If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching the raucously funny spoof show A Very Potter Musical you may not have heard of Darren Criss, but take our word for it, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter has had a pretty wild year. Part of a theater company from the University of Michigan that call themselves Team StarKid, he became a web celeb last year when a recording of A Very Potter Musical (in which he plays Harry Potter) went viral. Since then, Criss has appeared on ABC’s Eastwick and written the music for another hugely successful StarKid show (Me And My Dick), and just last week he made his return as the boy who lived in A Very Potter Sequel, which has already garnered millions of views on YouTube. Now Criss, who composed all the music and lyrics for Sequel, has a new independently produced five-song EP out called Human, which debuted at No. 30 on Billboard‘s Heatseekers chart last week. (Also impressive is Team Starkid’s A Very StarKid Album, which debuted at No. 19 on the Top Compilations chart.) I met up with the multi-talented singer this week in New York City to talk about his new EP, his plans for StarKid, YouTube musicians, and (of course) Disney covers.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How would you describe the sound of your music?
DARREN CRISS: Oh man, that’s tough. I have no idea–in fact, that’s been a problem for me, because I am kind of all over the place. If you know my musicals or anything, I’m a lover of genre…
And a lover of love songs.
And a lover of long songs, and a lover of many things. So because of that, I really don’t know. I’m still working on defining that, and that’s been a problem for me when I’m getting any kind of attention from labels. They’re like, “What’s your deal?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I like anything.” I like to say that we are of the iPod generation. We are the first generation that has so much accessibility and exposure to so many different things, and it isn’t so weird anymore to have on a playlist Beethoven, Tupac, Miley Cyrus, and Barbra Streisand. That’s not weird. Well, maybe a little weird.
Yeah, maybe a little weird. READ FULL STORY »
