Part 2: What Good Vibes Rollercoaster’s growth is teaching me about community, authenticity and building an audience
When I wrote my first column for Devon Business News, Good Vibes Rollercoaster had just passed 800,000 YouTube views and attracted more than 46,000 subscribers.
A few weeks later, those numbers have moved again. At the time of writing, we’ve generated more than 974,200 views and grown to 70,000 subscribers, alongside 1195 playlist adds, 1500 radio plays and 100+ pieces of international media coverage.
Numbers matter in business. But increasingly, I’m interested in something they can’t tell us. Why is it working?
In my last column, I suggested audiences don’t really care where music is made anymore. They care whether it connects. The response to Good Vibes Rollercoaster has made me think more deeply about that word: connection.
A DIGITAL SUCCESS BUILT AROUND SOMETHING HUMAN
There’s an interesting contradiction at the heart of our project. Without YouTube, Spotify and social media, an independent band from Devon couldn’t reach global audiences so quickly. Yet what people keep identifying in our music is something distinctly human: friendship, laughter, shared experience and community.
French publication Extrava French described our approach as believing in “the strength of the collective, in shared energy, in those moments when music becomes a meeting place.”
Mexico’s La Caverna described songs travelling “from emotional whispering to collective euphoria”, while another reviewer called our music something made for “festival fields, pub gardens and late-night singalongs rather than algorithms.”
Different countries, different cultures, yet remarkably similar observations. And nobody briefed these journalists to use those words. They arrived there independently.
It’s made me wonder whether something broader is happening: the more technologically connected we become, the more we crave genuine human connection.
We live in an age of extraordinary personalisation. Algorithms build our playlists, recommend our entertainment and curate our social feeds. Technology has become exceptionally good at delivering individual experiences.
But music has always been something we share: concerts, pubs, festivals, football terraces, families singing in cars. Sometimes the most powerful musical experiences aren’t really about listening. They’re about experiencing something together.
WHY DEVON MATTERS
Another recurring theme in our coverage has been place. We’ve never tried to make Good Vibes Rollercoaster look as though it emerged from London or Los Angeles. Quite the opposite.
Our video for The Good Life was filmed with residents of Scorriton on Dartmoor. It features villagers, cows wandering down country lanes, pub gardens, Space Hoppers and a tug-of-war. It’s about as far removed from manufactured pop imagery as you can imagine.
When the Mid-Devon Advertiser covered the video, the emphasis was on the villagers and companionship captured in the countryside. International coverage also picked up on its West Country setting. Something intensely local had become international.
That’s reinforced one of the biggest lessons of this project: authenticity travels. Businesses sometimes assume reaching global markets means removing the characteristics that make them local. I’m beginning to think the opposite can be true.
In a digital world overflowing with content, specificity makes something interesting. A Dartmoor village is interesting. A Devon pub is interesting. Real people laughing together are interesting. And those things matter because they’re genuine.
I grew up in Torquay and Paignton. I return constantly to Dartmoor, Croyde and the Devon coastline. These places have shaped how I think, work and create. Devon isn’t scenery we’ve hired. It’s part of my life.
COMMUNITY ISN’T A MARKETING STRATEGY
There’s an important distinction here for businesses. If we’d sat in a marketing meeting and decided “community” was our new content strategy, I suspect audiences would have recognised it immediately. People are increasingly sophisticated at spotting manufactured authenticity.
Community works for Good Vibes Rollercoaster because it existed before the cameras arrived. The friendships are real. The musicians play together. The places mean something.
Authenticity isn’t something a marketing department can manufacture. It’s how you behave, who you work with, what you believe and whether your story matches people’s experience.
REACH ISN’T RELATIONSHIP
Of all our recent numbers, the one I find most interesting isn’t 935,300 views. It’s 65,300 subscribers. A view tells you somebody encountered something. A subscription suggests they want to encounter you again.
Having spent much of my professional career thinking about brands, I find that distinction fascinating. Businesses understandably focus on acquisition: impressions, clicks, visitors and reach.But sustainable brands depend on relationships.
Technology gets you discovered. Something else makes people stay. For Good Vibes Rollercoaster, I increasingly believe that’s the feeling surrounding the music: optimism, humour, nostalgia, friendship and belonging.
THE FUTURE IS DIGITAL, BUT HUMAN
I’m certainly not arguing against technology. My career has been built around it, and our project couldn’t exist in its current form without it. AI, streaming and digital platforms will continue transforming creative industries. But perhaps that makes genuinely human experiences more valuable, not less.
When content becomes infinite, meaning becomes scarce. When almost anything can be generated, authenticity matters. When everybody can broadcast, community becomes the differentiator.
Our ambition remains global. But the further our music travels, the less interested I become in making it look global. I want audiences in Mexico City, Paris, São Paulo and Tokyo to see Dartmoor, our coastline, our villages and the people who shaped the music.
The internet offers regional creative businesses an extraordinary opportunity: to be intensely local and completely global simultaneously. But technology and marketing can only take your story so far. First, you need a story worth connecting with.
For more background on the project, Devon Business News previously explored how I used my marketing and technology experience to grow Good Vibes Rollercoaster, including the strategy behind the band’s rapid early growth. See: How a Devon marketing executive turned Good Vibes Rollercoaster into one of YouTube’s fastest-growing independent bands.
Matt Walton
Matt Walton is a technology and business leader with more than 30 years’ experience in digital transformation, marketing and technology. Raised in Devon, he has held senior roles including Chief Technology Officer, Head of Digital and Transformation Director, working with major organisations including M&S, Sainsbury’s, BP, Virgin and Vodafone. He is the founder of independent rock collective Good Vibes Rollercoaster, where he applies his experience of branding, digital strategy and audience development to building a global music project with strong roots in Devon and the wider South West.
