Chatroulette's instant intimacy makes the daisy-chain webcam service the perfect "venue" for Merton, the improv piano player whose witty real-time songwriting has become a hit on YouTube.
"I'm not really comfortable performing onstage in front of a lot of people, and it's also much harder to have an intimate experience with a lot of people" when playing live, said the on-the-fly ivory-tickler in an exclusive video interview with Mashable (embedded above). "If you're in front of a crowd, you can't so much pick one person and take their experience and make it part of the music."
Check out the rest of Mashable's 15-minute interview with Merton, or watch a scrubbed version of his viral video below. (The original video was pulled from YouTube Monday after being viewed millions of times.)
