In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show with Brandon Kavanagh, we talk about how he got started with Public Pianos, how he became a YouTube sensation, and why he decided to take his passion for music to the streets.
00:02:00.260I know a lot of people will have seen you, perhaps not in this context, but a lot of people have enjoyed forever your music and just the life you bring to the Internet, which can sometimes be a really dark place.
00:02:16.260Why do you do what you do and how did you get started into this kind of very unique way of showcasing your talent, your gift, if you will, that you really give to the world?
00:02:27.780I actually used to be a secondary school teacher, a high school teacher of English, and I trained as a teacher.
00:02:34.880But I didn't like the way the education system was going, so I thought I'd have a little change of profession.
00:02:51.880And I took my musical talents, took it to the street, and I just kind of have a knack for it.
00:02:56.600And it's basically bringing joy and free music to people.
00:02:59.240So this was able to sustain you from quitting your job, or was this done just in retirement, or how did this work?
00:03:07.160Well, I'm not old enough to retire yet, John Henry.
00:03:09.320But no, I mean, I always loved teaching, and I kind of went to university, I did all my higher degrees, I did a PhD, and I wanted an academic career.
00:03:21.680But when I got into teaching, I found that it was very different to how when I was at school, the micromanaging, the bureaucracy, and I wasn't allowed to be creative in my English lessons.
00:03:34.180And so instead of going down into depression, I decided to have a complete career change, and I started to do YouTube lessons.
00:03:42.660And then I gradually brought it into the public pianos, and it simply took off.
00:03:46.860I had a couple of viral videos and a lot of media attention, and the whole thing just blew up.
00:03:53.940There's something about public pianos and playing music in public that captures the public imagination.
00:04:00.480So I thank God that it's been a great success.
00:04:02.680Tell us about one of your favorite moments.
00:04:04.760We're going to play a little clip of it, but tell us, set it up for us, if you would, one of your favorite moments so far captured.
00:04:11.380I had a tech-to-tech with the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, about seven months ago, who were down filming a propaganda video.
00:04:20.480It went worldwide, and they basically wanted me to delete my video.
00:04:25.960And we basically had a confrontation with them at the piano in St. Pancras that went viral throughout the world.
00:04:32.740Basically, we caught a Chinese spy in my live stream by mistake.
00:04:38.180So it turned into kind of like a James Bond film.
00:04:40.600And we've got massive fans now all over Asia.
00:04:44.820They see me as a kind of anti-CCP figure.
00:04:48.880And Boogie Woogie has become massive in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan as a result of this CCP showdown I had about seven months ago.
00:04:58.000So that was probably the most dramatic one.
00:04:59.800But there's been several minor incidents that have also captured the public imagination.
00:05:04.240Just so that everyone knows, if no one's heard of you before, which I don't think is possible.
00:05:08.940But anyway, if you look up Brendan Cavanaugh, he's got, I think your video, one of your videos, and he was just on YouTube, is 41 million views, something like this.
00:05:16.980So you're really in the stratosphere in terms of people viewing what you're doing.
00:05:21.400I mean, I do get recognized on the street, you know, I mean, particularly in London.
00:05:25.340But it's a quite nice, it's a nice form of fame because I'm primarily on the internet.
00:05:32.920And the people who like my stuff, it's kind of like a bit of a cult following.
00:08:43.160We have this beautiful tapestry, which dates from the 1870s of Our Lady, handmade, 150 years of age and absolutely exquisite.
00:08:54.140Here again, you have a section devoted to Our Lady.
00:08:57.400You've got a Russian icon there, which is full of rich symbolism.
00:09:02.180You've got Our Lady of Perpetual help there.
00:09:04.900And, of course, here you have the altar itself.
00:09:07.820Now, if you don't know what a Catholic altar looks like, one of the central features of a Catholic altar is that it has what's called an altar stone.
00:09:16.280Now, this is what an altar stone looks like.
00:09:18.240Again, I actually picked this up from an antique shop, and it's got five crosses on it, symbolizing the five wounds of Christ.
00:09:27.620And there you can see that it's been sealed up.
00:09:30.040Inside that are relics of saints and martyrs.
00:09:56.660This here, if you do this closely of this reliquary, this is actually quite a large bone relic, a first-class relic of, if you can see the writing, I don't know if you can see it, it says St. Thomas the Apostle, who was known as Doubting Thomas.
00:10:12.880So he died in India, and we've got a relic of him here, the original Doubting Thomas.
00:10:18.320He was the disciple who missed it when Christ resurrected, and he didn't believe.
00:10:23.100And he said, I have to put my hands in the side of Christ, Doubting Thomas.
00:11:00.540Basically, it was a labor of love, because I went around all the old church antique shops and around convents that were getting rid of convents that were dying out.
00:11:10.640And they were selling off all their pre-Vatican stuff.
00:11:14.020So I collected the stuff over about two years.
