Writer, producer, performer. Pepper those titles with a gritty delivery, a coiffure that would make George McFly jealous and penchant for black letterman jackets, and you get G-Eazy–the Oakland-born rapper/producer who has done a fine job of acting as the pioneering sonic arbiter between the Beach Boys and Eazy-E. Born Gerald Gillum, G-Eazy has been an almost entirely self-made phenomenon, his success grounded in his unique approach of tossing a heavy 1950s aesthetic, classic doo-wop melodies and thick hip-hop beats into a figurative Cuisine Art. The Clarion got the opportunity to sit down with Gillum last Wednesday before he took the stage for a sell-out crowd at the Ogden Theater. Peep at the interview below to hear his advice on cracking into the music industry as a college student and why he thinks James Dean is “rad as f—.”
Q: Just so I don’t start off by asking you something you’ve been asked a million times, what’s the most annoying question you get asked by the press?
G: Not most annoying, but most cliché, like every time is, “growing up in the bay area and then moving to New Orleans for college, how did both cities affect and influence your music?” I mean I can talk all day about how the Bay Area influenced me growing up, being inspired by the Hyphy stuff and then moving to New Orleans and having that culture-shock, but it’s just over and over and over again. I think what people fail to understand is that in today’s day and age, the Internet is every bit as influential as where you live. It’s all about what blogs you’re reading and what people you’re following through social media. It becomes almost more important than where you live because you spend so much of your time indoors on a laptop.
Q: Now I’ve gotta ask, what blogs do you read and who do you follow?
G: Pigeons and Planes, Earmilk and 2DopeBoyz have always been my favorite blogs.
Q: You’ve been called the “James Dean of hip-hop.” Do you agree with that term? How do you feel about it?
G: Everybody asks as if I’d be mad at that! Everybody is always like, “Now, I don’t mean to make you mad, but…” And I’m like that’s rad as f—, James Dean is a legend, you know? I don’t know if they do this at your school, I feel like this is probably every college, the first week of school that poster company comes and they set up all the posters you can buy in the cafeteria or whatever. There’s always Marilyn Monroe there’s always James Dean and there’s always Bob Marley. He died decades ago and girls still put this guy up in their f—ing room, he’s the man!
Q: One of your newest tunes, “Tumblr Girls,” has a much more synth-driven, cerebral, 21st century-feel than your albums “Must Be Nice” and definitely “The Endless Summer.” Is this change in your direction/sound an indication of things to come and what we’re going to hear on “These Things Happen?”
G: It’s a hint at a new direction for sure. A lot of it came from working with Cristoph Anderson, who co-produced the whole entire new album with me. I was always a fan of his work and he’s a friend of mine from New Orleans so I kind of approached him like, “I want to take your world and pull that into mine. Let’s try to put both of our influences together to craft this sound and carve out this aesthetic for this record.” I mean he’s brilliant so it was a really good experience getting to work with him on the whole record.
Q: In the video for “Almost Famous” you’re shown on the cover of the parodic “Rolling Stonez.” Do you have a favorite “Rolling Stone” cover from the past?
G: Man it’s crazy you say that, I think of Eminem’s cover like really early in his career. Also, Kanye with the crown of thorns, that was f—ing insane. And I love Lil Wayne’s cover because I think it was pretty poignant for that moment, right before he went to jail. I mean there’s so many but those were just the first to come to mind.
Q: So I know you’ve toured with Lil Wayne in the past. What was that like?
G: It was a learning experience, that’s what I always say. It was a chance to watch him, T.I. and 2 Chainz perform everyday, all summer if I wanted to and really just soak up game. Everybody has their little tricks onstage, and those are three of the greatest doing it. I mean they’ve done it for so long, they’ve got a crazy track record; so just being able to watch and learn from them that way was dope.
Q: A lot of your songs, especially your earlier ones, feature pretty unique samples (Phenomenal Handclap band, Tennis, Generationals). How do you go about grabbing a sample for a song? Do you hear it first and then decide you want to build a song around it or seek out a sample for a pre-existing track?
G: The way my brain functions is I hear rhythms, melodies and tempos and I hear the pieces that aren’t there that I want to add when I listen to it. Like when I first heard Tennis’ “Marathon” I was like, “you gotta be kidding – this is perfect,” it could not be a more perfect clip. So with that, as soon as I heard that little keyboard riff, I heard the kick and the bass that I wanted to add in, and I could pick apart the pieces that I could use —here’s the verse and for the chorus is this. So I start with listening to music and picking out the different pieces I want to use and it’s just what I react to or what I don’t.
Q: When you’re writing lyrics, do you type or write by hand?
G: Oh man, it’s sad to say, but I type these days. It’s just so much quicker.
Q: When you picture rappers writing, you just always picture Eminem with his book in his hand, scribbling away.
G: Yeah I mean I used to write, like forever, it’s just so much more efficient using the phone. I just use my phone, I’ve never done it at a computer, it feel like that’d be awkward, for some reason a phone is just comfortable. The thing with the phone is you have to turn it on airplane mode a lot because when you’re recording you can hear the little vibrations from the buzzing and that gets picked up by the mics.
Q: Your production gets a lot of praise and is extremely mature. Looking down the road, do you see yourself ever turning solely to production for other artists?
G: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I just look at it as, down the road, I’ll look back and be able to differentiate the different chapters of my life. I think there’s time down the road where I’ll kind of shift gears and work more behind-the-scenes in building somebody else.
Q: As a recent college graduate, what advice would you have for a recent college grad looking to break into the music industry?
G: Well, it’s really not so much advice to a college grad, but more as it applies to a college student because by the time you graduate, the ship has pretty much sailed. There was definitely an anxiety that burned inside of me throughout college that was like a plane on the runway; by the time I graduated, I had to have that s— off the ground. Because when you graduate you’re out in the real world and that’s real as f—. I did enough to get by, I can’t sit here and say I got all A’s, I graduated with the GPA required to keep my scholarship. But, I used all that extra free time not to bulls— but to work on my music every day. It’s not easy; no one has the formula or the proven set of steps. You have to figure all of that out because it’s different for everybody, but you’ve got to be looking for it and working during the time you’re in school so that when you’re done, you’re ready. Regardless of what you’re doing, it’s just using you’re free time to work. If you’re out of college and you’re working a 9-to-5 that sucks because you’re tired as f— from working all the time and you come home and you just don’t have the time for the music.
RAPID FIRE:
Q: Favorite band/artist growing up?
G: Overall? Kanye. I wouldn’t say that was quite like growing up, because I was like 13 when he came out, but still I’d give it to Kanye.
Q: Most played song on your iPod/iTunes?
G: That’s crazy, like of all time? Man, I’d say “Still Dre.”
Q: Dream artist/group to share a stage with living or dead?
G: I hate to be repetitive, but I’d say Kanye. His tours are just so inspiring; I mean the way he approaches a live show, with the production, the energy onstage —it feels theatrical, it transcends a rap show.
G-Eazy has dates in Canada and on the East Coast through April 12th, so be sure to give them a look and check out his James Dean-meets-Kanye vibe.
