From dropping out of a uni music degree to becoming the most viewed New Zealand artist on TikTok, it’s been a wild few years for musician and content creator Taylor Roche. He joined Kiwibank’s This is Kiwi podcast to talk about his journey to online stardom.

Tell Taylor Roche not to wear patterns for a video interview, and he will wear patterns. While he’s a bit rebellious now, that wasn’t always the case. At his 21st, his mates had zero embarrassing stories to flame him with. These days he’s creating, singing, performing and racking up tens of millions of TikTok views.

Taylor Roche is an eldest child, but he hasn’t followed a typical eldest child path. At 26 he’s a musician, artist, content creator and DJ. Put simply, he’s a “full time creative”. Roche loves performing and entertaining. After high school he went to uni, found it wasn’t a fit and landed himself a gig singing on cruise ships. Just as his music dream started to play out on the high seas, though, Covid hit and Roche found himself back in New Zealand. What happened from there he never could’ve predicted. In 2023, he was the most viewed New Zealand artist on TikTok.

Today, Roche is making success work for him on TikTok and on the stage. He’s booking gigs, making viral videos and doing so in a way where his content and his music feed off each other. It’s not easy making a living as a content creator, though. Many people still aren’t convinced it’s a real job. But as Roche knows, it absolutely is. He joined Jane Yee on This is Kiwi, a Kiwibank series in collaboration with The Spinoff Podcast Network. Read an excerpt from the full interview below. 

Did you have a plan of what you wanted to do?

Nah, zero plan. I’ve always been just so passionate for music. My original passion is music and being on stage. And I knew that after school I wanted to just dive into it, and I panicked, because in my last year, it was very much like, what uni are you going to? What’s the plan? And at graduation, probably at everyone’s graduation, they announce you, they call you up by form class, and then they announce your name and what you’re doing after school. And it felt, at the time, if they said your name followed by “gap year”… you know, you can feel the people going, oh yeah, interesting. So I ended up going to uni for a year.

Did you study music?

I thought, if I’m gonna go to uni, I should at least do something that I like. So it was music. I went to the University of Otago. I had a really interesting year. It was fun. But I just knew that uni wasn’t for me. And I found that out really, really quick – like in the first month. All I wanted to do was music. I remember in the evenings we had access to these rehearsal spaces down past Castle Street. They were these cold, old buildings, and I would just go down there, scan my key card and go and sit at a piano for a couple of hours and jam.

When did you first get the music bug?

I was six or seven, and I got my hands on Now 18. And, yeah, I had my grandma’s old radio-cassette player and a CD player. So I’d put on Now 18 and I’d sit in my room and just listen to it. It had Crazy Frog on it. That era was great. But the one song that I was obsessed with was ‘Incomplete’ by the Backstreet Boys. I think that was the first song I ever got goosebumps to. I learned all the words to it, and I started doing routines in my room. I got so obsessed with that CD, that it got to a point where my parents had to give me a curfew. At 6pm I had to stop the music.

Tell me about TikTok. You were the most viewed artist in NZ in 2023. Millions of views… how did this happen?

I made an account in 2021. I started posting just videos of me singing. And no, none of them did anything. They didn’t take off. And so I thought, this app isn’t for me. Then I started to play around with funny trending audio, lip syncing. Then during lockdown I had an awards show canceled, so they did a virtual one. My dad dressed up fully in a tuxedo at like, 4pm on a Thursday. He was just sitting there at his desk in his room with his laptop open. He had a bottle of champagne next to him, a bowl of chippies. So I recorded it, put it on TikTok, and it just blew up. I was like, that’s crazy. Maybe this app does work.

You’ve got a personal brand. You’re the main character in your story. What’s your plan for your account?

I honestly don’t have a massive plan for where it’s going. It was always like, how far can I take this? As long as people are loving the content, then I’ll just keep going. I think the biggest thing I love about it is the amount of people that it resonated with online that would have never known I existed. And now I’ve got people that love my videos and through that they found my music. So yeah, it’s quite a beautiful thing. So I think that’s really the plan. Just keep doing it.

So how do you fill up your work week?

As of, like, a month ago, I am now kind of full time content creating and making music, which is huge for me. I never would have known that would be possible, but there’s a lot of money in content creation and working with brands. I’ve started working with Spark Arena and an Australian brand.

How do you manage the business side of being a full time content creator musician?

I’m still learning. I’m terrible at representing myself. My girlfriend, she helps me so much. Girlfriends are the best. Get a girlfriend. That’s my career advice. Kidding, but she’s amazing. She’s my biggest supporter. I got hit up for a campaign last year, and she was like, dude, you need to charge more. I was like, I can’t do that. And she was like, Taylor, you’ve got nearly 300,000 followers. She had done her research online, on what other creators earn. I felt so guilty, but gave it a shot. And the brand was like, yeah, sweet, perfect. 

What’s a common misconception about you?

That I’m quite outgoing and confident, when really, I’m actually very self critical. I get so nervous for any kind of public interaction. Even driving here in the car today, I’m like, how am I going to talk? How am I going to sit? What am I going to say?

Ever had an a-ha moment in your career?

Every time I think something’s going to happen a certain way, and it doesn’t, I get really upset, but then another opportunity opens up down the line that’s even better. Before Covid, I was a cruise ship singer. In 2016 I spent that whole year planning to get that job. We landed our first cruise gig, then Covid hit. I was at my peak, I was over in America, singing on ships. And I just felt like a rock star. Like, I dreamed of this. And it just got taken away. Just like that, I was sent back to New Zealand, and I was so, so upset for months. Looking back, if that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have moved to Auckland, met my band, and broke into the music scene here.

It’s notoriously difficult to make money with music. How is it for you to be earning with TikTok but not as much with music?

I’ve always known that music was never going to be a money maker. It’s always been a passion. I do make money through music in the form of gigs and shows. I learned to DJ purely because after Covid a lot of places stopped booking bands. I feel so lucky. I don’t feel disheartened when my monthly streaming cheques aren’t massive amounts. I look at them and think, oh, that’s fine. That’s a little bit better than last month. So it’s cool. 

What are you saving for? New laptop, mine is falling apart. A MacBook.

First big purchase? Roland 88 keys keyboard. I was 18, it was $1800, and I’d never spent more than $200 on something.

Go-to treat? Ice cream and chocolate.

What brings you joy? My family feeling good and doing well.

Last splurge? This cardigan actually. I bought it a month ago. It was quite expensive for a cardigan. It’s kinda thin, but I just loved it. I put it on and thought “that’s sick”.