Me and Peep started talking like 2014 or '15.
He reached out to me and was just kinda like, "Yo, I like your beats."
I only knew him at the time as his email.
I just knew him as Gus.
I had sent him like I don't know maybe like10 beats I think.
And he sent me back one song and I was like
I replied in all caps. I was like, "Damn, you snapped."
Me and Peep became real close.
I considered him... He was my best friend.
It was destiny.
I really felt like it was meant to just all come together like that.
From us talking on email, to meeting in person, and then to just being borderline homeless
together.
It was just real rough for us.
The song started off with me like, I had gone into the studio with Rob Cavallo and my other
friend Juan.
We were just jamming out.
Rob was on guitar. Juan was on bass and I told Rob I wanted to do something with a fast
tempo, but have a slow vibe to it at the same time.
We recorded for hours and I looped this one part. It just caught my ear so much.
I knew it would be great for a song.
So I threw it in Gross Beat.
Put it on half-speed.
It’s a very common thing to do with trap beats.
A lot of trap producers do it.
And I think that’s kinda where I picked it up.
So it’s like real slow and dark and eerie kinda, you know?
But that changes a little bit once that Gross Beat’s taken off of it.
It’s just…
Yeah so it lightens up a little bit.
It’s not as dark and eerie but it still has a dark tone to it.
You know?
I started adding 808s to it and it just didn't sound right to me and I wanted to do something
different. So I was like, "Let's just cut out the 808s and use straight bass guitar."
Feels a little bit more authentic.
He just jammed across the melody and we got…
I started off with some drums that were kind of just bouncy.
So it was like…
So I sped the hi-hats a little bit.
Just to give it that fast motion kinda like you’re in a car. You can cruise out to this
shit kinda vibe you know.
I like to keep it simple. It was kind of that vibe where it was really simple melody, but it has a dark tone to it.
Just bouncy drums.
As the song goes on, I just changed the progression of the drums a little bit.
I take out the hi-hats, kind of give some space for the vocals.
Real simple and I threw a little rim sound in there.
I like rim sounds a lot and sometimes I'll even use them as my snares.
With the hi-hats I ended up speeding it up even more.
I put it into triplets.
So it kinda gives it this weird kinda bounce.
I bring the verse in right here and I just filtered out the main guitar and then just
had the bass guitar playing.
It gives like this open space for the vocals to really stand out.
So I used Fruity Free Filter for all my melodies and what I do is I automate the frequency.
I basically have it rise.
You can kinda see it.
So the frequency goes up and it basically takes out that low-pass kinda sound.
I was sitting right next to him in the room when I watched him record and it was always
cool for me to see what was going through his brain while he was writing.
'Cause he didn't even hum or anything. He would just literally write and just set up
the microphone and just lay it out.
So I sat there and heard him record the hook, and I was just like, "Alright."
"We got a hit."
I really thought we were onto something groundbreaking.
You got to step inside his brain kind of.
And him as a person.
He was just one of the greatest people, an amazing soul.
He had...just like everyone does, we all have our problems and he really was big on making
people feel comfortable in their own skin.
My main goal is keep his legacy alive and keep his name out there. Keep the movement
going.