Look who’s droppin’ in!! | DJ Drop studio session with Greazy Keyz

What’s up everybody, this is Greazy Keyz with rBeatz Sessions with my boy, Drop. What up? What up? What up? I want to hear you sit around and talk about some music, some sports and see what’s going on. What’s going on, Drop?

I’m just excited to be here. Thank you all so much for having me out today. I am so thrilled to be a part of rBeatz and in the studio for Sessions with you guys. Man, I’m just I’m blown away by everything. The ADD squirrel brain is in full force right now dude. It’s the hair, the glasses, the keytar right in front of me I mean, I can’t look away right now. It’s like Dude, I love it. I love it and that little intro was pretty spicy. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely glad you could be here. Yeah, let’s talk about what you got going on, what you’ve been up to what you. Tell us about yourself.

Oh man. I like to say master of many, even though most people call it jack of all trades. Yes, man, I try to do it all, like I said being an ADD musician, you know, started out doing the band thing as a young young kid. Being a drummer and just like fast forward so quickly for our time, you know, went to school, studied music, was a double major, learned five instruments in college.

Amazing, you can do the keytar sounds.

Yeah I’m horrible but you have to be proficient in piano as well to graduate.  And so, yeah, just, you know, did the band thing, studio tracking thing, touring thing, and was in the studio one day in DC. And it was a rapper studio and they had turntables and the engineer was like, oh man, you’re a drummer. You got beat. You should be able to like get this down inside. Yeah, no, it was a dumpster fire to say the least. But I got hooked. Right then in there. That was about a dozen years ago one out bought a crappy controller. Yeah, started playing at a local spot in DC and basically helped pay for our entire wedding from just grinding it out one summer. I don’t know, it’s just steps and stages and then you know 80 % of DJs don’t produce their own music, which got me into producing because I didn’t want to be in that herd of 20. I am so massively competitive and self -competitive that I was like, I want to be different. I want to be part of that top 20 percentile.

Well, that seems to be a thing with DJs. It’s either A, you are the guy that just pushes play, or B, you’re an actual artist.

Right, James Kennedy. Yeah, you know, like the DJs that walk up, they hit play. Yeah, and I get it. Like Steve Aoki, some of those guys, they get a bad rap. They really do. But the thing that people don’t understand about Steve was way back in the day when DJ AM was still alive, they held this thing called banana split Thursdays. It was either Tuesday or Thursday. There goes my phone, and it’s really crazy to understand that this guy can cut and is one of the best vinyl DJs out there. But, what he did was he changed the game for DJs and he was one of those guys who went in, DJ AM changed the game as well with the creativity of being able to do mashups and 30 second splashes of stuff, but Aoki really took this stage of production and brought it live where yes, he’s still in cakes, he’s jumping around with the shirt off, popping bottles, but you don’t understand the complexities in the hundreds of hours. Hours that go into him building one song that’s gonna last for maybe 90 seconds. So I got into that and then that got me into studio engineering So, you know, like I said, I just tried to do it all and recently jumped in with my buddy Will Unknown. When he started DJ and I helped him on that come up and we just became really best friends. He’s like a younger brother. So we started our own podcast podcast, which is really a tribute to the old school morning show. It’s like growing up in DC, listening to DC 101, hot 99 .5 and having that hour commute. Man, that’s like, I felt like I was part of the show with them. And we just have these outrageous conversations like every single day. And we were just like, we should just be recording this.

Yes, let it rip.

Yeah, so now they’re a little bit more organized conversations, but man, we started that a couple of months ago and it’s been going great. We have listeners and viewers from Brussels and Germany all the way to California. And I was talking with the crew before we even started about it and I was really shocked how fast it took wind and watching our analytics every day. I’m like, why are people listening to this?

That’s awesome.

Yeah, and that’s what it really is. And so we talk life, we talk a lot about music, a lot about music news. Coachella was recently. So we had a big segment on that recently, but yeah, man, that’s, you know, that was a five minute nutshell. I wish it was a little bit cleaner, but yeah, man. So that’s me in a nutshell, right?

So, what kind of events do you find yourself doing mostly? Or what are your favorite kind of shows to do?

