As I sit eating breakfast, anxiously awaiting the phone call, I continue to vision one of the fastest-growing live acts of electronic dance performing in our college town with one of the most anticipated tours of the year. After covering two of his festival stops within a week of each other at Shaky Beats and Prime Carolina earlier this year, I can’t help but think about how much Gryffin has grown as an artist since then.
After picking up a guitar and jamming in middle school, as well as being classically trained on the piano, Gryffin didn’t picture himself having any career in electronic music. It was after being exposed to the likes of Calvin Harris, Skrillex, deadmau5 and Swedish House Mafia while studying electrical engineering at USC in Los Angeles that he began producing and posting tracks on Soundcloud, where it began to take off.
With tracks like “Feel Good” featuring Daya and “Tie Me Down” featuring Elley Duhé with over 100 million streams on Spotify, his success in the industry is being well noticed throughout the world.
Best said by Gryffin himself: “When the phones go up and I see people smiling and singing the records out loud, it’s just an incredible feeling for an artist to see that love being reciprocated back."
Electronic music production is not his only way to express himself through music, however. Playing for an indie group on the side, he says “It feels nice not listening to electronic music all of the time. I listen to a lot of indie alternative like The 1975, Tame Impala, and The XX.” With different stances on sound design in indie alternative production, he gets a lot of inspiration listening to their records and experimenting with new methods.
When asked if he would ever want to collaborate with these bands, he says with certainty, “I would absolutely never turn those down.” On the electronic dance side of music, he “would love to get in the studio with Calvin Harris; he’s the most insane hitmaker in dance music history. I love Disclosure’s production." He continues with, "On the non-dance side, I would love to get in with Jamie XX; he’s amazing. Vocalists Lorde would probably be a top one for me. I’d love to do something with Florence [Welch] or someone like Sam Smith who has an incredible voice.”
If you’ve been to his shows before, you know that his stop in Columbia will bring a full spectrum of feelsy tracks to good vibes during his immersive performance. Touching on his emotional lyrics and production, he states, “As a producer and artist, you don’t always feel happy all the time. There are different emotions that everybody experiences and I’ve been experimenting more with writing music that talks about different types of feelings life involves. It’s been rewarding coming up with music that feels different at times.”
This tour is bringing a whole new production to the stage, from lights, lasers and visuals, to a setlist complete with originals. One thing that sets him apart from other live electronic acts are the 'on the spot' edits during his show. “There will be a lot of re-edits for fans that have heard the new releases over the course of the last year to give them a refreshing take and I really think they’re going to enjoy the show,” Gryffin says.
After this tour comes to an end, his band will take on Europe and Asia, and eventually go dark as, “it’ll be time to work on the next project and the next phase.”
In the meantime, his Columbia, SC, stop will be a big show for UofSC. This will be a show you do not want to miss and if you’re attending, it will be a show that you will never forget. We are hosting a ticket giveaway until November 19 for two pairs of tickets going to two lucky fans on our Twitter @garnetandblack.
To keep up to date with everything Gryffin, follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @GryffinOfficial. Stay tuned for post-show coverage coming soon!
