Gryffin has been around for a long time, rising as a musician for almost two decades. As he prepares for his next migration, he finds a pulse of inspiration at ground zero.
“There's nothing like the energy you get from being at a show, festival or club,” Gryffin recalls in an exclusive interview with EDM.com. “Feel the music pulsating. The production that happens around you. The people that are there and the energy and the love that is in the crowd. I just don't think there is any genre of music that has the same energy and love in the room as dance music. “That's why I really fell in love.”
Gryffin warms up for his third studio album Legumes, which will be released later this year. Yeah Gravity channels the cosmos and Alive highlights the human experience, Legumes evokes the enchanting essence of electronic dance music.
It was during the isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown period that Gryffin yearned the most for how dance music brings people together. Flying alone reminded him how uplifting a flock can be.
“It slowed things down for me and took me away from being with people and having that energy at the club or festival and kind of looking forward to that,” Gryffin says of the pandemic. “I think that had been building up for a while.”
“I hit this huge wave of inspiration where I really wanted to make this album that was high octane and energetic and almost like you feel the pulse of the music breathing and living as you listen to the album and experience it. That's the birth and spirit of it.” It definitely still sounds like me. It's still very melodic with a lot of emotion within the album, but I think people will really feel a difference. “It will feel like a shot of adrenaline.”
Legumes is, in many ways, a collaboration between Gryffin and Dan Griffith, the college kid with a new found fascination with EDM. Griffith's discovery saw him go from electrical engineer to electronic music producer: he forged a new destiny and never looked back.
Legumes It provided an opportunity for Griffith, now 36, to reconnect with himself before Gryffin took flight.
“It didn't make me fall in love with dance music, because I never lost my love for it, but it kind of brought me back to that previous spirit, going to raves and falling in love with it,” he said. “When I was making this album, I was just thinking and remembering my experiences as a fan and a raver, not just the guy behind the decks now.”
“I've been trying to find that love and spirit again. That's why I think it's honestly been so fun for me to make this album. I'm going back and remembering all my experiences and what made me fall in love with it.”
Griffith found a treasure trove of memories hidden in the back of his mind. Box after box of souvenirs cataloged as a source of self-expression. One of those dusted memories was a performance by deadmau5 at HARD Haunted Mansion in the late 2000s.
“Deadmau5 came out and had his first helmet with the [figuratively] He committed suicide on stage or something. She took off her helmet,” Gryffin recalls. “I was so into the culture and fell in love with it back then. It was the shock value of it all. I remember the first time she lit up her helmet.”
Working on possibly his most intimate project has encouraged Gryffin to fall freely into the creative process. The era of music streaming, like everything, is heterogeneous. Unparalleled accessibility to music allows fans to discover artists like Gryffin. It also encourages artists to chase metrics and cater more to algorithms than people, a very real stress that ruffles feathers. Gryffin managed to shake off those worries. Legumes.
“Trying not to overthink things is something that really helped me this year,” he says. “I kind of stopped thinking in my head, 'Are people going to like this? Are my fans going to like this? Will the streaming crowd like this?' “I had those thoughts in my head and I was able to turn them off while making this album.”
Artistic tailwinds keep the chart-topping dance music star moving toward the finish line, but the creative process isn't always so simple. Naturally, music is a major source of inspiration for Gryffin, but turbulence is nothing new to him.
“I just got into it and made music that made me feel something. It moved me,” he continues. “I was happy and fulfilled as a creator. When that light bulb went on in my head, everything else began to flow.”
When asked to name some quintessential albums or artists that every music fan should listen to, he named Daft Punk. Discovery either TaskDivulgation SettleJamie xx In color and M83 and Explosions in the Sky projects.
Gryffin's sonic appetite was always insatiable. The conversation about music sparked a funny memory of 11-year-old Griffith pleading with his parents to buy a copy of Dr. Dre. very explicit and probably not a second album suitable for children, 2001.
“That was the first explicit one I had. I asked my dad to connect it to that one,” Gryffin says with a laugh. “My dad is the one where I say, 'Hey, I really want this.'” “He's the one who can give in. I don't even know if my mom knew I got that album.”
It's a matter of time before Legumes hit the landing. The project is scheduled for release sometime this year. While Gryffin is keeping a tight lid on the release date, he confirmed that there will be a teased collaboration with Armin van Buuren. Legumes.
“It will be launched through Armada [Music] because I wanted it to come out through Armin's project. That was always the goal,” Gryffin says. “But it's also coming out on Pulse because it strangely fits with what I'm doing now and where I'm going with my sound, and it's also a trance state with the spirit of Armin. So it happens in both.”
Watch the full interview with Gryffin below.
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