Kansan whose YouTube videos of farm life have gone viral to perform in Flint Hills
Derek Klingenberg has always kept his feet on the ground of his Marion County farmland.
But he’s also kept his head in the clouds as a performer, from marching band and glee club at Kansas State to playing in his family bluegrass band, the Possum Boys.
“I always wanted to be a farmer,” he recalled. “But I just had this drive to entertain people.”
Klingenberg found a way to combine his two passions in 2007, when he bought a video camera, thinking first he’d just make music videos for the songs he’s written for the Possum Boys.
But that grew to creating his own, pro-farm music videos that have gone viral for the past dozen years.
His YouTube channel is now 185 videos strong.
“I needed a creative outlet,” he said. “That’s the main reason I’m doing it. One thing’s led to another.”
Although his fame has gone viral, Klingenberg will make a rare public performance next weekend at Pioneer Bluffs, a historic Flint Hills ranch near Matfield Green.
“I like anything to do with the Flint Hills, so that’s why I said I’d talk there,” he said.
The first video that got him noticed was “What Does the Farmer Say?” in 2013, a parody of the pop hit “What Does the Fox Say?”
But it was a video the next year that he simply refers to as “Cow Trombone” that got worldwide attention.
In the four-plus minute video, he sets a lawn chair on his pasture, then begins playing “Royals,” the Lord pop hit, on his trombone.
A little over a minute in, cattle slowly appear over the horizon, ambling their way towards him. By the end of the video, he’s surrounded by dozens and dozens of beef cattle.
“I’d go out and play the trombone every time I fed them,” he recalled. “That morning I snuck out without them seeing me and started playing, and they came in.
“That’s Pav’s law, you know?” a play-on-words on Pavlov’s law, which conditioned a dog to the food dish whenever a bell rang.
He posted the video, figuring it would at best get some laughs from his family and friends.
“I put it up that afternoon and had 1,100 views overnight. The next day, I got a million views,” he said. “That’s when I knew. It blew up on that second day.”
He’s been invited to perform at comedy shows in London and Germany.
Online, Klingenberg says, his biggest audiences come from German and Japan.
“I link it all to country wealth,” he said. “The richest countries are the ones farthest removed from agriculture, that’s my opinion.”
His comedic videos include parodies such as “Do You Want to Drive My Tractor?” (a takeoff of “Frozen”), and “Feeding Cattle in the USA” (from Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA”), as well as spoofing Flo Rida, Ke$ha, Drake and Taylor Swift.
Klingenberg ‘s other videos are glimpses into farm life, and the reactions of city folk to what happens in the country. He has drank milk straight from the udder, conducted talent contests and showed how drones have changed farming.
“People are so far removed from agriculture that they don’t understand animals anymore,” Klingenberg said. “I’m trying to get more interaction and people involved with my farm stuff, working with robotic stuff.”
There are also serious videos, including an acoustically pristine version of the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” hit “Down to the River to Pray” performed by the Bethel College Choir, accompanied by a piano and Klingenberg‘s trombone. Posted in September 2018, it has notched more than 1.4 million views.
His count his now teetering toward 50 million views.
Not all of the videos have been hits, Klingenberg admits, but he enjoys the challenge.
“Somebody told me it’s art — you may like it, but it doesn’t appeal to everybody,” he said. “You can’t beat yourself up all the time. .. Some of these just don’t catch on. I don’t know how it all works.”
The 40-year-old is the third generation farmer on land near Peabody, farming corn, wheat, soybeans and cattle (he’s shy on divulging how many head of cattle, as well as how many acres he farms).
Klingenberg continues to have ideas for videos, so many that he can’t keep track.
“There’s too many (ideas). I just can’t get to them all,” he said. “I’ll slowly get to some of them.”
With his wife, Kara, he has three daughters, ages 7, 9 and 11. His daughters, who were helping him break chunks of ice the morning of a hard freeze when an interviewer called their father recently, are his test audience, Klingenberg said.
The worst verdict? “That was boring,” he said with a laugh.
“But I appreciate that,” he said. “I want to know.”
Along with the Peterson Brothers, a trio of Saline County siblings who make similar farm parodies and videos, Klingenberg said he enjoys entertaining and educating the public, some of whom have an agricultural knowledge that extends as far as the supermarket.
“There’s a lot of people out there documenting what they do on the farm,” Klingenberg said. “It’s good for all these urban people to see we’re just regular old, family-oriented people.
“It’s good to see that — the more the better.”
Farmer Derek
When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 7
Where: Restored 1915 barn at Pioneer Bluffs, 695 Kansas Highway 177, Matfield Green (14 miles south of Cottonwood Falls, or 1 mile north of Matfield Green).
Admission: Free, with donations accepted for Pioneer Bluffs, a nonprofit organization with a mission to preserve the ranching heritage of the Flint Hills. Venue may change in case of inclement weather. Changes will be posted on the Pioneer Bluffs Facebook page.
Reservations: Recommended but not required. Contact lynn@pioneerbluffs.org or 620-753-3484.
This story was originally published March 1, 2020 at 5:01 AM.