GRiZ announced his past Red Rocks shows, set to take place on August 30 and 31. While this is his performance at Red Rocks, he has plenty of surprises left to announce. We sat down with Grant Kwiecinski to talk Ride Waves, his year off of media and what’s in store for his grand finale in the Colorado venue.
303 Magazine: Now on your studio album, you’re likely pretty knowledgeable about your own creative procedure. What is something you did differently with Ride Waves in relation?
Grant Kwiecinski: I generated lots of it internally, without outside influence. I wanted to make music and create thoughts that I really related to and that wasn’t necessarily about what was going with music or what was happening around me in the movement of the music scene. I wanted to make something that was purely encapsulated to the way I felt about life. I did a lot of recording with musicians and vocalists — I did lots of writing. You know, it’s been this progression, all track focused and like it used to be all electronic about writing songs and over the 10 decades of the project it became more.
303: That’s something new I noticed in this album — you’re using more of your own voice.
GK: Yeah, this is that album that is my thoughts. Not like samples or working with other people and using their songs, but using my songs.
303: How did your year off of social media impact this album?
GK: That was it. That. It prompted those feelings of being able to observe. I feel like websites is a great issue to distract yourself with and to hide into. Consuming media creates that space of not needing to express myself and just being able to be at some point of what everyone is thinking and sense self-assured that I can criticize. You can groom your mental wavelength with everything that’s going on that’s not your own idea. It’s only consuming rsquo other people & . It’s like the anti-creation.
Like life slowed down a lot, getting off my phone feel. Time goes by a lot faster — when you & rsquo distracted when you & rsquo; re not living those moments. If I’m in the car on Instagram for the entire ride, I’m teleporting my consciousness from one spot to the next. I’m not seeing what’s going on. The same thing goes with your attention and consumption of your life. You’re not thinking, you’re the backseat to somebody rsquo;s awareness. There are positives to it but if you don’t give yourself time to become bored, the days seem really short and you just teleport through your own day.
Canceling out that, you create more time. If you want to live longer, spend more time in the present moment.
303: Is there something in the works for a tradition?
GK: Yeah, we got it. It’s going to be in Denver, it’s a big venue and we’re really excited.
303: So your Colorado fans can look forward to a new event?
GK: Yeah, I really hope so. I’m working on the next big thing. We have so many things in the works now. Good ideas take time. They require patience and practice and to be able to properly do something, you need to give yourself and your staff enough time to achieve that goal. Push my boundaries and I want to do quality things. But it’s a balance of giving yourself time to develop the idea and needing to always make the best thing.
So yeah, this is our last year in Red Rocks and it’s going to be a beautiful experience. I was going to bring the band, but I really wanted to do the Ride Waves show and I really wanted to do a party of music I’ve played at that venue over the years. So, one is going to be a 10-17 set, which is music from 2010 to 2017, then we’re going to do the Ride Waves show. Maybe rsquo & we;ll bring the live band back for something later.
Pre-sale tickets, such as GA and VIP, will be available from Tuesday, May 7 at 10 AM MT until Thursday, May 9 at 10 PM MT, with password ‘ridewaves’. The general on-sale will follow on Friday, May 10 at 10 AM MT. All tickets can be found HERE.
All photography by Alden Bonecutter.
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