Gryffin Is An EDM Producer Who Also Sounds Like A Really Good Boyfriend
Dan Gryffin had just gotten in from the airport after playing Electric Forest, and was pulling into his driveway, when we did our phone interview and became homies within 20 minutes. By the end of our conversation, we were talking about the pros and cons of our respective neighborhoods and making plans to hang at a concert, and he let me harass him about his romantic relationship.
What kind of DJ and producer does that? A cool one, who seems like a great boyfriend, that’s who. Get to know Gryffin for yourself, through our interview, below.
Where are you coming from?
I was in the midwest. On Friday I was in St. Louis, and yesterday I was in Michigan for a music festival. Electric Forest. It was really cool vibe out there and the weather was fun.
What’s your favorite music festival?
I just went to this one last weekend, Firefly, in Delaware and the energy really impressed me.
Did you go to music festivals before you performed them?
Yeah, for sure. The first music festival I ever went to was Coachella. I grew up in the bay area, in Palo Alto, so while I was growing up, I’d go to a lot of different types of shows, mostly rock, and even punk, and that stuff, but the first time I went to Coachella was amazing. That experience actually really motivated me to keep working on music and try and see how far I could go with it.
Who did you see there that did that for you?
LCD Sound System, DeadMau5…that was pretty insane. Paul McCartney was headlining. I grew up playing piano and guitar, and it wasn’t actually until I went to college that I started getting into dance music.
Where did you go to college?
I went to USC.
How was that?
It was awesome. I just recently moved back to LA from New York City actually, so it’s been nice to be able to reconnect with a lot of people that I went to school with there.
Did you like New York? My feeling is that everybody from the Bay Area hates New York.
It definitely is really different. The pace of life is just so different. It stressed me out at times, and now that I’m back in LA, I miss the energy there. I loved not having to drive.
As an up-and-coming producer, and a dude, how do you relate to using social media as a platform? I feel like Instagram is mostly a women’s platform.
I could see that. My problem is that I’m really not a social media-savvy person. My management tells me I need to post more. I never had that sense in my head, like about what’s a good way or time to post on Instagram. But it’s really important as an artist, to peel the curtain back, I think. People want to know what I do during the day. And so I feel more connected to fans.
Do you have groupies?
No, not really. I have people that message me stuff, but I’m not entertaining anything. I have a serious girlfriend. She’s awesome. She’s from Charleston, South Carolina. She’s really supportive.
Oh! How did you guys meet?
I befriended someone that was promoting shows in her area, and I ended up being there for work, and I was like hey, man let’s grab drinks, and he came with her best friend and her, and things progressed from there.
Wow. Does she go on tour with you?
Yeah, she does sometimes. But she’s really so great. She’s understanding, you know, about how touring is huge part of the job. And there’s a lot of trust between us.
What’s being on tour like? I imagine it’s a lot of stress.
It’s good and bad, honestly. I really love being in the studio working on music, and it’s almost impossible to do when you’re on the road, and it’s harder to do on the road. Even this weekend, I just had a 3:30 call time on Friday, and then 4:30 AM the next day, then again 4:30, and that’s just normal.
How do people function like that?!
You basically get 5-6 hours of sleep, but then you sleep for an hour on the plane. It’s fun though, you get to go to all these different cities, and you meet amazing people. I would say it’s mostly good, of course, because I get to do what I love, but of course, it is exhausting.
How’d you come up with your moniker?
Well, my last name is Gryffin. My dad grew up in Bakersfield, and my mom’s Japanese, she grew up in Tokyo and moved here when she was 18. I Kinda named msyself after the Gryffin bird also. It took me a while to figure it out, and then after a while, I didn’t want to keep thinking about it anymore.
Do you ever wish you could change it now?
No, but it’s funny, because I was just reading an interview about how DJ Snake just picked his name randomly, and didn’t expect it to take off, but now he hates it. I still like it. There’s no negative feeling towards it.
