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" If Justin Bieber can go from recording YouTube videos in his room to selling out Madison Square Garden in two years, then there&amp;#039;s no reason why 18-year-old Graham Stookey can&amp;#039;t do the same. At least, that&amp;#039;s what believes. And Oprah agrees. After years of playing in his basement, Graham agreed to let a friend record him singing one of his original songs &amp;quot;Jonah,&amp;quot; and like a scene from &amp;quot;Never Say Never,&amp;quot; it went viral. Currently, his video, titled &amp;quot;If Justin Bieber Can Get Famous...Why Can&amp;#039;t I?,&amp;quot; has over 300,000 plays! And it got Oprah&amp;#039;s attention. She had him on her &amp;quot;Most Talented Kids&amp;quot; episode, and introduced him to his idol, Lenny Kravitz. Graham is the latest YouTube artist to shoot to semi-stardom, and he doing it all with a little help from his dedicated fans. So far, the singer has raised over $15,000 on Indiegogo to produce his studio album, &amp;quot;The Basement Tracks EP,&amp;quot; and music video\u2014and did we mention that he did that all in only two days? Obviously Cosmogirl  had to catch up with the talented musician, to get the scoop on his music, his crush on Taylor Swift, and where he&amp;#039;s going from his parents&amp;#039; basement. CG: Why did you decide to get involved with Indiegogo? GS: I think it&amp;#039;s a great way to communicate with my fans directly. It&amp;#039;s a great way for me to get their input on everything and for me to talk to them. But it&amp;#039;s also a great way for me to get out of my basement. If they donate and help me get out of my basement, then they get certain perks. So a $15 dollar donation would get them a copy of the EP, and then it goes all the way down to them being in the music video because we&amp;#039;re also using the mone to put a music video out there for the fans, and for touring. So it&amp;#039;s a great tool.  CG: What about your music? What do you want the Cosmogirls to know about your sound? GS: I write about my personal experiences. I write about what I see in the world around me. My music is all about who I am and where I&amp;#039;ve been in my life, because if you don&amp;#039;t write out of experience and you don&amp;#039;t write about what you know, then it seems fake to me. So my music is all about an 18-year-old kid experiencing life, relationships, and girls.  CG: What&amp;#039;s the biggest life lesson you learned from your high school experience? GS: You really need to appreciate where you&amp;#039;re at in the moment that you have it because high school flew by so fast. I wish I would have soaked in more of it because I look back on high school and I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;#039;Where did the time go?&amp;#039;I think there&amp;#039;s a quote that says, &amp;#039;Where you are is where should be.&amp;#039; So I agree with that.  CG: We hear that Taylor Swift is your celebrity crush. What do you love about her? GS: Well, she writes her own songs, and her creativity is just amazing. She can think, she&amp;#039;s intelligent, and she&amp;#039;s cute. She is taller than me, but that&amp;#039;s okay. A man&amp;#039;s stature is not measured by his height, but by the content of his character. You can tell her I said that said. And I know every one of her songs. I could probably sing along word-for-word. I just love Taylor Swift.  CG: Do you have a favorite Taylor Swift song? GS: I have a couple. &amp;quot;You Belong With Me&amp;quot; is up there. It&amp;#039;s super catchy, and I could sing it to her as well. &amp;quot;White Horse&amp;quot; is one of my favorites because my electric guitar is white, and I named it the white horse. And it&amp;#039;s not too late for me and my white horse to come along and sweep her off her feet. It&amp;#039;s never too late, Taylor. Never say never. That&amp;#039;s what Justin Bieber says.  What do you think of Graham? Are you going to help him out on Indiegogo? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/a13811/graham-stookey-interview/>