How social media kick-started this Quebec music producer's career

How does a young man from Saint Colomban, Que. go from no connections to a hit song on the radio? It's all thanks to the power of social media.

Before music producer Mike Demero had his hit song "Night in Paris," he says he was looking for any way to connect with people in the music industry.

"I knew no one, I was just googling how to meet popular DJs," he said in an interview with CTV News.

It all started in his parent's basement, where Demero continues to make music.

"They believed in me, and they let me build this place in their home, and they let me play music out loud at 3 a.m."

Demero always marched to the beat of his own drum, leaving school three years ago to focus on music full-time, but it wasn't until he started sharing his music online that he actually made connections.

Demero says social media played a huge factor in his career.

The music producer gained followers through his remixes of popular songs, which he shared online. It's also how he connected with singer Aloe Blacc, who encouraged Demero to make his own music.

@mikedemero Should I accept his offer? 😳 #rating #fyp #music ♬ The Man - Aloe Blacc

So Demero got to work.

"I waited two days, and after two days, he sent me the song back, it was recorded and his voice was on the whole song. It sounded perfect and I was like, 'wow, ok he really did it,'" he recounted.

Blacc is featured on vocals on Demero's first single. The song has been at the top of the charts on Quebec radio stations for the past six weeks, which Demero says is "giving me the motivation to just focus on my songs, focus on my music, focus on my art really."

The musician is bringing that focus to his first major gig at the Festival in Quebec City on Dec. 31, which also happens to be his 24th birthday.

As for the upcoming year, Mike has more new music on the way.

"I worked with Keisza, who's a Canadian artist also who had a lot of success with "Hideaway" a few years ago. I have a song coming out in January, and then my goal is to release those songs I wrote in LA because I feel like we did good songs there, so I want to put them out to the world."