We caught up with up and coming artist Greg Aram at Webster Hall. Check out our exclusive interview below!
How did you go from being a student at NYU to performing at Webster Hall?
Greg: Well I’m still a student there technically; I’ve got one year left. I’m a senior. How did I go about it? Honestly, I would attribute NYU to, in a lot of aspects, getting me to this platform. I wouldn’t say that I took a lot away from the schooling aspect of it, but I definitely made so many connections there within New York City. It just opens up a network that you’re immediately going into, that you don’t really have to get your way into. So just meeting people through that has expanded my musical network, obviously. So I’d say, from NYU, my full experience there, now being a senior, I’ve taken away the connections I’ve made more than I’ve taken away the education of it.
Who were some of the most inspirational teachers you had?
Greg: One stand out teacher was Carlos Chirinos. He taught me an array of different things. I’m in the music business program there, and he’s is one of the top positions in the music business program, so he teaches a bunch of classes. I took Intro to Music Business with him, I took Live Performance with him – he doesn’t teach you how to perform, but he teaches you how to put on a show. He’s just a cool guy; he has a lot of cool experience. He’s actually half British and half Argentinian, or something, so he has this awesome accent.
I noticed the backing track to your song ‘Mr. Jones’ is from the Glass Animals Roosevelt remix to ‘Pools’. How did you come up with putting that underneath your song?
Greg: I don’t know, I just really like all genres of music. I come from a hip-hop background stylistically, but both my parents are so in depth in different genres. My dad likes classic rock, and my mom likes more folk and musical theater-ie stuff. My ears have always been open to whatever, so I just heard the song, and thought: wow, this is super catchy. I was like: I can just put my own twist on it.
Were your parents both in the music industry?
Greg: Not even. My mom was more into acting when she was younger, so she has definitely done the performance side. But my dad has nothing to do with the music industry, but he has the dopest ears I know of everyone. I grew up listening to the craziest music. Jim Morrison was running through my dreams when I was like ten years old, because that’s all we would listen to all day long, on road-trips, it was so random; he loves jazz, he loves classic rock. So I got my taste in music from him, and I think I got my performance confidence from my mom, if that makes sense. So the combination of my parents made me.
Do you prefer revamping the classic songs you like, or do you prefer making your own beats? So with ‘Mr. Jones’ for example, you took the background music from another song. Do you prefer doing that, or do you prefer creating your own backing track?
Greg: There is a place for both of them. I mean you can’t sell sample things easily, obviously. I think it’s cool, because I think pop music, in my perception, is when you walk the fine line of being familiar, but being unique. So that’s why remixes, and sampling music, is really cool to me. One of my favorite artists, obviously, is Kanye West, and he does that really well; where he takes something that is familiar, but makes it his own – almost in a way that’s almost unrecognizable, but you can still tell that it’s still there if it’s a sample. So there is definitely a place for that, and I grew up with music like that, but I also think now, for the future of me creating music, I just want everything to be original. Yeah, I can take inspiration from sounds, and certain sound palates, but I want everything to be sample free almost. I want to be the people that people sample twenty years from now, you know.
You said Kanye West was one of your inspirations?
Greg: For sure.
Do you have any other artists that have influenced how you make music?
Greg: I would say Pharrell. Pharrell definitely, like, not even musically – both Kanye and Pharrell surpass being a musical artist, in my opinion, because they are just creatives in general, you know. They have tapped their fingers into fashion, into architecture, and mass media. Kanye West is creative even in the way he speaks to the public. This is a side note, but I’m really into pro wrestling, and I grew up with that too, and he is a wrestling villain in my eyes, and that’s so sick to me. I’m definitely, I wouldn’t say inspired, but I definitely listen to them more than the other artists.
Do you find you have any challenges with being a performer?
Greg: Every day is a challenge. It’s a challenge being an individual in this world. This world’s kind of hard right now; there’s a lot going on. I would say it’s less of a challenge being an artist, because you have that escape. Being someone without a passion, in my opinion would be more challenging, because what are you doing? You know, what are you doing? How do you find a way to find a medium to escape all of the things that are troublesome in life? I’m lucky enough that I’ve found a way to do that, so I make music for other people that don’t have that way, so they can listen, and they can find their own escape too.
Is there anything you have anything lined up in the near future?
Greg: Yeah, I’m going to drop an EP soon, called PGP, strictly on SoundCloud. Basically I just, I love SoundCloud, so I went through all these producers that I like on SoundCloud, hit all of them up, got beats from them, and stuff. It’s kind of really geared for SoundCloud, SoundCloud made. So I’m dropping that, and I’m also working with a producer named Zack Mitchell, who is a good friend of mine too, and us two together are working on, what in my head is going to be my first album, and everything is original on that. None of that is released yet. I’m performing one song off that tonight called ‘Like It’, so, yeah…
Sneak Preview
Greg: Yeah, a little sneak preview. I’ll talk about it when I’m up there.
