Scott Bradlee was just trying to fit in.
While his teenage friends were bobbing their heads to hip-hop and pop hits, Bradlee, a fledgling pianist, had fallen under the spell of early American jazz and songs of the Tin Pan Alley era.
"None of my friends were listening to that stuff," Bradlee said. "They were listening to the stuff that was popular in the late '90s and 2000s. I would take songs they were listening to and turn them into jazz and ragtime."
A decade later, Bradlee, a struggling jazz pianist in New York City, used the same formula to create Postmodern Jukebox, a project that quickly became an Internet sensation.
Postmodern Jukebox takes modern hits and well-known songs, and sends them back in time, performing them in any number of bygone genres like jazz, ragtime or soul.
"The idea is Postmodern Jukebox is this universe that takes modern pop culture and puts it in a time machine," Bradlee said.
The songs are featured in video form on the Postmodern Jukebox YouTube channel, which currently has more than 1.5 million subscribers. Among the most popular songs on the channel are a doo-wop version of Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" and "All About That (Upright) Bass," a jazzy play on Meghan Trainor's hit. Both have more than 14 million views.
Bradlee said the project has found audiences on YouTube in a way that it never could have under the traditional recording industry model.
"It's bypassed all the traditional gatekeepers of the industry," he said. "Postmodern Jukebox is a project no one at a record company would take a chance on. I had to prove it out myself. YouTube allowed me to reach people worldwide and do it in the most organic way possible -- word of mouth."
Although a number of the songs have gone viral, Bradlee says that's not his chief goal when he picks songs to cover.
"I'm not as worried about going viral as I am pursuing things that interest me," he said. "In terms of genres, I examine the song and see if there's anything in it that reminds me of an earlier genre."
As an example, Bradlee pointed to "Bad Blood" by Taylor Swift, which "if you play it a bit faster, it has a swing to it and sounds like something Ella Fitzgerald would do."
For Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," it was the lyrics that grabbed Bradlee: "It sounds like what Jack Wilson might have done and we went forward with that concept, maybe a little Frankie Valli just to get the sound of that era."
Part of the goal, according to Bradlee, is to make the original song recognizable to the viewer or listener.
"I want the song to be familiar to people and for them to have a moment of recognition, it is this song they know," he said.
The pop-culture-in-a-time-machine philosophy of the group has even extended to Postmodern Jukebox album titles, which reference emojis, selfies, twerking and even Tinder, with "Swipe Right for Vintage" released this year.
As for the live shows, Bradlee views them as being as much a production as a band playing live. The videos are generally staged, costumed in the era of the performance and injected with a lighthearted humor. Depending on the genre of the songs, Postmodern Jukebox can feature any number of many dozens of artists, musicians and collaborators.
"A lot of it depends on availability," he said. "I want there to be a lot of variety to the show and I want there to be a lot of voices. There might be someone who has a powerhouse soul voice and someone who has a softer jazz voice. It makes it fun. Every show is different because of a rotating cast. Even within the tour, people are joining and leaving for a bit."
The group's success has even helped revive some interest in some of the fading genres he fell in love with after hearing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" as a 12-year-old.
"That's been one of the fun parts of the project," he said. "People tell me they were inspired to take piano lessons or have started listening to jazz. (The music) is so timeless and it's something people can appreciate. It's just people don't know the repertoire, and this provides a repertoire. People are familiar with the songs and we put it in a style they didn't know but they enjoy."
The reach of YouTube has also helped the band gain fans in far-flung places from Europe to Asia.
"Recently, we had a sold-out show in Singapore," he said. "People were dressed up and swing dancing. It was thousands of miles away from any other gigs we've done, but because of YouTube, it's become a worldwide phenomenon."
Concertgoers can expect a full-fledged production during the two Alaska shows, including multiple singers, tap dancers and an emcee.
"We try to bring back elements of the variety show format," Bradlee said. "It's a big vintage party. Whether or not you've seen the videos, you're going to have fun."
Postmodern Jukebox
Friday, at Hering Auditorium in Fairbanks
Tickets: $30-$77 depending on membership to Fairbanks Concert Association at fairbanksconcert.org/tickets
Saturday, 7:30 p.m. at Atwood Concert Hall
Tickets: $32.50 to $71.75 at centertix.net