Oh man, um, I love festivals. Festivals are fun. Um, they’re shorter, which is great. Uh, you know, you’re normally on stage for like 40 minutes at a time. Those are great. I love a good club as well. Where you get four hours to absolutely wreck people. And that’s great. Those two spots are probably my favorite, um, really to lock it in. So being a drummer as well, that was my main instrument in college. I’d been drumming since I was like five just like my kid and drumming for EDM DJs. Yeah, it’s like my jam. I love that.

That’s gotta be a really cool talent

It’s 40 minutes of brutality, to be honest, because it’s so much energy and it’s so fast and they’re normally out in the sun in the summer, but when you get off stage you just have all those endorphins released and you’re like Oh, this was it. That was the moment.

That, to me, is a cool part about DJs that incorporate, you know, live musicians and drummers and things like that. They really kind of take it to, you know, the artistic level. You know, as a as a musician, kind of look at DJs, it can be like, you know, judgmental. 

Especially as a DJ, right?

But then, you know, you connect with folks and find the artistry in it and you can really appreciate it. It’s a skill.

That’s what I try to bring even doing weddings, which if I got any clients listening to this, like, I don’t hate weddings. They are just the toughest gig because there’s a lot more that goes into it than just hitting the stage.

Oh, absolutely.

But what I tell my couples, what I tell my brides is like, how many weddings have you been to and you walked away and you can’t remember the DJ? Or you can’t remember the music? I’m the opposite of that. Like, I’m not your coming from Target, out of the box DJ that’s gonna play like Earth Wind and Fire and Michael Jackson and we’ll have a night. Like, I bring CO2 cannons with me, bubble cannons, moving headlights, strobes. I just did a wedding this last weekend which was one of my favorite weddings and the hardest wedding I’ve ever done because of the weather it hailed and it was outdoors. Yes, so that was wild, but I think the thing that means more than the paycheck is that gratitude at the end of the night when the father the bride and family and friends and even grandparents come up. That’s the hardest thing about getting out of a wedding, without sounding braggadocious, at all. It’s like they just want to talk and that’s what I want to leave them with. I want to leave them with that because Will, he has this saying that he’s like, every gig I do, I get two out of it. And it’s so true. If you do your job, right? And you go that extra mile, that’s how you get it, man. So, yeah.

Same thing with being a musician, you’ll play a lot of weddings the same way. And it’s about creating those memories to me, even more than say the musicality of the band. It’s just kind of creating moments for folks to never forget.

Absolutely, man.

I love that you bring not only the music, but then I like to set up a big show and you reckon it’s just an impression that just people want to continue to support you and, and grow you like that. So that’s, that’s awesome that you show your passion and your love.

It’s the competitive nature. Like I said, I have to one up every gig that I do. It’s sick. I think my wife hates the way I abuse the credit card, ’cause I’m always buying stuff. Man, I’m like, I really need this. She’s like, do you really need this? And she’s like, where’s your ROI on it? And I’m like, all right, give me seven months and it’ll be paid for.

Oh man, I live the same way.

The CO2 was, that was a purchase. And she was like, do you really need that? And I’m like, yeah, no, we’ll cover it. Just give me like seven months. But yeah, man, they’re awesome. So. So freaks people out the first time you hit them, like right at a big drop at a wet, no one’s expecting that at a wedding and you hit it and it’s just like—

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Very cool. So what else you got? I don’t know. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

What do you want to know? What can I give you today?

So, tell me about like your process, like when you said, when you’re producing music. and you’re creating a song. Do you draw inspiration from other artists? Or do you find yourself kind of creating stuff, like basically writing the song yourself like with your other instruments? What’s some of your inspiration?

