Exclusive Interview with the Largest Up and Coming Producer in 2017: G-Space

With each year that passes, more and more talented and aspiring producers, musicians, and DJ’s rise to fame for creating epic music. All with different styles, genres and special features that make them unique and stand out compared to the rest. Some are skilled in using multiple instruments, some produce such original beats they are on a constant rise in popularity, some offer a distinct visual experience, and this largest up and coming artist in 2017 has all those traits and more! Grady Bergin, G-Space, from Cape Cod, Massachusetts is a 22 year old instrumentalist that produces fresh beats, fat bass music, and all original sets. He plays a wide range of instruments from piano, guitar, drums, ukulele, bass, and what ever else he can get his hands on. Starting off with keyboards as an infant, he taught himself how to improvise throughout the years. Eventually combining his talents with more instruments and having a unique style for electronic music production with one of a kind samples and harmony’s, G-Space has created his own distinct sound that grazes multiple genres, such as; world, funk, jazz, trap, glitch, and bass. With a wide range of music that he pulls from, he tends to play a set that is consisted mainly of his originals and the rest is filled with close friends’ music and other artists that he looks up to. Having inspirations from Jimmy Hendrix, Eprom, Mr. Carmack, The Grateful Dead, Shlump, Smith., Bleep Bloop, Boogie T, Pretty Lights and many more, G-Space has nested his way into quickly becoming one of the most interesting acts in the scene.
Not only does he play on multiple instruments and create amazing electronic music to match it. He has added a unique visual aspect to his performance. It’s called ‘Tricking’ which by definition, is a style “of extreme sport where the “athletes” do cool, fast, beautiful flips and kicks without any wires or trampolines,” (Definied from Urban Dictionary.) While playing the keytar on stage he is able to do a backflip and other insanely physically demanding and talented tricking skills. Having this special type of performance has been getting him recognized by many, as he has played Imagine Festival, Ultra Festival, and has just recently finished his ‘Euro-Trip Tour’ which spanned across several Countries in Europe. The Tour was sponsored by Xswipe Tricking, which is based out of France, and they picked a handful of US Trickers to come to Europe and perform. G-Space is actually in the works for putting together a record label that is consisted of tricking producers named ‘Iceberg Productions’. Which he will follow up with an EP that is a compilation of all the trickers on the label.

With having already traveled to so many parts of the world to do his unique G-Space performances and having his YouTube videos seen across the world, he is on route to being one of the largest up and coming artists this year and a MUST SEE performance! Check out our exclusive interview with Grady going over his life with instruments, musical influence, collaborations, insight on production, crazy tricking stories, and more below!

While reading the interview listen to our playlist of our top 5 favorites from G-Space.

