The Big Y Interview: Ed Gar & Dominik The Storyteller Bring the World Together with “Come Alive @ the Y”
Music has always possessed a remarkable ability to bring people together, but The Big Y is taking that idea a step further by turning a song into a global invitation to participate. The creative collaboration between award-winning Maltese artist Ed Gar and Cyprus-based musician, producer, and content creator Dominik The Storyteller has resulted in “Come Alive @ the Y,” a vibrant new anthem created exclusively for the YMCA. Developed to celebrate YMCA Malta’s 50th anniversary while connecting with a global organization that has empowered young people for more than 175 years, the track combines soul, rhythm, dance energy, and an unmistakable message of unity.
At the heart of “Come Alive @ the Y” is an idea that feels both timeless and remarkably contemporary: stepping away from isolation and reconnecting with people, community, movement, and shared experiences. Inspired by the joyful participation that made the Village People’s iconic “YMCA” a worldwide cultural phenomenon, The Big Y have created a modern anthem designed to speak directly to today’s generation. Its accessible rhythm and uplifting message invite everyone to participate, regardless of age, nationality, dancing ability, or musical background. The campaign extends that philosophy into the digital world, encouraging YMCA members and supporters across the globe to submit authentic dance clips filmed on their phones, with selected performances becoming part of the official music video.
For Ed Gar and Dominik The Storyteller, the project also represents another significant chapter in a creative partnership that has already produced work including “Covid Anthem” and Neon Playground. Ed Gar brings decades of experience, from his pioneering work with Malta’s early electronic New Wave band CHI-2 to his years in alternative rock and beyond, while Dominik contributes his dynamic experience as a performer, producer, and digital storyteller. Together, they have transformed the spirit of the YMCA into a contemporary musical celebration built around friendship, inclusion, movement, and positive change. In this interview, The Big Y discuss the inspiration behind “Come Alive @ the Y,” the importance of preserving the YMCA’s legacy while looking toward its future, their collaborative creative process, and their hopes for a music video that could ultimately place the global YMCA community on one joyful screen.
- “Come Alive @ the Y” is more than just a song. It is the soundtrack to a global campaign. What was your vision from the very beginning, and how did you want people to feel the first time they heard it?
The Big Y – Dominik The Storyteller: From the very beginning, I wanted “Come Alive @ the Y” to feel bigger than a song. I wanted it to feel like an invitation — that moment when you hear the first beat and something inside you says, “Come on, let’s go.”
The YMCA is about people, connection, energy, belonging and possibility. So the vision was to capture all of that in one anthem and create a soundtrack that could travel across cultures, generations and communities.
More than anything, I wanted people to feel alive when they heard it. I wanted them to smile, move, sing along, and hopefully remember a feeling from their own life — a moment when they felt connected, free and part of something bigger.
Because ultimately, “Come Alive @ the Y” isn’t just telling people what the Y is. It’s inviting them to experience it. To show up, connect, participate and discover that there is a place where they belong. That’s the magic I hope people feel the first time they hear it: “This is for me. This is my community. This is where I come alive.”
- The original “YMCA” by Village People became one of the most recognizable songs in popular culture. How did you approach honoring that legacy while creating something completely fresh and relevant for today’s generation?
The Big Y – Dominik The Storyteller: You simply can’t create a new YMCA anthem without feeling the weight and the joy of what “YMCA” by Village People has meant to generations of people. It’s an incredible piece of popular culture, but more importantly, it became a song that brought people together. For me, the key was not trying to recreate that magic — because you can’t. You have to respect it, celebrate it, and then create your own chapter.
With “Come Alive @ the Y,” we wanted to keep that same spirit of joy, inclusivity and togetherness, but express it through a sound and energy that feels natural for today. It’s less about looking backwards and more about asking, “What does the Y sound like right now?”
I wanted the new anthem to have that same universal quality — something a child, a teenager, a parent, a grandparent, or someone discovering the Y for the first time can hear and immediately feel part of. So we’re honoring the legacy through the emotion: joy, community, movement and belonging. But musically and creatively, we’re giving a new generation its own soundtrack.
The original anthem opened the door. “Come Alive @ the Y” is our way of inviting everyone through it and saying: the story is still being written.
- The lyrics encourage people to look beyond their screens and reconnect with real communities. Why was that message especially important for you to communicate in 2026?
The Big Y – Dominik The Storyteller: I lived in Warsaw (Polands capital City)most of my life, many years in Chicago, IL, USA and now in Cyprus and I have experienced a huge toll where there are more people around very often people become more lonely. Cyprus is just a small island and yet you feel the sense of togetherness, everyone know each other, meet often, socialize.
The bigger the city the more lonely people are and YMCA gives a possibility to change that. Having a hobby, volunteering going out and not looking at your screen all the time will help you get more true friends and have a better life.
- The project invites people from every corner of the world to submit dance videos for the official music video. Why was audience participation such an essential part of the concept instead of simply producing a traditional promotional video?
