I recently chatted with Pat Grossi, aka Active Child, about
his musical career—from singing in choirs and chilling with Snoop Dog and Dr.Dre
in his youth, to currently eking out a living through touring, remixes, and oh
yeah, actual albums.
I read a lot about you
doing the choral thing when you were younger. Was it religious, or was it just a
public chorus? What was that experience like?
Well, it wasn’t
religious at all. I was just singing in my school choir. The director of that
choir inspired me to try out for this bigger choir in Philadelphia, because I
was living in New Jersey at the time, so I went in and auditioned and got in,
and it was amazing. I didn’t really realize how big of a deal it was until I had
been in it for about a year. It was kind of a big choir, a hundred boys my age—I
was nine years old when I got in—and then there was about seventy-five in the
chorale, men who sang bass, baritone, tenor. I mean, we toured the world for
four years. I traveled to Australia, South Africa, Europe, and really toured as
a performer for the first time, so it was pretty amazing.
That’s
really unbelievable as a nine-year-old. That’s amazing. How much did that
inspire you to go out and become a musician, you know, having your first couple
tours under your belt and an idea of what it was like?
Yeah, it’s
funny, I didn’t really think about those days as a touring experience until I
started touring with Active Child, and then I started doing a lot of interviews
and had questions like this, and it made me really recollect all that stuff and
think back on what that was. It was a tour, but I was so young at the time. I
grew up, and a lot of the memories from that period kind of just faded away
naturally, like a lot of things do, but yeah, definitely, I think it had a
massive influence on at least the way I sing now and just the fact that I chose
to pursue music in this way. I’m not sure I would be where I am now if I hadn’t
been in that choir. Who knows?
Yeah, that makes sense. I read that
your dad was working at Priority Records early on, so you had a chance to meet
rappers like Snoop and Dr.Dre. Was that around the same time? What was that like
for you?
That wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles. My dad was working
out of the house in New Jersey for Priority, and then in Hollywood. That’s
actually when I left the choir, at age thirteen, then moved to Los Angeles for
his job. Once we were out there, it was really flip as far as lifestyle and
setting and just everything you know. I went from going to public school to a
kind of small private school, and ended up going to his office fairly often in
Hollywood, which was pretty cool. You know, I was just this young kid and seeing
different artists that I was listening to, like Mack 10 or Ghetto Boys or
whoever it was, random artists who don’t really put albums out anymore. I met
Bone Thugs, Eminem early on, when he was just getting his sart. It was pretty
cool to be into that music, and to be able to connect with artists was a really,
really cool experience.
Did you learn a lot from your dad and seeing
how a musician’s career works?
You know, I didn’t really get much, as
far as that kind of angle on the record industry, until I had record contracts
and publishing contracts and lawyers and all of these things falling into my lap
once my music starting taking off a little bit. Then he really came in and gave
me advice and became my number-one fan, and helper, as far as anything that
happened to come in as far as the record industry. He’s been doing this job for
thirty-plus years. Still to this day he is my number-one man, other than my
manager, of course. We all work hand in hand with whatever is going on, which is
great.
That’s great to have that support and that knowledgeable
background.
Yeah, it’s amazing because I have my manager, who’s a
little bit more my age, and he’s very much on top of what’s current and the
reality of the industry now, and my dad’s a little more old school, and so I get
a good mixture of both.
Yeah, you might be able to answer this
question better than anyone. How much has the industry changed? Active Child is
a pretty big name, and you’ve had a lot of success. How difficult is it making a
living as a musician?
You know, it’s tough. I always let everyone
know that things have changed drastically as far as sales, and it’s just not the
same level of people actually going out and buying actual records because
everything is digital. When that all changed, the ability to actually make an
income from selling your music dropped drastically, and there’s such a tiny
fraction of people who can actually pull it off. But you know, there’s still a
lot of ways to make it a career and make it financially feasible, and the way
that we’ve been doing it, touring nonstop and just playing a lot of shows,
trying to build a name. There’s just a massive market for live music, so
festivals, obviously, merchandise…There’s all these things. I do a lot of
remixing, a great way to keep creative on the road and brush up on production
skills and also make a little cash on the side.