Interview with G-Space

Your songs often feature beautiful piano intros, what influenced you to play piano and combine it with modern day electronic music?
I have been playing on keyboards since I was an infant, and taught myself to improvise throughout the years. I would play on Grand Pianos whenever I could, and began to realize how many emotions you can bring out with the dynamics of a real piano; especially using the sustain pedal. I started to look differently at improvising, and began playing the piano to express the deepest parts of myself. I eventually got a keyboard with weighted keys so I could at least play as if I had a real piano. Another one of my keyboards was a christmas present from mom and dad, a Yamaha that had over 600 different instruments that you could turn the keyboard into (organs, horns, guitars, drums, choirs, etc.) It also had a recording feature and you could layer up to 5 different recordings. I found this all out by reading the manual, surprisingly enough, this was the moment I accidentally stumbled on what would become my passion; beat making. I began recording layers of sounds and playing drums on the keys, and would compose my own instrumental tracks. My keyboard didn’t have much memory and I ended up re-recording over a lot of songs so I could keep making new music. I wanted to be able to save my songs, so I figured I would have to plug the keyboard into the computer. I was a young kid, maybe 11 or 12, and I asked my mom for a keyboard that connected to the computer. She got me a midi cord that year, and I plugged my keyboard into my mac and began producing on Garage Band. That was right around the same time I started to hear heavy sub-bass in rap music, and stumbled upon my first bass wobble in the song Sierra Leone by Mt. Eden. I remember playing the bass wobble sound over and over to myself, and it made my brain feel like it was evolving or something haha that’s when I started looking up tutorials on how to mass bass wobbles. I asked my mom for Fruity Loops the next christmas, and after asking around to some Berklee students in Boston, they advised her to get me Logic, which became my favorite program to produce in till this day. I have always loved the idea of live music jams, my dad is a huge Dead head and I grew up listening to Jerry Garcia solos. I also love how the Grateful Dead can seamlessly transition from song to song and carry out jams that are completely improvised every set. I began to jam with a lot of musicians in high school, and my early years at Springfield College. I have recorded my friends playing guitar, bass, saxophone, electric ukulele, and played live shows with them. It always adds so much fun to have some musicians on stage that you have chemistry with. It’s a passion of mine to combine real instruments with electronic music, my dad calls the genre “New Age Noodling” haha
What other instruments do you play and why?
I play a little bit of guitar, drums, ukulele, bass, and any instrument that I can get my hands on. I’d love to learn saxophone, cello, and electric violin because I love their sound, and it would be cool to play my same piano riffs on those instruments. I have a core group of musicians that I jam with and I’d love to make a G-Space jam band with them one day. I eventually want to be a composer for a symphony/orchestra packed with a choir, string section, horns, you name it haha I would be conducting the symphony as I DJ bass music. Can you imagine what an orchestra combined with bass music would sound like?! That is my dream at the moment to organize a project like that.
Do you usually play all original sets or do you like to mix with other artists’ tracks as well?
When I first started playing festivals two years ago, I would only play all-original sets. It worked out for me because often times some people high up in the music scene would compliment my set and ask, “How much of that was original?” and I could respond with, “100% G-Space!” And would get responses like “I am booking you out the ass next summer, you just blew Emancipator out of the water”. My original productions totally helped me stand out and helped get me booked more often. Now a days I mix it up and play tracks from my friends and other artists that inspire me, while still trying to keep my sets mostly original. I love improvising on the keys during the tracks I spin, so no matter what I spin I will always put a new touch on it live. It’s all about showing people new music, and there is so much goodness out there. I will always make sure to play plenty originals though because I have gone to see artists I love in the past, and a select few barely played any of their own tracks. That can be disappointing to people who went to their show to hear their originals, and I would hate to give that experience to somebody coming to my show haha
You’ve been coming on and playing as a guest in sets of some artists we really dig, can you give everyone the low down on who you’ve accompanied in sets in the past and who you’re excited to play with in the future?
I got to play keytar at the Middle East Underground in Boston, an infamous venue in the city and it was an honor. I got the opportunity to play with Mr. Sampson right before FKJ went on, and it was one of the most hype crowds I’ve played for. I also got the opportunity to play keytar with Afrobeta at Ultra last year on the live stage, and that was unreal. I really love the live stage at ultra, it brings real music to that festival and it is definitely my favorite stage to enjoy music at, so being able to play on it was unreal. One of the most fun shows I got to play was with Eric from EazyBaked at a show in Tampa, alongside with SoundLeake (an upcoming bass producer/DJ from Tampa). That was one of the most epic, un-planned sets of my life haha lots of dirty bass music was dropped. And I have had numerous experiences going up on stage and doing backflips during sets from Space Jesus, Greenhouse Lounge, Telekinetic Walrus and more.
Also wanted to say that some artists I look forward to playing with in the future are my homies Shlump, Esseks, Smith., Levitation Jones, Beak Nasty, Project Aspect.
We saw you and Space Jesus together at Imagine Festival, are you planning on collaborating with him on a track any time soon?
I first found out about Jasha (Space Jesus) from my friend Michael McCarthy, the keyboard player in Wobblesauce. I was showing Mike one of my middle-eastern bass tracks called “Bangin’ Beat” and he was like “Dude, you need to collaborate with Space Jesus.” I hadn’t heard of him before so I began looking up his music, and now he is one of my favorite producers in the game right now. When I first met Jasha he actually had already heard some G-Space mixes and said they were super cool. He complimented the G-Space project, and told me he is totally supportive of what I’m doing and to reach out to him if I ever have questions or anything. I’d love to make a track with him and remix some of his songs, we talked a little bit at Imagine about him sending me stems. I know it would be a game changer if we collaborated, fingers crossed for 2017;) I also love the Wakaan label he is helping curate with Liquid Stranger and would be honored to release some tracks through them one day.

