No.1 How would you describe this week in a sentence?
Can I use one word?
Yes
Hectic.
Would you like to elaborate?
The life of someone who has a very intense day job, I'm a recruiter, so it's a lot of sales-y stuff in a very competitive industry, mixed with music and trying to make something happen there, is an awful combination. It's brutal, but it also keeps me busy and it’s a lot of fun, but hectic is the only word I could really think of to describe every week, frankly. It’s determination, that's what I'm about.
No.2 An artwork that inspired you this week
So the EP that I have coming out, I had a friend of mine make an album cover for, and I think he definitely used AI to make it, which I don't even care about because of how it came out. I have a cat, his name is Zeus.
Excellent name.
I wanted to give him a little bit of an honor for the EP. So the name of it is Zeus The Goose, cuz it’s adorable. And I sent that to my friend and I told him, "Just take the name and do whatever the fuck." And he sent me back this. [shows a picture] And it's my cat as a goose.
Wow. That is amazing.
It's the album cover for the EP.
Katrell- Wow
It's fucking gold, dude. [laughs] I can't not love it! It's my cat on a goose's body. I can't help it, I kinda love it.
GNZ - is that AI?
It has to be AI.
It will sell so well on t-shirts.
Right?
Or stickers. It will do well.
I actually didn't think of the stickers. But he's wearing a cankle hat, and he's a goose. I'm just, I was so happy. So, this has been inspiring me every day this week. This has been what's keeping me going. And it inspired me to make another album cover that will make no sense to you guys cuz it's kind of an inside joke, but [shows another picture] it's a little guy with my bowl, who's an elephant named Dumbo. It's stupid, but it's my stupid. This is for something else I'm gonna do.
Thurszday - I like it.
Yeah, without the inside joke-ness of it, it makes no sense.
Greg shared his inside joke with us, but we decided to keep it to ourselves.
… I don't know how I'm going to explain that when I put it out. I'm just gonna put it out and see what happens.
We will not share the context. It will be even better.
Just for us.
Yes.
No.3 A memorable moment from this week
Does today count?
Thurszday - today counts
Yes
Well I would say to that, I've officially finished my EP.
Congrats!
Thank you. Thank you. And I mastered that other song. It still needs work, I think, but, yeah. And the things at work are work. What else did I do? Oh, let's take it back. So two days ago, I went to an open mic with my friend Taylor, also a phenomenal producer-artist, plugging Taylor at any chance I get. Taylor Crawford, GOAT. I went with him and [with] Gracie Lou, who is also an amazing singer. We went to an open mic with a crowd of no one. It was just us and two other people sitting in the crowd. I got up and played guitar, just guitar, on my own, no singing. And I didn't know what I was doing, so I just started fumbling around. Came out amazing. I did so good. I'm putting sarcasm here, when you write this out. The two of them were sick to their stomachs, looking like they're about to throw up. Still got up and performed. And I was just sitting there watching them die in front of me, and that was cracking me up the entire night. So yeah, that's my most memorable moment of this week, watching my friends suffer.
That's amazing.
Yeah. So good!
The show must go on.
The show must go on. Even if it's to a crowd of one, the show must go on.
That's great! And that's a great segue to the next question -
No.4 A motto you swear by, or an advice you received and would like to share?
Well the second you asked Katrell that, I immediately knew my answer. Don't put yourself on a pedestal. For me personally, I have a lot of imposter syndrome around everything I do. Like, when all of you popped off on me playing bass, I was immediately shrank, cuz I don't believe it. I don't believe any of you. You're all lying.
GNZ - I feel like that is a part of it, once you reach a certain level with your skill set.
Yeah. It's natural for anybody, right?
GNZ -Yeah.
Thurszday - Mm-hmm
And the best advice.. this also extends to life in general, right? Because you can be so overly proficient at an instrument, at a trait, a skill, whatever, that no matter what anyone's said, you're always gonna think worse of yourself, because naturally we're our own worst enemies. And the reason why we do that, or at least the reason why I do it, is because I set myself to a higher standard and at any point, if I don't feel like I meet that standard, I kind of crumble. The pedestal that I put myself on crumbles, and I fall, and that's how I end up in a spiraling depression. That's where a lot of my life when I was younger, that's what would happen.
My parents were great, and they didn't put any abusive thing on me, but I really looked up to my dad, and he came from a very rough place and ended up raising a family and giving us all a good life. Obviously we struggled, but it was a very happy childhood. And seeing that, I set myself to that standard like, "Oh, I need to be that. I need to do that." And when I couldn't do it, I would ..
GNZ- feel like a pussy
I would hate myself. You know? [laughs] But, yeah, feeling like a pussy is a good one. It would just be really rough for.. I mean it's a stupid fucking excuse, cuz I had a happy life, but that also adds to the spiral. But the second I took myself off the pedestal and realized I'm a human, everything got a little bit better, easier, and I started seeing more success in my life and feeling better about myself. I still don't believe any of you, but, you know.
GNZ- I feel like to your point, I think a lot of it is that for one, life actually is genuinely harder now.
Yeah, I mean, it's not denying that, but life is always going to be hard regardless of the time period you're in. It's definitely harder now, I agree with you. But the difficulty of life shouldn't be holding you back, if that makes sense. And that's a very easy thing to say, but for yourself, at least, if you can-
GNZ - work around it.
Yeah. Or just realize we're all human and just take it one step at a time. That's the only thing you can do. And if you can keep steadily putting one foot in front of the other, slowly or quickly, however you do it, but if you're constantly putting one step forward every day, or even not everyday, but you're just constantly trying to improve, you will see success, whether it's financially or just personally. You will always see success if you keep trying, and if you don't give up.
The room applauds
This is beautiful, thank you. Preach.
Take yourself off the pedestal, guys. That's the only advice that I could ever give to anybody.
Great advice!
Snapshots by Rachel Bard
No.5 What would you like to share about your upcoming project?
I have an EP coming out. It's called Zeus The Goose, and it is fun. I like it a lot. It's a little.. frankly dumb, Lo-fi EDM-y, kind of dance shit, with me playing bass on everything, and it's cool. It's all me, mostly production. And I've been working on it for a while, very excited to see it finally out. I also have a song coming out with a friend of mine, Grand Pneuma, who is an insanely talented artist, just beyond belief. I love that guy. It's called Lilac. He has a really good description of it, and I'm gonna give my shitty description of it, which is it's about the types of women in his life that he has either harmed or been harmed by, and he's talking about those experiences, interacting with them and trying to tell a story through his interactions with these various women in his life. And it's kind of beautiful. Also, he did it in one take, and I cannot express how impressed I was when he did that. It was crazy. It was the two of us stoned, I was telling you guys earlier, but we were just baked and on a tiny mic, set up on a chair, he just ran with it. It's a moment in my musical journey, I don't think I've ever said that out loud, that is gonna stick with me, because it was such a vibe and a really good time. So that's the one I really want to promote more than anything else, cuz the song is close to my heart, because of the friend I have doing it with.
Keep up with Greg’s upcoming projects -
Mr. Kindness -https://www.instagram.com/mrkindness_/
Spotify