The Big Y: Because the Y has never really been about watching from the sidelines. It’s about participation. It’s about showing up, moving together, meeting people, and becoming part of something bigger than yourself. So from the beginning, I felt that the music video shouldn’t be something we simply made for the world. It should be something we make with the world.
Inviting people from every corner of the globe to submit their dances transforms the video from a promotional piece into a living expression of the YMCA community. Every person brings their own culture, personality, movement and story — and that diversity is exactly what makes the Y so special.
I also love the idea that there isn’t one “right” way to dance to this song. You can be young or old, an incredible dancer or someone who just wants to have fun in their living room. The moment you move, you’re part of it.
For me, that’s the heart of “Come Alive @ the Y.” The anthem comes alive through people. And when we see all those different faces and movements coming together, we’re not just watching a music video — we’re seeing a global community celebrating itself.
That’s the video I wanted to make: not a performance of what the Y is, but proof of what the Y feels like.
- Both of you come from different musical backgrounds and creative journeys. How did your individual strengths complement one another while writing and producing “Come Alive @ the Y”?
The Big Y – Ed Gar: Dominik and I don’t always agree — and thank God for that. I’m instinctive. I hear something and immediately want to tear it apart, move things around, make it bigger, stranger or more exciting. Dominik has the patience and musical discipline to take some of my madness and turn it into something that actually comes out of the speakers.
There were moments when one of us wanted to go one way and the other said, “Absolutely not.” That’s healthy.
If two people agree about everything creatively, one of them probably isn’t necessary.
“Come Alive @ the Y” came from that friction. My job was always to keep asking, “Does this make me FEEL something?” Dominik helped turn that feeling into a record.
- Ed Gar, your career stretches from pioneering Malta’s first electronic New Wave band CHI-2 to alternative rock and now this uplifting international anthem. How have those different chapters shaped the artist you’ve become today?
The Big Y: CHI-2 taught me something I’ve never forgotten: don’t wait for permission. We were making electronic New Wave music in Malta when people barely knew what to call it. We looked strange, sounded strange and probably frightened a few people. Perfect.
Later came rock, then years of completely different life experiences, and eventually I found myself making music again.
I’m not interested in becoming a respectable older version of the young rebel I used to be. That sounds bloody boring.What has changed is that now I know why I want to make noise.
At 22 I wanted people to look at the stage and think, “What the hell is this?”
Today I still want that reaction — but perhaps five minutes later I also want them thinking, “Maybe I should get off my backside and do something.”
- Dominik The Storyteller, you’ve built a reputation as both a live performer and digital content creator. How did your understanding of online communities influence the interactive nature of this campaign?
The Big Y: Being a live performer and a digital creator has taught me something very important: people don’t just want to consume a story anymore — they want to be part of it.
Online communities have the ability to turn a simple idea into something much bigger, because everyone brings their own personality, creativity and perspective to the conversation. I’ve experienced that firsthand through digital content, and I wanted to bring that same energy into “Come Alive @ the Y.”
The interactive element was really about creating an open invitation. We’re not saying, “Here is our campaign, now watch it.” We’re saying, “This is your anthem too. Show us how you come alive.”
That changes everything. Suddenly, someone dancing in Cyprus, someone in New York, someone in Tokyo or somewhere we’ve never even imagined can become part of the same story.
And that’s what I love about digital communities: they can make the world feel incredibly close. A phone becomes a stage, a dance becomes a message, and thousands of individual contributions can become one collective expression.
For me, the goal was to take that sense of connection that happens online and turn it into something you can actually feel — something joyful, human and global.
We’re not just building an audience around the anthem. We’re giving the audience a role in creating
- Rather than focusing on polished choreography, you’ve encouraged authentic smartphone videos from people of every age and ability. Why was inclusivity more important than perfection for this campaign?
The Big Y: Because the Y isn’t about perfection. It’s about people. I never wanted this campaign to feel like you had to be a professional dancer, have the perfect space, the perfect body, or the perfect choreography to be part of it. If we had made it about perfection, we would have missed the whole point.
A smartphone video is powerful because it’s real. You see the person, the personality, the little imperfections — and those are often the moments that make us smile the most. Someone dancing with their kids, someone trying a move for the first time, a group of friends having fun, a grandparent joining in… that tells a much more meaningful story than a perfectly choreographed performance ever could.
For me, authenticity is the choreography. The YMCA represents belonging, and belonging means there has to be room for everybody. Different ages, cultures, abilities, backgrounds and ways of expressing yourself.
I wanted people to watch the final video and recognize themselves in it — not think, “I could never do that,” but think, “I can do that. I want to be part of this.”
Because when people stop worrying about being perfect and simply allow themselves to come alive, that’s when the real magic happens.
- Having previously collaborated on projects like Covid Anthem and Neon Playground, how has your creative partnership evolved leading up to “Come Alive @ the Y”?