00:11:16.780I've got a beautiful first class relic of St. Thomas the Apostle, the huge big bone relic, which I picked up.
00:11:23.340I got an illuminated manuscript created by a nun 100 years ago.
00:11:29.680And the fact that the chapel is, the fact that the stone barn is 200 years old, it is actually like going into a sort of time machine when you go in there.
00:11:39.220It really takes you back into a different era.
00:11:41.560So the whole feel is, I feel blessed that we've got the stone barn chapel.
00:11:46.300But it has been a labor of love, Henry.
00:11:51.120This October 17th and 18th, we are going to be running Rome Life Forum in Exile.
00:11:57.460We're doing that in Kansas City, Missouri.
00:12:00.200This fine bishop, Bishop Joseph Strickland, sort of in exile, is going to be joining us there, as well as Dr. Janet Smith, as well as prophecy expert, Xavier Aral, and many more, including a special guest.
00:14:47.200And it was actually those children and their attitude in combination with the mass that converted me, because I had never seen anything like it before.
00:14:59.320And it was just so culturally different to what I had experienced in the Novus Ordo that it just, it just, I mean, it was basically instant conversion.
00:15:07.720It's like, what's the children they're bearing, the reverence?
00:15:11.540It wasn't a sung mass, but it was a beautiful church.
00:19:01.300They've got all sorts of misconstrued ideas about the holy sacrifice of the mass.
00:19:06.360And as I said, I came out with that with a fundamental hatred of heresy.
00:19:12.000Because when we hear about heresy, we say, oh, yeah, we don't like it.
00:19:15.080But when you're with these fundamentalists who hate the Catholic Church so much, you really think, oh, my goodness, how are these people going to get out of this darkness?
00:19:24.180Because they won't even listen to reasoned arguments.
00:19:27.660So the Catholic hatred out there is very, very real.
00:19:30.580And it was the first time I had experienced it playing the organ.
00:19:33.960It was Fulton J. Sheen who said something like, you know, there are, you know, 98% of people who hate the Catholic Church hate it for what they think it is.
00:19:44.000Less than 2% hate it for what it really is.
00:19:51.040And what I find funny is that as a Catholic, when you try and explain to them where they've got it wrong, they basically think, no, no, no, no, you're totally brainwashed.
00:20:02.140What I've noticed also about the fundamental protest, I mean, I'm not bashing because I'm sure some good fundamentalists wrote to me and apologized on behalf of these nuts who attacked me.
00:20:11.720So I did get some good fundamentalists.
00:20:13.400I'm not attacking all fundamentalist Protestants, OK?
00:20:16.720The fact that they won't listen to reason and they are so convinced of their ideas is unbelievable.
00:20:23.120And they all think they're going to heaven.
00:20:43.220And so really, to be honest, it was like talking with a robot.
00:20:47.020And eventually the police were called.
00:20:48.560One of the things that you're obviously seeing is that the expression of faith, the especially open expression of faith, is bringing with it the challenges that come with that.
00:21:01.900Because I think you offend the old boy.
00:21:05.960It's fine if you're talented and you can do your own thing and you're making your living, you're doing whatever and getting fame.
00:21:12.340But once you start to involve the truth, especially the truth of Christ, someone comes at you with a vengeance.
00:21:24.060No, I know that when you do anything with Catholicism and you go slightly public with it, the devil, you know, you have a mark on your back.
00:21:32.120So I do my Apsilium Christianorum prayers every day.
00:21:40.280And I think as Father Rippager said, if you stay in your lane, you keep in the state of grace.
00:21:44.880There's not so much that demons can do.
00:21:46.900The problem is if you fall into mortal sin, that's when you get problems.
00:21:50.400But I think if you just stay in the state of grace, you say your rosary, you do your, as I said, I do the Apsilium Christianorum prayers, do the St. Michael prayers, and you keep up your spiritual life.
00:22:01.120I mean, there's only so much that demons can do, right?
00:22:03.660So I think it's just a question of us keeping up, keeping up, keeping our spiritual life in good form to, to, to avert.
00:22:10.980But no, it's obviously it's not going to pull me out.
00:22:12.860And I think the times we're coming into now, you have to wear your faith on your sleeve.
00:22:46.300But some people have said to me that they want me to live stream a full mass here in the Stone Barn Chapel, which I might do.
00:22:53.860A lot of non-Catholics are very interested in it.
00:22:57.500And so for me, it's almost a form of apostolate.
00:22:59.780You know, social media is the new form of the apostolate.
00:23:03.020So for me, I'm going to do a little side apostolate by putting the occasional Latin mass video on and even inviting one or two fans in due course.
00:23:11.320So I think what I would say, it's now's the time if you're on social media, you have to come out as a traditional Catholic, particularly if you love the traditional Latin mass.
00:23:20.240You've got to start standing up against the regime in the Vatican that wants to cancel tradition.
00:23:26.100And let's just keep ourselves in a good spiritual state in preparation for the things to come.