Scott Wilson: Where does the name Gramatik come from?

Denis Jasarevic: It’s like this stupid story. I’ve been playing music since grade 3 or 4. I was in a band and we were just fucking around and learning our instruments, just playing Beatles songs in a really shitty way, you know. Later on when I started getting into hip hop and rapping, I realised I needed a rap name. I realised when I’d go buy weed from a dealer, I never had more than a gram, so I called myself Gram. That was my rap name. Then later on in high school, I was good at English, I’m from Slovenia, but I was good at it so everybody was always asking me how to spell this, how to say that, and then one time one of my classmates said, “Dude you’re not Gram, you’re Gramatik!” Just a stupid joke, but that’s my name now.

SW: I read that you got to take a helicopter ride in Dallas. How’d that come about? 

DJ: That was fucking awesome, I’ve never been in a chopper before. I think they had it there for like artists or something and they offered to give some of the headliners a ride. It was cool, it feels like you’re in a boat, but like on air. The movements of the chopper feel like you’re on water. And the way you land, it’s not like it just goes straight down. It approaches the earth at an angle I’ve never experienced before.

SW: That’s got to be a trip for the pilots.

DJ: Yeah dude, me and Greg were in there and we had the headpiece on and were doing the chopper voice –

SW: Breaker one-niner, over.

DJ: Yeah that, and we were like, dude, our job is cool but your job is pretty fucking cool!

SW: So you went to a technical school for college?

DJ: I went to SAE for Audio Engineering.

SW: Do you have a pretty strong background in science and mathematics? 

DJ: Not really. I’m still more of a musician and artist than I am an engineer, even though I went for audio engineering. I’m not an engineer by nature. I get by with it, but I’m still more of an emotional, artistic guy. I’m more into diving into emotion.

SW: Do you think having that background has changed your music? 

DJ: No, it’s just helped me realize some things about the physics of sound. That’s all I really needed from that college, to talk with some actual physicists about how sound works to make my shit sound good. Talk to some people who could explain things in an abstract way. That’s how my brain processes things, in an abstract way, that’s why my music sounds the way it does. Because of my music people think I’m good at math, but I’m not.

SW: Alright, let me ask you one more question. If a film maker came up to you and said I want to use your music, what kind of film would you want it to be? 

DJ: Scorsese, Tarantino, or Coen brothers. That’s like my second biggest passion, cinematography. Me and my roommate who’s a videographer have been working on short scripts, and I want to get into acting as well because I’ve been doing that since high school. As much as I’m passionate about music and the music making process, TV and movies are the same. I’m a huge film and cinematography buff.  That’s what I want to get into more of. Tour less and do film scores and stuff. Once I get off touring and this Gramatik stuff me and my roommate, who’s also from Slovenia, we’ve been talking about making movies since we were kids. We’re going to start making things.

At that point the tour manager let us know it was almost time for him to go on. As quickly as our conversation started, we had to end it. The live experience from that show, however, is a different story.

The post Pre-show chit-chat with Gramatik at Concord Theatre appeared first on Quip Magazine.

Denis “Gramatik” Jasarevic himself is in the midst of an epic winter tour, covering clubs and festivals throughout North America. “I feel like I’ve never stopped touring since I moved here”, he told us in an earlier interview. He arrived at Concord from Dallas, Texas, only a few hours before the show. The only sleep he got was on the plane and he hadn’t eaten until just before going on. You’d never know any of this from watching him though. No more than thirty seconds ever passed without some sort of jumping or wild gesturing. Though soft-spoken off stage, Gramatik commands attention on stage and whenever he shouts a verse into the microphone, the audience goes bananas. “Put your hands up Chicago!” They’re already up, Gramatik.

Out on the dance floor a young lady turns around and tells me, “Hey, I like your, um, thing!”

“What thing? My shirt?”

“Yeah.” Then she whips her hair in time with the music and turns back around. Sudden, unexpected compliments are just one of the nice things about the Chicago EDM community, it’s very inviting. If you are, say, a music journalist looking for interviews, all you have to do is pull out a notebook, sit near a good lighting source and chatty new friends will come on their own, no need to hunt. Jon, a strength trainer and coach from St. Charles, Illinois, has seen Gramatik four or five times. He’s big into the EDM scene and goes to all the major festivals in the Chicago area. After a few minutes of amiable chatter, his buddy Quinn, from Sugar Grove wanders over and invites himself to be interviewed.

“Um, I’d prefer if he just interviewed me, Quinn.”

“Well I’d prefer if he interviewed me, Jon. I’m much more fun to talk to. Tell you what, how about we both just shout our answers at the same time?”

So I ask what their favourite colour is, to which Quinn shouts, “Ummm!” and Jon says, “ROY G BV! That’s all the colours in one!”

Concord Music Hall is less than a year old, but whoever designed the place obviously had some experience. The dance floor is large with good sight lines to the stage from every angle. The sound quality is excellent, many people found they didn’t need to wear earplugs, but could still feel the music from the monolithic speakers around the stage. The sound engineers have to mix both the electronic equipment and the backup guitarist Gramatik shares the stage with, but they do it so deftly it sounds as if it was all recorded on one track.

The one glaring flaw of the show is that the management might have stacked the line-up a bit too thick. The doors open at 9 with the first band coming on around 10. Gramatik comes on a little after midnight and plays until the bar closes, just after 2 in the morning. That means the early concert goers have been dancing for 6 hours by the end of the show. Even the people who just come for Gramatik have to keep their energy up for at least two hours, which is hard for people to do on a weekday. By the second hour of Gramatik’s set, the jumping and dancing have turned into swaying and nodding, with an occasional and short-lived flourish of excitement after a good hook.

But considering the alternatives on this frigid Chicago night -sitting at home, hibernating or freezing to death outside – the Gramatik attendee could do a lot worse.

The post Making Friends at the Gramatik concert appeared first on Quip Magazine.