Written by: Guilherme Canineo
So far, it has been a good 5-year run for San Francisco native and University of Southern California graduate, Dan Griffith, aka GRYFFIN. In terms of music goals, his fans can celebrate as the wait is FINALLY OVER. Tomorrow, nearly one year after he dropped Gravity: Part 1, the 32-year-old electronic dance music DJ and producer will release his debut album Gravity.
“I’m just really proud of it,” GRYFFIN told Guettapen TV at Lollapalooza Paris. “I think it’s gonna showcase a lot of different styles in my production. It’s all very emotional. There is pop-leaning stuff, house music stuff, and future bass stuff. I am a very big perfectionist with my music, and everything has to be totally perfect. I am very excited for it.”
GRYFFIN, who is classically trained in piano and a guitar expert, really got seduced by dance music during his days at USC. He attributes Skrillex and Deadmau5 and the way their sound design choices would “paint images” almost instantly in his head while listening to their music as the inspirational trigger for his career shift from electrical engineering to music.
“I never expected it to get to this level,” he told Baeble Music back in 2017. “I thought I was just gonna be making music and, hopefully, my friend would be like, ‘Yeah! This is cool!’ I would be studying in the library and, as my break, I was working at Ableton just trying to make beats. [However,] I never really expected it grow to what it has become now.”
Following a similar pattern as many other DJ-producers, GRYFFIN first displayed his production craft by releasing his mixes online. His early work includes reworks of Ellie Goulding’s “Burn”, Misterwives’ “Reflections”, and Nico & Vinz’s “Am I Wrong”, all of which accumulated nearly 13 million plays on SoundCloud since 2014. However, also in 2014, his take on Maroon 5’s massive hit “Animals” was highly acclaimed and sparked the interest of Interscope Records, who eventually signed him to the label. In late 2015, GRYFFIN made his stage debut at South Lake Tahoe’s SnowGlobe Music Festival. The most impressive fact about his show and now one of his differentiating traits, was his dynamic live instrument-included performance, tracing back to his roots.
“Instrumentation and live music have been a part of my background and why I felt in love with music,” GRYFFIN said in an interview at this year’s Coachella. “Even though I do dance music now, I kind of wanted to showcase that element of my music and kind of give people a different dance type of show.”
In January 2016, GRYFFIN unleashed his first original track “Heading Home” featuring Australian Josef Salvat. The song quickly gained traction and reached the top spot on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart. His follow-up single “Whole Heart”, a collaboration with British vocalist Bipolar Sunshine, racked up a significant number of streams also represented a milestone on GRYFFIN’s career in terms of production and songwriting maturity. From there, collaborations start gaining and his emotional indie-electronic fusion style was getting more notorious among industry peers.
In 2017, he scored one of his biggest collaborations. Combing forces with fellow American DJ-producer Illenium, they produced “Feel Good” featuring 21-year-old Grammy-winner singer Daya. The song peaked at No.17 on Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart and is GRYFFIN’s most-streamed song on Spotify with over 135 million plays. In 2018, he tallied another big record as his partnership with Alabama-raised vocalist Elley Duhé “Tie Me Down” reached #15 on the Hot Dance chart and hoards over 100 million streams on Spotify.
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His 16-track full-length project will include quality and interesting collaborations. On the vocal aspect, features from Maia Wright and Iselin Solheim to industry households such as Aloe Blacc and Carly Rae Jepsen. On the production side, heaven trap DJ duo Slander, award-winning British producer Mark Ralph, and Vargas & Lagola, a Swedish duo famously known for their work alongside late Swedish DJ superstar Avicii, were all able to make the record possible. GRYFFIN also co-wrote every track on the album.
The second leg of his American Gravity II Tour kicked off on October 11th and will make a stop in Orlando on November 22nd at The Plaza Live. GRYFFIN definitely brings vibrant energy during his live performances and almost always brings out special guests to join him on stage.