Meet Colin Cooper of Austin and Colin Comedy Duo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Colin Cooper. 

Hi Colin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Austin and I have an interesting story about how we met. In 2008, before we moved to Nashville for college, we were both still living in Cincinnati, Ohio. I used to make beats/instrumentals on my laptop and post them to Facebook, and for some divine reason, Austin caught wind of my music and tossed a DM into my inbox asking to collaborate. I thought this was weird but said “what the heck” and we created our first song together called, “Minivan Jam”, an ode to our beautiful minivans that we both drove in high school – and believe me – people were jealous of our sweet rides. 

We started a band together called The Five1Dream and had great success with our music in Cincinnati. When it came time for us to go to college, we actually ended up going to school right down the street from each other in Nashville (I went to Belmont and he went to Lipscomb). When we tried to garner the same attention with our music, we were no longer a big fish in a small pond, and it was difficult gaining attention with so many other talented musicians in the city. However, we continued to create for fun because that’s what we loved doing! 

Fast forward 4 years later and it was time for us to graduate. It was time for both of us to venture off into the real world and… get a job. This didn’t sound like the best plan for two creatives such as ourselves so we decided to put our heads together and found a way to beat the system of having to get a 9 to 5 desk job… by starting our own video production company called That’s Classic Media! 

That’s Classic Media specialized in filming weddings for a while and eventually moved into commercial-type work and music videos to the likes of Jake Owen, Toby Keith, and more. We found great success over the years but still felt like there was something missing. 

We still wanted to express ourselves creatively and musically, and also wanted a great way to market our business, so we created a viral music video called “Welcome To Nashville”, which garnered a ton of attention in music city. The video gives a satirical musical tour of the city and features at least 100 locations. The success of this video led to us starting our personality brand Austin and Colin. 

Over the years of Austin and Colin, we have garnered millions of views across Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram and continue to create to this day. We specialize in comical music videos and have since created 2 more sequels to Welcome to Nashville. Our content is heavily focused on Nashville, and beyond music videos, we also create restaurant reviews, local commercials, man-on-the-street interviews on Broadway, and much more. Along our journey, we also started another video production company called Mac N Cheese Media with our friend Sean, which has been the engine behind our video production. Similar to Austin and Colin, Mac N Cheese Media specializes in making fun, creative, outside-of-the-box content for you and your brand, and we’d love to work with you! 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Entrepreneurship life has been both incredibly rewarding and insanely challenging. No day is the same when starting a business which keeps things exciting, but there are constantly obstacles that we need to face and overcome. We’ve learned that the most important thing is staying true to what we are passionate about and continuing to pursue that despite the fact that it may not be the easiest road. Many times, there can be monetary opportunities that come our way that we simply have to turn down because they don’t align with who we are. In the moment these are difficult decisions but in the long road, we believe it will, and has, paid off. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are best known for our 2016 hit “Welcome To Nashville”, a comical, musical tour of Nashville that pokes fun of, and celebrates, the many different areas of this beautiful city that we have come to know and love. Since then, we have created 2 sequels, which are essentially snapshots of this rapidly changing city. Will we create more of these musical tours in the future? Sure… but it may be a while because they are a LOT of work to put together. Each video likely averages 70 different locations! 

Our content is heavily focused on Nashville, and beyond music videos, we also create restaurant reviews, local commercials, man-on-the-street interviews on Broadway, and much more. We also love working with brands and finding ways to bring attention to them in a fun and creative way. 

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes us happy is sharing our joy with the people we meet along our journey as creatives and entrepreneurs! Our videos and success would mean absolutely nothing if it weren’t for the people that have supported us and worked with us over the years. We believe that connecting with people on a deeper level is one of the most valuable things we can do in this life so if you ever see us on the street, please come and talk to us!!! 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: austinandcolin.com
• Website: http://www.macncheesemedia.com/
• Instagram: @austinandcolin_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinandcolin
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AustinandColin
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AustinandColin
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/austinandcolin