In Conversation with Gnash - January 22nd NYC
“If we feel together, then we’ll feel better.” That is gnash’s very own elevator pitch for his debut album “we.” Gnash, formerly known as Garrett Nash, has been teasing fans with songs during last year’s 2018 tour opening for All time Low, and has finally released his brand new album, including inevitable hit songs such as “dear insecurity,” and “t-shirt.” Opening with his song “imagine if,” gnash achieved the goal of having every single audience member at Irving Plaza fired up for a fantastic performance with lots of heartfelt messages and love to share with everyone present that night.
Gnash is embarking on a highly anticipated nationwide tour of North America. With a very glamorous stage setup and a fantastic light show, each song on the setlist was able to portray the mood it was intended to and helped the transition between songs flow in a manner that made one wish the show would never end!
In the middle of his song “dear insecurity,” a song about embracing one’s uniqueness and overcoming the feeling of insecurity, he stops performing and asks for everyone in the venue to say the next line, “my imperfections make me perfect”, with the most passion they’ve ever felt before in their life. He does this because he knows everyone needs that verbal reassurance that they’re not alone, and that we are all here to connect and feel the emotions we fear to feel on a regular basis.
Gnash has been holding post-show “The Broken Hearts Club Meetings,” where special fans who either bought tickets within the first days of the tour pre-sale, or purchased a lot of his merchandise, received purple wristbands with his fan base “The Broken Hearts Club” imprinted on them. During these, he does yoga and meditation with his fans in an exercise he calls “grateful breathing,” where everyone can take long, deep breaths to appreciate everything and everyone in their lives. He then puts fans in groups with people they’ve never met before to make new friends; an astoundingly unique and effective way to get to know people with the same music interests! Finally, he then takes the time to hug every single person there and tell them each “I love you,” from the bottom of his heart.
We had the wonderful opportunity to welcome gnash to New York and sit down to talk about his debut album and ongoing tour for 2019.
S&S: Thank you gnash for answering our questions today! To start off, how did gnash come about?
gnash: I was in college and I had gone through this breakup and I had this idea to make a couple of EPs and as a DJ, my name was always somewhere between Nash and G Nash and DJ G Nash and DJ Garrett Gnash, so I settled on just Gnash, g-n-a-s-h, with the silent G and I started putting songs out.
S&S: You just released your debut album, why don’t you tell us a little something about that!
gnash: My debut album is called “We”, and the mission statement of the album is :“If we feel together, then we’ll feel better”, and by that I mean that every single song on there, every word, I really took the time to make sure that it was something I felt like we could connect with, and when I say “we,” I mean everyone who hears it. And the idea is that, you know, if you come to a show or maybe you’re just alone in your bedroom singing along, there’s somebody else most likely singing along with you at that exact same time, and the idea that if we all share that energy of that moment together and whatever that lyric is, or that feeling, then inevitably we’ll all feel better, because we're all feeling together.
S&S: Is there any one inspiration you’ve had to bring this album to life?
gnash: Nope, not one in particular, besides obviously i’m a huge fan of John Lennon and everything that he brought to the world, especially with “Imagine” and the circle glasses I wear, i’m just a massive fan. But I think that there’s a lot of people that have inspired me on the process of this album. I went to a James Taylor concert earlier last year with my mom and I think musically, I was super inspired by that and started listening to a bunch of that again, which is why you hear a lot of acoustic stuff on the album. I’m a big Jack Johnson fan so songs like “nobody’s home” and “insane” kind of have that island feel which is nice. And then also this year I listened to a lot of Frank Ocean but I don’t think that comes through so much because I wouldn’t even try to emulate, he’s just too wonderful! Really, what I was most inspired by, was “we,” the people I felt needed these songs; the people that come out to the shows, the members of The Broken Hearts Club that I was meeting in the parks last year and all year on tour with All Time Low and [Dashboard Confessional]. You know, I wrote the album, but I like to think that we wrote the album.
S&S: That’s really clever, the “we” I love it so much, it’s like you can incorporate it to anything!
gnash: That’s the thing, we can incorporate “we” into anything, you don’t need to say “I” all the time, you don’t need to say “me” all the time, or even “you” or “us,” you could say “we.”
S&S: What do you love most about touring?
gnash: First thing I thought of, was that I get to bring a lot of my friends with me. My friend John travels with me and I’ve known him since high school and he plays drums in my band. Rosabelle, who’s obviously also my life partner and my manager, so she travels with us a lot of the time. It’s always nice just to have people around you who love you and that you love, because that keeps you going day to day, and those are the people that give you the little pep talks when things start to feel overwhelming or whatever it is, because it is exhausting; I haven’t had a full night of sleep in weeks. I’d like to say this is the first tour that I feel as though i’ve been completely present for the majority, if not all, of every single day. In this tour, every night I felt myself walking offstage feeling grateful.
S&S: Thank you for having us here, it was a pleasure to meet you! Excited to see the show and I hope you have fun out there. Good luck!
gnash: It was a great to meet you too, thank you so much! I will, I’ll definitely have fun, it’s always fun! Thank you, I appreciate you and I hope everybody likes the album “we.”
Be sure to stream gnash's new album "we," and check out his tour dates to see if he's headed to a city near you: gnash.us/
