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Guestlist meets Gramatik: Interview
Other | Tuesday 19th November 2013 | Annalisa
The artist who lives by the philosophy 'freeing music by making music free'' and has been topping HypeMachine’s top 10 chart with every new release stopped by for a chat at his sell out event at Heaven, London.
We know that you started with hip hop and rap, where did you get your inspiration? Was it just your everyday lives as teenagers?
It was philosophical. When I grew up i was inspired by rappers like Mos Def, People that were actually like real lyricists. I used to rap seriously you know, it wasn’t like something we used to. I grew up listening to Redman and those guys from super awesome comedy rap groups but when I sat down and wrote something really meaningful, it was either something philosophical or deep. And then I started making music more and more and rap less and less. I got more and more attracted by the production side of it. I just realised i was really hungry for all these different music genres that i wanted to produce, and also Slovenian rap can only exist inside Slovenia.
So was it your dream to be a producer?
Not at all, when i started out i thought completely differently. When i was making hip hop beats and rapping, hip hop was the thing. It wasn’t like this EDM scene we know today, especially not in Europe with House, Techno, Trance... So, there was no bridge between to bring all things together in a new wave of EDM. I never realized that I could just go and play my hip hop beats without raps on the stage and people would to come and fucking party. You know I always thought that if I’m gonna make a career out of it, it’s gonna be me making beats for famous rappers. Then this new wave of EDM started happening when people started incorporating all this electro and electronic music elements into hip hop beats and making the beats as a stand alone track. I started to doing that out of curiosity. Then suddenly it’s not a beat anymore, it’s a song. I never realised that it would actually become like it is now. It was just happening so fast and then, here we are.
You started in a new direction in 2010 with the album No Shortcuts
Yeah, that’s when it started because I always had this idea. When I made Street Bangerz vol.1, I was making tech house and electro house releasing that to Beatport at the same time. So, people think that I started up with hip hop and that I started this electronic music shit later but I was just releasing different things at different times. I was making all that shit from the beginning. I started up with hip hop beats and not long after I started to make tech house, electro house, and other EDM genres that I really like. I grew up listening to parties. We have one of the biggest clubs in Europe in my hometown.
What influenced you to make music?
Me, personally, when it comes to electronic music, my biggest influence by far was the French electronic music scene, especially ED Banger, Daft Punk... ED Banger is one of the main reasons I started to make EDM and Justice is my favourite EDM group of all time.
Nice! So tell me about Exmag, your new group...
Well Eric Mendelson, he’s playing guitar on stage with Gramatik. When he started playing with me 2 years ago, at the same time, him and Tyler, one of the other members of Exmag, got together and somewhere along the way they formed Exmag. We were living together and making music together like a year and a half ago. Him and Tyler formed Exmag as a project that was looking for more like a new soul sound like Erykah Badu and D’Angelo started. We are huge fans of D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and all the funk from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. We just coming up on the weekend and we were making tracks together. Eventually another member joined, Craig Bellamy, and we ended up making 2-3 albums and now we have like 40 tracks (Members are Gramatik, Eric Mendelson, Don Dero, Buffalo Analog and Illumntr.)
5 projects! Wow! Do you ever find it too much?
Not really. It’s just like we’re all living together doing this project. So, the Exmag album, Gramatik album, Gibbz album, the Illumntr album... We’re all making our own projects, all living together, making sure we do everything properly and working on each other projects as well. So it’s not really that much, it just gives you energy. It s just something that we do. We wake up and just smoke a lot of weed and just make music.
What genre do you find most inspiring?
We are always gonna be inspired by four or five genres. Funk, Soul, Blues, Jazz and then it’s about how you interpreted those genres at the time, with the technology of today. We always try to keep that all alive so you don’t lose that soul. I think that’s why you get problems today with EDM. Everybody is just focused on the loudness and the technical parts inside the thing and they forget about the music. It’s like they didn’t do anything with the song. It sounds amazing but there is nothing there to make me want to listen it again. So that’s what we’re all about. That’s what, I think, the guys from ED Banger got. I felt that, every single release, in their own crazy French style, they capture the song in a very fresh way, like nobody else. Like Justice came out and everybody started to copy Justice.
So, the free music. What inspired you to give your music away?
I realized that one point, you can’t really fight for privacy anymore. You’ve just got to accept this is the new way of technology and it’s the future. And i realized, all that’s going on is artists are telling their fans “Don’t steal my shit that’s illegal, you’ve got to buy that shit”. People listen to that and are like “Fuck you, I’m gonna go right now and download it for free, just because I can, and nobody’s gonna stop me” I realized that you have to make your music available for free at all times to your fans. Most of our fans are aged between 18 and 25. They go to college so they don’t have all the money to buy all their favourite albums, all their favourite music releases. Today they’d be fucking broke if they had to buy all that shit. If you make it available for free, anytime, they will become your biggest fans and come to all of your shows, and if they have money they will download it and support you. Music is art, that should be available for free. Go to a gallery, you’ll see a picture. It’s there, you’re not paying and if you want to buy it, that’s up to you. This music should be out there available for free. Thats all the philosophy I need and it’s not even philosophy, it’s just common sense. The way of the future.
When I was in fucking college, I was broke and fucked and I never had the money to buy all the albums and music that I wanted. I couldn’t get shit. When the Internet became that way to access anything and I could pirate everything and download all the shit that I wanted I was like “YES!!” This is awesome finally I can get all the music that I want without spending thousand dollars. So, that’s how I felt when I started. Then when I became an artist and got fans, I knew that they would all feel like that because I felt like that, I want to change that.
Okay,Thank you very much guys. Enjoy tonight and good luck with your new album!
Thank you! Yeah the Exmag album is out around November.