That’s a great question and there’s something called reference tracks out there. So like most musicians, and when you write for sync, which is TV, film, video. games, they’re like, here’s reference tracks, or what are your reference tracks? And I really was big into reference tracks for a while, which is great. It just helps give you a guide. What are the drums doing in the first verse? What are the synths doing in the hook? And it gives you an idea, but I’ll say that actually stifles my creativity. I love going into the studio, and just getting out the keyboard and just banging out like, even a lead line and I work backwards. I’m tracking an artist right now, right? Normally you track drums first. It’s the first thing that goes down, but when you write the songs in the studio, man, I really love to put a guitar in somebody’s hands with a mic and would just go straight scratch tracks and we’ll record for two hours straight, just like concepts ideas. Yeah, and actually I’m getting ready to track the drums today and that’ll be the last thing I have. The whole song mixed already and there’s no drums in it. And so it’s very unorthodox. I think any studio engineer will probably say you’re an idiot. But man, it’s just the way that my brain works. I don’t know. I was just, some people call it cursed. I’m just blessed with the ability to do things the hard way. I’m really kinesthetic. I don’t learn traditionally, school sucked. St. Anne’s classroom, going through lectures, it was the worst thing ever. And matter of fact, I hit, my school had skips. Me and you, depending on how many credit hours it was, you get X amount of skips a semester. I max skipped every single semester. Matter of fact, for chapel, which was mandatory at my college, I would have my roommate take my ID and scan me in for chapel. You just tap it like you’re walking into an office building, but I would have, have them like, you know, like, dude, just tap my card for me because I am like that. I’m difficult. I’m really strong willed, but I think that that has paid dividends in my music abilities because I think it, I always want to stay ahead of the curve and, and really, replicating is death. And I never want to be a part of what is currently happening. I want to make what’s next.

Right. Right.

So anyways, I know that was long winded, but man, that’s just the way I operate. 

Well, I definitely relate to the recording process. Like, I’ve also done stuff with bands and we’re basically have started with, say a guitar part and kind of worked our way backwards and and maybe have like a reference drum track, like you said, yeah, even just like a simple drum machine. Yeah. And then finally add live drums to it. So that’s a that’s a really cool process.

Yeah, I do that. Sometimes I’ll grab a sample or I’ll create a sample and just throw it in and loop that eight bar drum beat and just be like, bro, just lay on top of this. And that’s how the best ideas come, man. Like, yeah, I’m not trying to like overly beat this on the air, but I go to a big church in Charlotte and they’ve won Grammys for their music, but just to understand the way that they write and they record in the studio, and it is very much like that. They get into like their living room type of area of the studio. And man, they just, they just play and it’s so cool to hear like an audio note concept from like six months ago, right into what this song that’s now Billboard, Dove, Grammy nominated and they write how musicians used to write. And that’s what I appreciate about that style. And that’s why I try to keep alive in the way that I do it.

So yeah, that’s cool because you would think a lot of folks, like I said, could be easily packaged, easily processed.

So many kids with a freaking Mac these days. Yeah, cookie cutter. It drives me nuts, man. And that’s why I like artists like Rufus Del Sol. And have you heard of Fred Again?

No, I’ve not. Tell me about him.

Dude, plays everything live as a DJ. So, all the instruments. So, that’s going to be the new thing. I really do believe that. The kids with the Mac that did this thing, like Martin Garrix, great job. 10 years ago, sat in his bedroom, I think even on GarageBand and made Animals, which turned into the one of the game changing EDM hits that came out. And now, I hate to say that that’s considered a throwback EDM song, since it’s over a decade old. But I think that really caught fire in kids. Young people realized how “easy” it was to make music. It’s really not that easy, but when you’re determined… It became that thing where they could hit a stage and blow up like John Summit. Talented, but same thing, kid in college in a dorm with a laptop making music. And I really think that that live musicianship it’s gonna come back just as the the JNCOs. JNCOs are coming back and the girls wearing like trash bag shirts, which I understand, like the part down the middle. I’ve picked that up since I’ve been in the south, but yeah I really think that the musicianship needs to come back on stage and I think it is gradual, and that’s gonna be real talent.

Because that’s you know, like you said, it’s easy to fall back on the technology yeah and but the human element I think, ultimately needs to push through and it’s good to see that that’s kind of happening.

Real musicianship. Yeah, because you can sit there with a Mac in Logic or Ableton and tweak and bend and phase and, you know, automate your track to death. And that’s great. That’s an awesome thing. You know, tape is gone. I understand that analog tape doesn’t really exist unless you’re the Foo Fighters, which exactly. It’s an honor. An achievement that Dave Grohl built a studio in his garage and recorded one of their best albums ever on analog tape. But those days are gone, man and I hate that.

It’s sort of like a niche now. It really is. Again, it’s like standard listener is not going to know the difference. It’s more like a self -indulgent kind of thing, which, you know, at that level and you go for it.

And now they got plugins. you know, they got, you know, like Waves is one of my favorite plugin brands that I use. And I mean, they got analog tape distressors, all sorts of crazy stuff that’s like, now you slap it on to your master when you’re, you know, going through the final checks and they’re like, Oh, it brings that warmth to it. Again, the analog tape that nothing replaces analog.