But yeah, it’s
definitely not easy. I’m not stacking any kind of money in my bank account right
now, but I’m definitely surviving, and it’s paying my bills, so I’m happy with
that. I’d like to put a couple more zeros in my bank account, but yeah, that
might be a little ways off.
You know, you mentioned remixing. One of
the things that led me to hear your music in the first place was the Cold War
Kids “Louder Than Ever” remix. Who are some of the people you’ve worked with in
terms of remixes, and how does it come together?
I’ve done a dozen or
more remixes for artists all over the place. I did a recent remix for Julia
Stone—she’s kind of a big Australian artist—Anna Cohen, Marina Skyvan, Beta
Band, just a lot of different people. It seems like the whole remix world is
kind of a polarizing thing with the artists and musicians. Some people are down
with it, and they’re cool with the music being remixed, or they are cool with
doing remixes. Other people seem very kind of concrete in what they made and
they don’t want it touched or reworked in any way or any fashion. I’ve always
been very open to having my own work remixed and rethought, and having a chance
to rework someone else’s stuff. I just find it interesting. I just have a fun
time doing it, and I have a lot of fun listening to what other people have done
to my music.
But as far as how it all goes down, I get the e-mail from an
artist, or my manager gets an e-mail from someone who is interested and feels
like I can do something good with what they’ve got, and we go from there. When I
want remixes of my own album, I usually try to put together a list of artists I
am listening to or people I think would do something cool or more interesting,
and I reach out to them.
When I hear you described, it’s usually “this
guy who does this choral thing, and he’s mixing electronic music and harp.” How
did you even come about learning to play that these days?
You know, I
just approached it the same way I approached playing guitar or any other
instrument that I’ve played throughout the years. I was very curious about it,
and living in Denver at the time, and I sought one out, went and picked it up,
and just taught myself how to play it. I’ve always been pretty adept at picking
things up, whether it be a music program or an instrument or whatever and, not
necessarily being trained or a mastermind at it, but using it in a way that I
think is interesting and that works with the music. Now that I’ve been touring
so much, I’ve just grown leaps and bounds from where I started because I play
the harp every night and it’s become a big part of my life
That’s
cool. One thing I love about your music is it seems to embrace an ’80s pop
electronic sound, and it’s funny, because that music gets a little bit of a bad
rap these days, and I don’t really know why. How aware were you of an ’80s pop
influence when you were figuring out your sound early on?
Yeah, I
don’t know. I think maybe it’s gotten a bad name because people look back on it
as kind of a novelty. It’s something we can throw on and all laugh and dance to,
and have a good time to, but we don’t take it seriously or something.
Yeah, someone like Peter Gabriel was so influential. It’s funny that
’80s pop has such a bad name even though people are ripping it off all the time.
It’s crazy.
Yeah, in the future, I will continue to play with those
sounds, but really be a little bit more picky in what I choose. I don’t
necessarily want to be pigeonholed into this ’80s vibe, which I kinda think I
stepped into briefly early on. I don’t know, we’ll see where it
goes.
Yeah, I can tell it’s already changed. Your sound has developed
from the EP to the full album quite a bit, actually. One thing I wanted to ask
is would you ever consider covering one of the classic sort of choral songs,
like something you spent all that time singing back in the day? Would you ever
do one of your own versions of one of those songs?
Yeah, I’ve been
messing with that idea for a long time now, but haven’t seem to put anything
together that I like.
I would love to hear it. You seem to know it,
and live in both worlds, really well.
There are definitely a few
pieces that stick out in my mind that I would like to try to work into the style
I’ve kind of created, so hopefully I can put something together. That would be
really cool.
Looking forward to it. So I know you are on tour. Where
are you right now?
Yeah, we’re wrapping up a five-week tour. We’re
actually driving right now to San Francisco. We have a show there tonight, then
a show in L.A. on Thursday, and then were done. So we’re finished up here in the
US for about three weeks, and then we go to Europe for a couple weeks, and then
we’re pretty much wrapped up for this album and can start writing music for the
next release.
Oh excellent. Do you have any ideas for the next
release? Have you guys been working on the road, just coming up with the stuff,
or you’re going to wait, put that off?
I usually don’t do anything on
the road, so I’ve been getting a little bit anxious to get home and start diving
into some new ideas, new recordings. I really don’t know where it’s going to
take me. We’ll see what happens.
For:
Kevchino
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