ORIGINS
Julio starts telling DJ Mag how he harbours intentions of being heavily involved in the
design of the planned GTA merchandise — pointing out logos on his own customised
JWLS jacket — before the duo are literally yoinked by the scruff of their necks by manager
Stevie (who at an easy six-foot five, with the build of a US college football player, dwarfs
both Matt and Julio by almost a foot), and held in position while Rita Ora takes a brief
intermission from arguing with Calvin Harris on the choice of music on the iPod (obscure
’90s hip-hop, by the way) to take a photo with the newly signed-up pair.
“Calvin’s a big fan of you guys,” she coos, tactically adjusting a vintage hat toward the
brooding Scotsman. “Wait ‘til we massacre one of his tracks, now we have sample
rights!” shrugs Julio, necking his tequila in one while Stevie roars with laughter and
manhandles Julio and Matt with one arm — and now DJ Mag with the other — out of
Calvin’s dressing room, into Tiësto’s dressing room (“It’s fine, we’ll give it back,” he
explains, picking up a litre of Belvedere vodka and a box of sugar waffles) before
plonking the group onto the two facing sofas of GTA’s own dressing room.
“Now you’ve seen us perform, sign to a label and hang out with Calvin, in like one hour
or something, you should probably get to know us,” suggests a visibly bewilderedlooking Matt. More tequila is poured. Stevie kindly offers to do the whole interview for
the duo. DJ Mag kindly declines. Paloma, Matt’s girlfriend, suggests she contributes. DJ
Mag suggests she doesn’t. Paloma glares at Matt. Matt asks DJ Mag to pass him some
tequila. Stevie passes around beers.
“I need you guys to say the right stuff. Talk about the tour, talk about your role in
changing…”. DJ Mag glances at a suddenly uneasy looking Matt and Julio, and asks the
girlfriend, the manager, the PR, and the tour manager to let GTA, the main fulcrum to
all this, actually speak. The pair, feeling observed, quickly burst out laughing, then make
an honest attempt to appear sober whilst talking, the whole while egging each other
on. “We met on Facebook. I played guitar, I couldn’t find anyone else to play with, and
I’d dropped out of Florida International University and rolled onto Miami’s School Of
Audio Engineering. There I got really into messing about with music software, naturally,”
explains Matt, who at 23-years-old, in black jeans and a fitted black jumper, appears to
be the quieter, more thoughtful of the pair, in comparison to the vinyl-jacket, floorlength t-shirt and leather slip-on-sporting Julio of the same age, who chimes in.
“I met this kid on Facebook. And I was like ‘Dude, you’re like, a king of dance music,
and I’m like, a king of hip-hop. Let’s do this’. So we went to his mom’s house and started
recording beats.” Both are now in hysterics, before Matt suddenly becomes frustrated,
and sets about his task with renewed seriousness. “I’d been a DJ at some awful
downtown bar, and I’d been producing under the name Van Toth. Just as a bedroom
producer, for like a year. Julio was also just a Soundcloud guy but had a big following
with the whole moombahton crowd as JWLS.”
Wolfgang Gartner had played one of Matt’s productions as an opening track at Coachella in
2010, around the time of the pair getting in touch on Facebook. Soon management swept in and
offered to take on Matt, who in turn insisted on only playing ball if he could take Julio with him.
GTA are the explosive Miami duo who’ve risen as if from nowhere to clinch stadium
support gigs with Rihanna, sign an album deal with Warners and cement a reputation
from slamming, thoroughly modern anti-genre sets. But how did they get here? And
where do they go now?
Words: ALLY BYERS
kay. Sorry for all the running around, dude. I think
we’re ready for the interview now.”
DJ Mag arrived at London’s mega Earls Court
venue 80 minutes ago, planning to interview GTA
before their set — they’re the warm-up act for the
Tiësto & Calvin Harris main event. As it turns out,
there was no need to apologise: GTA — Julio
Mecha, Matt Van Toth and an entourage consisting
of manager Stevie, two other artist managers, a tour manager, an
agent and a let’s-not-ask-about-my-day expression-wearing girlfriend
had arrived minutes later in a blur of backpacks, leather jackets and
emergency double-measures of tequila before heading immediately
to the stage.
“Do you guys know what you’re gonna play?” we ask, backstage. “Nah.
We’ll work it out,” explains Julio, manager Stevie helping him with his
bag and handing it to DJ Mag as the duo walk into the spotlights at
the already packed venue. Total time between arriving and opening
track? Eleven minutes. It may be enough to make even the most
seasoned promoter’s unwashed hair stand on end, but if GTA thrive
062 djmag.com.au
on anything, it’s pace. Their first ever Soundcloud track as a duo in
2010 was scooped by Afrojack’s Wall Recordings following a “complete
shot in the dark” email to him. They were signed to an international
agency — that would later become Three Six Zero group — that same
year before they’d fully agreed on a name, and their Facebook page
sat at some 36 likes. Skip forward some 18 months and GTA (which the
two agree is a great acronym, but are undecided on the meaning. Good
Times Ahead is Matt’s front runner, though recent fan suggestion
Grand Twerk Audio is a personal favourite for Julio) have toured the
US, supported Laidback Luke, toured the UK and at the time DJ Mag
meets them, have only recently finished as the official support act for
Rihanna’s European tour.