So whenever you’re approaching, say, a new song idea, do you approach it as like, you know, as a normal songwriter might say, well, I need a verse and a chorus and a bridge, but you as a DJ, do you approach it that way? Or are you approaching it, “Well, you know, what are my 15 seconds that I need to really make it pop so that, you know, folks might use it on TikTok”, you know, like what?

Yeah, that’s a double -edged sword right there because I am a traditionalist. I love to write, make, mash up full length.

Right.

At minimum 90 seconds. But that is the whole thing for me to wrap my head around working with Will. You know, he’s really big on the content, creating stuff too. And yeah, again, another way that we connect for our show, but you know, he’s like, I just need 15 seconds. And I’m like, dude, my brain can’t work in 15 seconds. Like it’s really, it’s really tough. And TikTok has really heard it, but it is one of the coolest feelings in the world. We did an edit for the masters. Masters, which just happened a couple weeks ago that, which was amazing, awesome, but then to watch people use our song on tiktok for videos and like it’s been shared with me and I’m like “Wow, what a cool feeling”, I had no idea. Yeah, that’s my generation slipping, you know, he’s 10 years younger than me. He understands the game and that’s a really hard but humbling experience for me. It’s like wow, I have to take a step back and stick to what I’m just good at instead of controlling everything. And let somebody else who’s younger than me who knows more than I do about, you know, so many different areas. He is the creativity behind what we do. And I love that.

With being, you know, being a creative person and like I said, being competitive.

Relinquishing control is the toughest thing to do.

Exactly. And being a part of a bigger community. Let others, you know, have their moments. and right share their talents

And I think I’m just so tired from being boss around for so many years in the studio to be honest man. Like yeah, you know we’re tracking drums and you’re handed a chart and you’re like play this. And you know, out of college the only thing I could get was jazz music for a while, which oh my god playing jazz music is so tough, but then it got me into country, which I loathed country. I’m into it now because some of the artists, but like when, you know, you’re getting pimped out by your school, because that’s how you pay for your scholarship. Basically, like you get what you can get. And I wasn’t the top tier drummer as a freshman. And that was hard. I came from a big fish and a little pond into a little fish in a big pond at one of the best music schools in the country. And I was like, I can’t play this crap and being locked in that box. No creativity. That wasn’t the fill on paper. That wasn’t the fill we talked about. That wasn’t, you know, that don’t play a backbeat. We want this straight in the pocket. And I’m like, where’s my autonomy in this process? And it’s really interesting now, 20 years later, to get into a situation where it’s like, I got a guy 10 years younger than me telling me what to do in my own studio. This is why I opened up my own studio. So I was going to ask him, tell me what to do. But no, it’s great. And honestly, I learned so much from him. He has been a blessing to have. My other friend that I drum for, Donnie, he’s amazing too, he’s my tech genius. But again, I have learned more, I think, by taking a passenger seat in the studio and doing what I’m good at, and letting other people have control of the projects. And that was hard too, when we were gearing up for festivals and he was DJing and I was the drummer. Yeah, I got a lot of creativity behind the drums, but… the set list and stuff like that like you know It’s really hard to take a to take a passenger seat sometimes when you’re used to being the guy, So anyways, stand that yeah, that’s great. Yeah, man. Fantastic

See, we got a few minutes left here before we move on to our next segment.

See, APS caps caps Caps. Yeah, go and call it out today. I’m wearing my jersey at game three. We’re down 0 -2 Let’s get it. Man, I love the Caps, die hard Caps fan, grew up in DC and you though. Hey, Checkers guy man. So do you have any alliance to the Canes then?

No.

Okay. I didn’t expect that.

No, no, you know, with the, you know, obviously with the Carolina hockey thing, you know, keep up with the teams and kind of fall along and, but you know, I’m a die hard Checkers fan, and have, you know, learned to love the  Panthers as well. But, you know, you got to keep up with the Canes, but I feel a certain allegiance to (the Checkers)

So, 98 you attended your first hockey game. Yes. When did you move to Charlotte again?

So 97 is my, I moved to Charlotte. 

And you caught your first game in 98. 98.

Yeah. I’m more of a music, you know, music kid, you know, I was kind of focused on that growing up. And so sports were, you know, sort of, second to anything. But going to any sporting event live was a lot of fun. I really had a great time with some friends, experienced for the first time. But never really considered that I could actually get plugged in and become the organist for the team. I had no idea that that was even a thing really.

