EDMSauce got the chance to sit down with Josh Mayer, Justin Boreta, and Edward Ma, AKA, The Glitch Mob this past weekend before their gig at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC.
Q: How does it feel to be in NYC:
A: “To be honest it’s always crazy to be on a bus tour. We were in philly last night and it’s been such a whirlwind and you wake up and sometimes forget where you are and you open the window and you’re like, wow, we’re in Manhattan. It’s quite an honor to be here.”
Q: You recently introduced a new visual production to your live sets called “The Blade”, where did this idea come from and what purpose does it serve to The Glitch Mob?
A: “The Blade is basically our custom live stage instrument that we collaborated with a ton of talented people to create. We designed and made it because there is nothing out there that we can buy off of the shelf that would allow us to perform our music the way we want to. It functions as our instrument as well as our gigantic set piece. We also designed it to look like what our music sounds like this time around. We really wanted it to have the look and feel of the way we attack music. If you could carve out what our music looked like, this is what it would look like. Imagination is such an important part to our music, and visually, this is what our music looks like. What’s interesting is that the people who actually built the structure of The Blade build spaceships for a living.”
Q: Playing your instruments towards the crowds seems very important to you during your live sets. What is the purpose of showing the crowd what you are playing?
A: “We’ve always been transparent about showing the audience what we do when we are on stage. Back in the day when we started doing that, there was a common misconception that if there is a Laptop on stage the crowd thinks he’s not doing anything or surfing the internet. This was our way of debunking that theory and showing people that the music we are playing is live. It was actually an experiment the first time we built the instrument. We took one of those laptop stands that you find at an electronics store that angles your laptop, and we put our NPDs on top of that, and that was the beginning of breaking down the barrier between us and the audience.
Q: Does producing as a trio give you a distinct advantage, for example, do each of you bring something special to the table, or do each of you have similar skill sets?
A: “I think there is something that we each bring to the table individually and I think that is what gives The Glitch Mob its DNA. It’s very hard to pinpoint those roles because they are very nebulous. There’s some sort of force field that we step into when we write and we know what the music needs to say and do. Even though we are a band, we are also all producers. All three of us know how to mix, produce, and do everything in a studio. It’s such an incredibly meticulous process but when it all comes together at the end, it's truly something special.”
Q: If you guys were locked in a room for the rest of your life and you could only listen to one song, what would the song be?
A: “Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight”
Q: With the huge success of Love. Death. Immortality, where do you see yourselves going from here?
A: “We’re just going to continue to make more music and share with the world and our fans. Success doesn’t change what we do. We don’t see what we’ve been doing as success, rather, we see it as more opportunity to share our music. We definitely don’t look at is a peak. To see where we were five years ago and where we are now and where we will be five years from now is what’s most important.
Q: What is the best fan story you can think of?
A: “In Philly, we have this die-hard fan group called The Mob, and they decorated the venue in preparation for our event, and this one guy came up to us crying who was a former heroin addict, hit rock bottom and was thrown in jail. He said when he hit rock bottom, he discovered our music and it inspired him to turn his life around. Now he has a fitness Clothing company and all he wants to do is spread positivity. He gave us these shorts that he had made for us and everything, and at that moment we thought to ourselves if this were to all end tomorrow, it would have been totally worth it. We had affected this guy in a positive way and this guy was touched by our music. That’s something you will never be able to put a dollar amount on or list on the billboard chart.”
Q: You guys take pride in your meticulous productions and live sets. How do you feel about Ghostwriting infiltrating the scene in recent years?
A: “There are actually a lot of our friends who use ghostwriters, but just to set the record straight we do not use ghostwriters. We write all of our own music and that’s why it takes so damn long to put out new music. For the people that do use ghostwriters, it’s neither here nor there. We don’t look at those artists and think any less of them per say, I still look at them and say that’s their thing and that’s what they do. I still believe it’s their creative vision, they just may not have the technical skills to do it. For example, a guy like Kayne West, he has a slew of producers but at the end of the day, it’s his music and his vision. It really just is what it is. It’s one of those weird things where if it works for you, that’s cool then. Another thing, it really depends what the music means to the producer. The Glitch Mob’s music means something spiritually and emotionally to us. For other people, music is a way for them to get laid, play in front of thousands of people, and throw huge parties. Sometimes the music is just functional for those artists and they don’t have a personal attachment to it like we do. They just use it as a way to further their persona out into the world, and if that works for them, who are we to say that's wrong? We never will come out and knock someone in the industry. It’s not right or wrong. It honestly is what it is. It’s not our Job to sit here and judge other people.”
Q: If there was a zombie apocalypse right now, what would your weapons of choice be?
A: Josh: Most likely a Samurai Sword
Justin: Yeah, I would go with a Samurai Sword or Chainsaw
Ed: Probably a cross-bow like Darryl uses. I would have to keep pulling the arrow out of zombies though, since he only rolls with like, 3 arrows.
So there you have it, a look inside the minds of one of the most talent trio, live production groups in the world. Be sure to check out their 2014 Album, Love. Death. Immortality. out now!