We’re sat in Calvin Harris’ dressing room. The two have finished their
set — a crazed, four-deck, house-party-esque performance to a fistpump-frenzied crowd and now Matt and Julio both stand, holding
tequilas — four and six respectively, — watching the ink dry on eight
separate pieces of paper that the two have just signed confirming an
album with Warner Brothers for 2014. So far, we’ve been here 83
minutes.
Within a matter of months, the pair were booked to play LA’s Avalon at Halloween 2010. After that
came a US tour, a string of gigs supporting Laidback Luke, UK dates, and then the ultimate prize,
atourwithRihanna. DJ Mag struggles to get a handle on all this. Thankfully, so do GTA. “There’s
like, no way we could prepare for what happened to us. We went from three gigs a month to
three months without a single evening’s break. When Rihanna’s people approached us,
suddenly in like weeks we were playing to audiences 10 times the size of what we were used
to. Twenty thousand, thirty thousand. We’d get on stage and just have to learn to read the
crowd super-fast. To read each other super fast.”
RAPID ASCENT
It certainly goes some way to explaining how smoothly they manage to get the several
thousand-strong crowd from nought to sixty as the opening act in the course of about
two songs. The duo are fascinating to watch: Julio head down on the mixer, adding in
precise switches between everything from EDM drops to hip-hop to Alice Deejay and
Junior Senior loops whilst Julio jumps around, yells on the mic, drinks champagne from
the bottle and drops in vocals and tribal cuts. Having pulsed the crowd into a suitably
electric state, they leave the stage like most would leave for lunch. “It’s all happened,
like, so fast,” reflects Matt. “I mean, tonight’s awesome, right? But it’s like the smallest
show we’ve played. We’re genuinely amazed as to how all this has escalated. I mean,
we’re sitting here talking and less than 14 minutes ago we signed a long-term deal with
one of the biggest record labels on earth.”
Both take another hit of tequila. This time there’s less laughter. DJ Mag are as yet
uncertain as to whether they’re drinking to celebrate or to decompress. As, we suspect,
are GTA themselves. Their performance ability is flawless, their production innovative
and their own friendship appears watertight. There is, however, a sense that there hasn’t
yet been a spare moment to enjoy it all. Do they feel that way? Matt (when Stevie’s
around, Julio does the bulk of the talking, in mostly joking tones. When he’s absent,
Matt talks with more authority for the pair, an arrangement both seem to be happy with)
puts down his beer and turns to DJ Mag, almost conspiratorially. “Yeah. Yeah it is very,
very fast. But here’s how we see it. We’ve covered so much, so quickly, that we’ve got
the attention of a major label who’ve now signed us to do an album. You know what
that means?” Julio now leans in and completes the sentence with a grin. “Sample
clearance. We’re gonna remix whoever we want, however we want. It’s going to be
ours, and it’s going to be totally unique. Spring in the studio, then, next summer, we’re
going to do this our way.” The two quickly shoot back into position as Stevie returns,
more tequilas are passed around. So how would GTA sum themselves up? “Oh,” Julio
laughs, glancing at Stevie, “We just wanna
make girls dance! Right?” “Right!” grins Matt,
giving DJ Mag just the tiniest of eyebrow raises
as Stevie once more picks the guys up like
How to make ‘no-genres’ a
toddlers, yelling “Afterparty time!” and leading
music style
them out.
Watch closely. GTA have something planned...
GTA’s rise and rise has been
largely due to their taking a
musical style and developing it
toward an obsession. Their
recent success may be in part
due to their own style of mixing,
which they privately refer to as
“open format” and publicly
market as ‘Death To Genres’. “We
try and make the crowd put their
hands up every single drop,
rather than building stuff up,”
explains Julio. “It’s not about ‘is
it pop, is it underground, is it
anti-EDM?’, it’s much more
simple than that. It’s a house
party vib e.”
This hasn’t been the result of
some chin-stroking rebellion
against convention, rather “It’s
how I learned to play at my
local cheesy-bar residency,”
clarifies Matt. That said, it’s
surely this total opposite sound
to the often formulaic EDM sets
— so beautifully surmised by the
Epic Mashleg Soundcloud stunt
that’s got everyone from EDM
stages to Rihanna to London
entranced. The challenge to play
as wide as possible seems to be
taking hold in the bass producer
community already. Hold tight,
the US may surprise us all just
yet.
OPEN FORMAT
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