So how long have you been doing that?

So I started with the Checkers in 2015. And so the story behind that was the Checkers had played at the Bojangles Coliseum forever.  And they had an organist, Miss Doris Morgan on the organ. She played from 1957 to 2003.

That’s not GreazyKeyz.

I know right? No, no it wasn’t. But, the organ that is in the Coliseum has been there since they built the thing. And it’s a beautiful looking, beautiful Hammond C3 organ that’s been there since the fifties. There’s organists throughout NHL and maybe a couple in the minor league in AHL, but no one else has a Hammond C3 sitting in the corner of the ring.

That’s awesome. And obviously it’s evolved for you. You know, what she was doing obviously isn’t what you were doing. So, you took that transition and you you brought it to life because I’ve attended a few checkers games and I got to say it’s one of the more energizing experiences. This isn’t some pre -programmed stuff at like, you know, Wrigley Field where they’re hitting the click button and it’s that organ sample like you’re bringing life to the arena, man.

When I first started it in 2015, obviously kind of you know, treading new water you know, it was much more toned down. Just getting my feet wet and over the year in this case, yeah, get my feet cold. And then over the years, kind of developing really a kind of call and response in my mind and then also adding some back beats and some tracks to what I’m doing to kind of match that same (energy) I incorporate not only the traditional organ but then the keytar and this is all about building that fan experience and just for people to feel that.

Absolutely, the best thing you could say about it “a fan experience”

So it is and I approach every game with like, this is someone’s first hockey game  and you know it was like it was with mine. You know it didn’t connect the same way, but I still want to connect with the youngest to the old and create an experience.

And for those that have never been to a hockey game, don’t let it fool you just because it’s a spectator sport in an arena. Bundle up. Oh yeah. People underestimate how cold those arenas are during hockey games. They’re cold. I think my first game I walked in, I was wearing like a t -shirt and jeans or something way back in the day. And I remember being a kid. I was freezing cold. But yeah, man. Big fan. My last company in DC had a box at the Verizon Center now Capital One Center, man. I love games, man. Any chance I can to get near the ice and there’s something about the smell, right? When you walk, yes, you get it. And I’m a hockey guy, man. Like, I grew up playing sports lacrosse, hockey were like my two big sports. But man, when you walk in and you smell the rubber and you smell the ice and it is dude, the sound of the puck hitting the boards, that thud, man, that crack of, you know, when it goes tape to tape. Oh, there’s something about that that makes like the hair on the neck

Like build a track like that. You know, it’s the sounds of hockey.

Hey, you know, forget a clap. Let’s do stick to stick.

Yeah, there we just got a couple of minutes left here before we move into our next part of the rBeatz session.

I’m excited for that part to be honest, getting on the decks. I don’t know why I get really nervous before any time I have to DJ. It could be the same venue I’ve been to a hundred times It could be the first time in the studio studio. Oh, yeah. You get like that.

Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. Like the last hour before I’m like, I’m like getting all my stuff together before I leave the house, my wife knows to just leave me alone because I am just in a worked up like my ADHD is just over time. Make sure I have all my eyes dotted and T’s crossed. So I have all this stuff to go set up and and bring the show.

Yeah, I get butterflies before every gig still.

Well, I got both butterflies now getting ready. So we’ll be right back after this word from our friends and sponsors with RB sessions.

What is up everyone? everyone? I am here at rBeatz Studio for rBeatz Sessions. I’m Drop. I’m so excited to be here with you guys, DJing live today. I got my boy, GreazyKeyz next to me, so I guess it’s going to be a Greazy Drop type of day, but hey man, you ready to get into this? All right, let’s get the people going.

*Jam session*

Hi, rBeatz. Thank you so much for having me out in this session today. I got just a couple song slaps. Thank you to everyone watching, listening. Thank you, rBeatz. Thank you, Greazy Keyz, for rocking out with me today, I need everyone singing this with me. Thank you again so much for all of you for having me out today, I had such a great (great time in the) studio, thank you! (upbeat music) I had such a blast with you today, brother man, thank you so much.

Thanks for the interview, thanks for jamming out with me, man, that’s so much fun. Well, all right, all right

That’s about all I got in my bag. For real, let’s just let’s start a duo.

Yeah man, that was a lot of fun. (upbeat music)