo
* “Fat Bottomed Girls” - Queen
* “Sugar” - Maroon 5
* “Uptown Funk” - Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars
* “All I Want for Christmas Is You” - Mariah Carey
* “All About That Bass” - Meghan Trainor
* “Kodachrome” - Paul Simon
* “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
Katz’s videos are presently airing in the U.S., Caribbean, and South America on the Gone Viral TV cable channel. His videos are also included on YouTube stream, which features “top covers from the best YouTube singers”.
Musical instrument review videos
Also featured on the Jeremy Katz Music YouTube channel (and on his website JeremyKatzMusic.com) are Katz’s humorous instructional reviews of some of the musical instruments that he plays. In 2015, his review of a xaphoon - a reed instrument that’s looks like a combination of a clarinet and a recorder and sounds like a cross between a saxophone and a clarinet - generated increased web traffic and sales for the U.S. distributor, Xaphoon USA, as well as enthusiastic comments from YouTube viewers.
According to Gary Friedman, owner of Xaphoon USA, “the charm and power of Jeremy’s video is because it comes from the heart, not from marketers in some slick ad agency. Musical instrument manufacturers can definitely benefit from having their products featured in Jeremy’s videos because there’s no better advertising than fan-created content. He’s a very talented guy who knows how to connect with his viewers and effectively sell what he’s presenting.”
Katz’s musical instrument review videos include:
* Yamaha YAS-23/26 alto saxophone
* Pan flute
* Rogue B-30 resonator banjo
* Fender Stratocaster/Custom Shop-Custom Classic Strat electric guitar
* Maui xaphoon pocket sax
* Taylor 214CE acoustic/electric guitar
* Casio WK3800 keyboard
* Lanikai LU-21 ukelele
Film work
In 2014, Katz was retained as a pre-production music consultant to Nancy Spielberg’s Playmount Productions for its 2015 award-winning documentary film “Above and Beyond”. The movie, which received an audience score of [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/above_and_beyond_2014/ 88% on RottenTomatoes.com], was distributed nationally in the United States and was also screened in theaters in South Africa, Great Britain, Canada, and Israel.
Musical instruments
Katz utilizes the following musical instruments in the production of the audio and video tracks for his employee engagement/team building videos, his cover and parody song videos, and his musical instrument review videos (links lead to Katz's essays about the instruments on his website):
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#SRV Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan # 1 Relic Stratocaster]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#BabyGrand Yamaha GH1 5’3″ baby grand piano]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Clapton Eric Clapton Signature Series “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#214CE Taylor 214CE acoustic-electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#WK330 Casio WK3300 electronic keyboard]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#2009 2009 Fender Custom Classic Stratocaster]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#UKE Lanika LU-21 ukelele]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#49ES M-Audio Midi Keystation 49 EZ]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#3CM Cordoba C3M Iberia series acoustic guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Banjo Rogue B30 Resonator banjo]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#BMay Brian May Signature electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Mandy Rogue RM-100A mandolin]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Sax Yamaha YAS-23 alto saxophone]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#LPAuto Gibson Les Paul Standard electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#HW1 Fender Highway One Stratocaster]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#BBK Gibson B.B. King Lucille electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Flag Glen Burton American flag electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Mex Fender Standard Stratocaster electric guitar (Mexican)]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Foon Maui xaphoon]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Yanni Pan flute]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#2neck Epiphone Double Neck 56 electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#G5120 Gretsch G5120 Electromatic hollow body electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#E343 Yamaha PSR E343 keyboard]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#1976F 1976 Fender Telecaster electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Gib335 1976 Gibson 335 electric guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Violin Cremona SV-130 Premier Novice violin]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#MD6610 Carlo Robelli MD6610 acoustic guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Harm Hohner PBH7 Piedmont Blues seven-piece harmonica set]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Drums Mapex Full Shell Pack Meridian drum set]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#FG180 Yamaha FG-180 acoustic guitar]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#FenSRV Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Series Stratocaster]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Jimi Fender Jimi Hendrix lookalike American Stratocaster]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Bass Brownsville McCartney Fab Four vintage sunburst bass]
Audio gear
Katz utilizes the following audio gear in the production of the audio and video tracks for his employee engagement/team building videos, his cover and parody song videos, and his musical instrument review videos (links lead to Katz's essays about the gear on his website):
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#FenTwin Fender Twin Reverb amplifier]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#HotRod Fender Hot Rod DeVille amplifier]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#2510Amp Hartke VX2510 bass amplifier]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Spider Spider III-Line 6 amplifier]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#158Amp Peavey Transtube Rage 158 practice bass combo amplifier]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#AT2020 Audio Technica AT2020 microphone]
* [http://jeremykatzmusic.com/equipment/#Scar616 Focusrite Scarlett 6I6 audio interface with built in pre-amplifier]

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