With your break out performance at Imagine Festival, do you have a festival that is a must for you in 2017?
I would love to play at Shambhala, Red Rocks, the Untz, Sonic Bloom, Camp Questionmark at Burningman, and Bamboo Fest in Costa Rica to name some.
So, you played with Afrobeta last year at Ultra Music Festival, how was playing at one of America’s most iconic music festivals and are you planning on returning for 2017?
It was an absolute honor to play on the live stage at Ultra, because I saw MGMT play their two years before that and thought to myself “man, it would be dope to play there one day.” I met Afrobeta at a regional burn in Miami called “The Love Burn”. I got to jam out with them live on their keyboards, and also on my keytar. When I ran into them at Ultra, Tony from Afrobeta was like “Dude, do you have your keytar?!” and I was like “you know it” and he was like “PLAY WITH US ON THE LIVE STAGE TOMORROW!” haha it was a cosmic coincidence how it all worked out. I am going back to Ultra this year as an artist at large, I will have my USB ready to DJ, the keytar ready to jam out with whoever is down, and I’ll be doing flips on stages every chance I get. DJ Snake and I chilled the past 2 times I was at Ultra, he introduced himself to me after seeing me tricking at the artist lounge. He was one of the first people to tell me that I should be doing flips on stages, so it was great to run into him again last year and tell him about the G-Space project and how the “flips on stages” dream is becoming a reality now haha He gave me his personal email too and wanted me to send him some of my music. Maybe we will do something huge together one day who knows haha I’m definitely gonna try to do some flips on the mainstage during his set this year!
We noticed that music is not your only talent, tell us a little bit about how and why you got into ‘tricking’ and what made you want to incorporate it into your live sets? (Tricking defined by Urban Dictionary: a kind of extreme sport where the “athletes” do cool, fast, beautiful flips and kicks without any wires or trampolines)
I started doing flips on trampolines when I was around 12, just trying to mimic the backflips and twists that I saw professional wrestlers do haha Then I eventually met some friends at a Summer Camp who told me about Tricking, and to start looking up tutorials on YouTube. There were a series of YouTube tutorials made by this guy named “Jujimufu” and he actually created a forum for trickers to post footage and communicate. Now tricking is such a part of who I am, I feel the most normal when I’m upside down and twisting. It also feels unreal to land a crazy flip right when the bass drops. I have a vision of doing it with my friends in future-LED suits on stages one day, and having huge explosions of fireworks / confetti / fire / smoke and lasers coordinated to our flips haha I also use tricks as a way to introduce myself to people. When I meet artists that I look up to, I always show them a unique flip so that they can remember me. Sure enough, it has paid off and so many people know me as the kid with crazy flips haha It’s cool that my music is starting to get around a lot more too, and it will be funny to see people recognize me as time goes on and I perform to bigger and bigger crowds. I was fortunate enough to perform with a group of trickers at the Buelle Theater in Denver, CO a couple summers ago for an event called Murmuration. We had a live symphony playing a song they wrote for our performance, and the crowd in the theater was roaring with cheers and applause. It was one of the most powerful performances of my life so far, and I am hopefully going to be involved in Murmuration again this May! This time I will be playing my own music during the performance hopefully. I really want to tour the world with trickers and make it a staple of my G-Space shows, along with a symphony/orchestra playing along to my bass music.
There are some other trickers making music that I really dig, you can check out their SoundCloud: TOWERS, OG JUAN SHINOBI, CHENGA, ran2ccio, HMPMLK, Kyle Cordova, MiDi GANG, Hideaway, just to name a few. I am actually partnering up with Jamvana.com to start a label for tricker-producers to be able to release their music on Spotify, iTunes, etc. I am going to call the label “Iceberg Productions”, after my tricking nickname “iceberg” haha I am working on curating the first compilation EP from all the different producers in the tricking community, its gonna be a game changer for sure! I’m so excited to hear what new music my homies come up with.
We saw that you just finished your “Euro-Trip” tour, how was that? And was that your first tour out of country? Also, is there a correlation between your tour and the movie, “Euro-Trip”?
I am actually typing to you from Iceland right now, and started answering these interview questions yesterday in France haha This Euro-Trip has been a dream come true, it was organized by my friend Vivien Youlou through XSwipe Tricking (based in France). They picked a handful of trickers from the US to come out to Europe and go to all these tricking events in Amsterdam, Brussels, Birmingham, London, and Paris. I got to play a G-Space set at the biggest tricking gathering in the world right now, (Hooked Gathering in Amsterdam). It was during the night show, and the general public was allowed to come in and spectate. It was a packed house, and it was a pleasure seeing all my alien friends do crazy flips to the music haha I also would go out to clubs and try to DJ in every city I went to. One of my favorite clubs was this place in Iceland I got to play at the other night called “H30”. I took a taxi into downtown Keflavik and asked the driver if he knew any cool places to DJ at, and he brought me right to H30 and introduced me to the owners. Hopefully one day I will have booking agents in every part of the world, because I know the tricking community would always be down to come support my shows, pack the crowd, and trick on stage with me. It’s crazy, I have friends in every country all because of my tricking clips on youtube and my music.