The Big Y: We’ve stopped trying to impress each other.That’s probably the biggest development. At the beginning you’re showing the other person what you can do. Eventually trust develops and you can say, “That’s rubbish. Start again,” without somebody having an existential crisis.
We’ve been through the Covid Anthem, Neon Playground and a lot of experimentation together. We know each other’s strengths, weaknesses and bad habits.
With “Come Alive @ the Y” something else happened: the project became bigger than the two people making the record.
Once thousands of young people potentially become part of the performance, you stop asking whether the song makes us look good. You ask whether it makes THEM want to move.
That’s a very different test.
- Music has always played a powerful role in bringing communities together. In your opinion, what unique ability does a song have to unite people in ways that speeches, campaigns, or social media posts often cannot?
The Big Y: I think music has a unique ability to reach people before they’ve even had time to decide what they think about something. A speech can inspire you. A campaign can educate you. A social media post can start a conversation. But a song can make thousands of people feel the same emotion at the same moment — even if they speak different languages, come from completely different cultures, or have completely different lives.
And there’s something incredibly human about rhythm. You don’t need to understand every word to feel the beat. You can hear a melody and suddenly remember a place, a person, a celebration, a moment in your life. Music bypasses the intellectual part of us and goes straight to emotion.
That’s why I believe an anthem can be so powerful. When people sing together, dance together, or simply feel the same song together, the distance between us disappears for a moment.
That’s exactly what I hope “Come Alive @ the Y” can do. Not tell people that we are a global community, but let them feel it.
Because ultimately, music doesn’t ask, “Where are you from?” or “What do you do?” It simply says, “Come with us.”
- The line “Meet a friend, change a life” captures the spirit of the YMCA in just a few words. What does that lyric personally mean to each of you?
The Big Y: Because we’re becoming ridiculously connected and strangely lonely at the same time.You can have 3,000 followers and nobody to call at midnight.That’s crazy.
“Meet a friend, change a life” isn’t some sentimental YMCA slogan to me. I’m talking about an actual human being. Someone who annoys you, makes you laugh, challenges you, drags you somewhere you didn’t want to go and perhaps changes the direction of your life.
Put the bloody phone down occasionally. Look up. There might be someone standing three metres away who becomes important to the rest of your life
- As award-winning artists, you’ve each had opportunities to pursue many different musical projects. What made collaborating with the YMCA feel like the right creative and personal decision at this point in your careers?
The Big Y: Because another song saying nothing wasn’t particularly interesting to us. There is an enormous amount of perfectly produced music being released every day. You hear it, tap your foot, and three minutes later you’ve forgotten it existed. We wanted to make something that could escape from the speakers.
The YMCA gave us that possibility because this isn’t really about two artists releasing a single. If this works, young people in different countries take it, dance to it, film it, change it and make it theirs. And frankly, organizations like the YMCA need young people to disturb them occasionally.
I don’t want young people coming through the door simply to inherit what our generation built. I want them coming in and asking what the hell we were thinking — and then building something better.
- What surprised you most during the creation of this project, whether in the recording process, working with YMCA Malta, or seeing the first reactions from supporters around the world?
The Big Y: All of the above to be honest. It started as a small project and outgrown us very quickly. The support from YMCA Malta is incredible as well. And we’ve already seen reactions from some people in Cyprus, Malta and Toronto, Canada and so far the reactions are incredible!
- If a young person who has never visited a YMCA hears “Come Alive @ the Y” for the first time, what do you hope inspires them to take that first step through the doors of their local Y?
The Big Y: Actually, I don’t want them walking into a YMCA because we’ve told them it’s a wonderful organization. That’s advertising. I want them to become curious enough to walk in and decide for themselves. Come in. Look around. Meet somebody. Try something. Hate something. Suggest something better. Bring a friend. Start something nobody there has thought of yet.
And if you think the YMCA looks old-fashioned, good. Come and change it. Young people don’t need another generation of adults explaining what young people need. They need somewhere willing to say: “Here’s the space. What are YOU going to do with it?”
- Looking beyond this single, do you see The Big Y as an ongoing musical collaboration with more socially driven projects ahead, or is “Come Alive @ the Y” intended to be a unique moment that captures this historic anniversary?
The Big Y: I hope we genuinely don’t know yet. I don’t want The Big Y becoming a factory producing “worthy songs for worthy causes.” Kill me now. If “Come Alive @ the Y” lives beyond us — if young people dance to it, reinterpret it, argue about it and make it part of something bigger — then perhaps The Big Y has another chapter. But the next project would have to earn its existence.
There would need to be something worth saying, something worth disturbing and preferably something that makes us slightly nervous. Otherwise we’d rather make no record at all. The Big Y should never become comfortable. The YMCA has been around for more than 180 years. Maybe occasionally it needs somebody to turn the amplifier up.
OFFICIAL LINKS:
https://connect.ymcamalta.org/come-alive
https://www.facebook.com/ymcamalta
