While in Jacksonville, Florida to perform during his Age of Reason tour, Gramatik and his live band counterparts from Lowtemp, Exmag, sat down with WRR to talk about being on his own label, music festivals, and more.
Describe your new album for us; how has your sound changed direction?
“I dont know if it changed direction, it just became more complex, more evolved in a way, for lack of a better word. It’s all the things i’ve been doing since the start, but I do it in a more developed way. Because I started out using Cubase and then I discovered Ableton around 2005 or 2006 and everything changed for me, the whole universe in my mind. Everything I was already doing, I started doing in Ableton in a much more complex way that enabled me to blend those genres even more than before. It changed in a way that I matured musically and I started doing more and more original stuff and less and less sample-based stuff. I really like to write original music and but I still need to make a living. And since I will always give away my music for free to my fans, the only way I can make that living with this music besides playing shows is licensing and once the music is entirely original, you can pocket all the music and not lose any for the samples I use. So I tried to steer toward original music, although that wasn’t the primary reason, it was just a nice bonus on top.”
If you had to choose to collab with any artist dead or alive, who would it be?
“That’s so hard. I would do a song with Tupac, because he meant so much to me and I listened to him so much growing up. But if not Tupac, I’d say John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix.”
You’re new stage production is called ‘The Coil’. Is that a shout out to Nikola Tesla?
“Yes, definetly. It’s inspired by the Tesla Coil and I wanted my set-piece to be inspired by one of his inventions since he is pretty much my favorite human being of all time. I wanted something on my stage that was a tribute to him and the Tesla Coil was one of the most important inventions. So me and my light designer Kyle sat down to answer the question of how we could we develop an abstract, theatrical prop-representation of a Tesla Coil? So we came up with these backlit LED walls coupled with moving lights on the sides which light the inflatables so it feels like its burning. That was our representation of it.”
How long did it take you to create the coil, and how large of a part are you in the light show creation?
“That was all me, Kyle asked me about this back when the stage designs were pretty basic stage designs and starting out at small shows and we didn’t have the financial lineup to do exactly what we wanted. We got to that point and I said “how can we represent this tesla coil to everyone in the audience?” And so I said “Let’s call it ‘The Coil’. So Kyle came out a week later with the materials breakdown and the sketches and I was blown away.”
So do you enjoy playing large crowds or small gigs? Or whatever as long as the crowd is enjoying it?
“I really am enjoying playing Exmag shows, cause its so fresh and the five us all get to play instruments on stage and we are just combining it all into a live mixer with the drums run through Ableton. It’s all our tracks that we have produced and we have about three albums worth of music right now that we will be releasing that slowly on Lowtemp. You know I’m not a DJ ,per se. And that is so refreshing to play that besides playing my own music every time. I play my music for the fans because I know that they wanna come there and listen to my stuff instead of playing top 40. But I put myself in a position where I have to be entertained on stage otherwise I’m bored outta my mind. Most of the time im sick of my tracks by the time im done making them, which is why I started bringing guitar onto the stage.”
Did you hear about that article about Kill Paris being booed off stage at bottle service clubs for not playing top 40?
“No, I never play at those venues and I feel so bad for Corey cause he’s my friend. Hearing that sucks man. You know, I grew up down the block from one of the five biggest rave clubs in Europe, so that’s how I came to love the funky-filtered french house. One of the main reasons I started doing that was Daft Punk. One of the main reasons I started into that scene was because… I don’t feel comfortable in a club environment I’d always rather be in a concert venue. I never played at those bottle service clubs because it’s not about the music.”
What’s your stance on the drug scene in festivals, with special regard to the recent deaths at Ezoo?
“I feel like what happened at Electric Zoo was kinda stupid in a way because if you think about it, they didn’t need to cancel the festival. At Camp Bisco 10 to 15 people die every year and it doesn’t get cancelled, and that’s in upstate New York so why should it be any different from New York City? Clearly Bloomberg didn’t like something about the festivals that are being held on Randall’s Island. I’ve lived in New York City for a long time, it functions almost like its own country. It comes down to a few people being irresponsible. I have to imagine that water bottles costing $4 and them running out might have something to do with the deaths as well. Charging $4 a bottle at a festival when you know that a majority of the attendees are on MDMA or other drugs seems like the real crime. Charging that much money for a bottle of water seems like asking for it, to me. How much would it really cost to give out free water that are efficient and well run? I don’t want to upset people or point fingers at the victims but cancellation is not how you solve those problems and the entire issue needs to be re-examined.”
Have you ever known anyone to go too hard and have these things happen to them?
“I mean yeah of course man, it all comes down to partying responsibly. If 2 out of 100,000 people can’t handle themselves, why should everyone be held responsible? My policy is know what you are taking, even if that means test kits, if you want to indulge, draw a line for yourself and know what’s cool and what’s not.”
What’s it like to have the absolute control with Lowtemp? How would you describe the experience for us?
“We started Lowtemp so we could have a platform to launch our own music, however, whenever we want. We wanted the freedom to release it ourselves and now we are in a position where we are completely independent and it’s not a label per se, but why take any options off the table for the future if we decide that’s where we want to go with it.”
Do you plan on adding names to Lowtemp any time soon?
“For now, Lowtemp is home of me, Exmag, Gibbs and Branks, and it’s a close family right now. We pretty much live together in Brooklyn and that’s how we like to keep it.”
When you go to create music is it more along the lines of a group meeting conversation? Or just slamming on the headphones and vibing?
“I mean yeah thats pretty much it, we wake up in the morning, get the creative juices flowing and start working on the the music. Sometimes its shitty and sometimes it’ awesome, and when it’s awesome we make music out of it.”
Do you have a favorite pair of headphones?
“Yeah I do. They are Behrdynamic DT 770 Pro. 250 Ohms.”
When can we expect some official Lowtemp pins to show up with the other merchandise on the road?
“We are talking to this guy on the internet who has already made them and we are planning on just getting a bunch from him and start selling them.”
So do you guys give your fans free roam on this stuff, or do you get asked to endorse them?
“People make them regardless, people do that stuff since they are fans and we see them on posted on our Facebook walls.”
Speaking of facebook, how often are you the one responding or posting on the official group as opposed to management?
“Our management usually runs the contests but I check it everyday on my phone, especially in the airports when there’s nothing to. I do all the statuses and responses to questions I think deserve to be answered. But the management sign the statuses they do as Gramatik Headquarters.”
So I know you mentioned that listening to your own music becomes onerous. What do you listen to when you wanna relax?
“I like alot of old stuff, like blues, funky and neo soul, Erica Badu and Deangelo, lot of funk (cant really make out one more band). We just love the father genre’s and that’s what we are trying to do with Exmag, an updated Neo-Soul.”
I know you have alot of different vocalizations, where do you get all of them?
“Well some of them are samples and some are originals, but Age of Reason has the most original tracks and the Exmag album is entirely original.”
What was the deal with the No Diggity remix? We all loved it.
“We had that beat pre-made and Tyler went on acapella and Eric and everybody came in. I changed snares and kicks and it all came together at the end of the day.”
Where did the Lowtemp logo come from?
“Charlie Robinson, he designed it for us, he has a beautiful life.”
WRR would like to think Gramatik for taking the time to speak with us. Be sure to check out Gramatik during his Age of Reason tour, and be on the lookout for his new album ‘The Age of Reason’ to drop soon!
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