
There\âs more to Goshfather & Jinco than being a politically correct old man, and a pair of jeans from the 90\âs. The duo have come into the scene by storm, demonstrating production versatility, and strength in multiple genres. They\âre uninhibited by labels, and pigeonholes, and approach their craft with the constant hope of surprising new and existing fans of many EDM subgenres. This past weekend, I had the unique opportunity of catching up with the guys prior to the kickoff of their first official U.S. tour starting in Chicago.
EDMC: Iâm Cameron with EDM Chicago, good to have you guys here with us today.
G&J: Thanks for having us
EDMC: Letâs get right into it. You guys are starting your first U.S. tour here in Chicago. You guys have never played here before. Was there any particular reason you guys kicked things off here?
Jeremy: I donât know that there was any particular reason, that was just how the bookings went, but Iâve never been to Chicago and have always wanted to come.
Victor: We were happy because, well, what a great reason to come here. We know a lot of people here too.
EDMC: Thatâs the answer I was looking for.
Jeremy: So we get to play a show and go check out the city
Victor: Usually when we come to a city we have to leave right away; but we wanted to make sure we had the whole day (tomorrow) to check stuff out.
EDMC: Nice, do you guys have anything planned, or just whatever happens?
Jeremy: I want to go see the bean. And I have to take a picture right?
EDMC: (Laughs) Yeah, of your reflection.
Jeremy: I have to get the clichĂŠ Chicago photo.
EDMC: Now your latest tracks have been âUberâ and âRaj Revenge.â Letâs talk about Uber for a second. I love the hook of that track. It just grabs you. Is there any particular inspiration or story from creating the track?
Victor: Well, we collaborated in the past with Cory Enemy who is one of our biggest mentors. He showed us an unreleased collab he had with someone that had a similar badass kind of lyric.
Jeremy: It was something so tangible that anyone could understand it
Victor: A lot of hooks in electronic music, especially in this genre are about âput your hands up.â Look, I know weâre not sitting here writing Beatles songs, but at the same time if youâre going to listen to something in the club, letâs at least find something different. Obviously we are bankrupt because of Ubers, but we use them all the time. We kind of wanted to make this an ode to this amazing thing, and at the same time, we wanted to make the song accessible enough. We want somebody who doesnât listen to deep house, G-house, or garage house whatever you wanna call this song, to grab onto it and think âWhat is this?â Maybe someone will listen to it, and think âThis is kind of interesting, letâs go a little deeper.â Then maybe theyâll find Dirtybird or Carl Cox or something through it.
Jeremy: Maybe Ghastly or Jauzâ
Victor: Yeah, maybe one of those more contemporary guys. Itâs like giving somebody a jump-off point. I think a lot of people try to make shit way too complicated out the gate, and we just wanted to make a song you could listen to at a party, in your car, or when youâre working out.
Jeremy: Itâs a track we were thinking about making for at least a year. We conceptualized it a long time ago, and then one day Victor sent me an idea where he just sang it into his computer. Iâm like, âDude thatâs the song, thatâs the idea.â
Victor: Then we sent it to 1DAFUL. By the way, shout out to 1DAFUL. Theyâre incredible, and I hope one of the biggest things through us putting this collaboration out is that people will discover 1DAFUL music, because these guys are so talented and theyâre a huge reason why this song worked.
EDMC: Remix wise, you guys have remixed quite an eclectic bunch of songs, from Didoâs âThank Youâ to Calvin Harrisâ âHow Deep is Your Love.â What was the thought process behind picking the songs you did?
Jeremy: For âThank Youâ Iâve always liked the Eminem version of that song, and the original as well. But Eminem took it to the mainstream, and when I got into the dance music scene, and I was like âDude, weâve got to remix this.â
Victor: We were thinking weâd do a house remix, but it wasnât making sense⌠Jeremy: It was back when we were just dabbling in trap. We had just produced âLovefoolâ with Tony. Shout-out to Dr. Fresch, itâs still one of our biggest tunes. I think our idea with every remix is to take something that is completely out of left field and bring it to the people.
Victor: Once again, (itâs for) somebody who has no idea what bass music is, somebody who has no idea what trap music is. So I get this vocal, and all around the world, everyone knows this vocal you hear it and think, âOkay, what genre is this in?â Then they start going down the rabbit hole. Thatâs kind of what we always want to do. We make so many types of music, and people always say âYouâre too spread out.â But we never want to pigeonhole ourselves, and we want to be those people that when fans are âgooglingâ theyâll hear our songs, and look up other artists
EDMC: Like a domino effect.
Jeremy: We try to do that with every track, and obviously not all of them are on the same level, but even the Calvin Harris remix, that was an idea I sent Victor saying we should flip it and do something so different. Victor: Again, we were thinking âshould we do trap, deep house, or garage house?â Then we were like, âWhatâs no one touching on really heavily?â Well itâs breaks. That old school breaks feel, which is from the beginning of house music and electronic music. We had so much fun making it, which is the other thing. We donât sit there and force it like we have to make this song. If weâre not having fun with something thereâs no point in doing it. It was so much fun making that remix. And of course everything Calvin Harris touches is gold, so the vocal was bare-able.
EDMC: For this next question, I pulled the statement from your Soundcloud bio because I just think itâs awesome. It says âA politically correct old man, and a pair of jeans from the 90âs.â Iâm guessing thatâs the story behind your name?
Victor: (laughs) Well actually, some random guy on our Facebook made that joke on one of our posts, and I thought it was hilarious. I said I was going to make it our profile bio, and I did. We shouted him out. The other thing is that thereâs so many bios DJâs have that are like âAward winningâ â whatever. No one is going to go to your show and be like âWow, this guy won so many awards.â People just got to chill, itâs dance music. Weâre not writing Beethoven.
EDMC: It made it stand out, thatâs for sure. Now from what Iâve read it also sounds like you guys came from very different, interesting backgrounds. What were you guys doing prior to making dance music?
Jeremy: My brother started a motion picture company, and they created comic books and graphic novels, and turned the intellectual property into movies. The first movie that he did was âOblivionâ with Tom Cruise, then he did âHerculesâ with the Rock and now heâs in postproduction on his third movie, Abattoir. I used to run the art department for his comic book company. So I created all of this comic book art, and production art for movies. I did that for like six years before I even knew about electronic music. Victor: We met when I booked him at a gig in Hollywood for a small party. I was basically promoting in Hollywood. Everyone knows the story of how Dillon Francis was a promoter right before he started making music. I was a generation of promoters after him. Borgeous and I both started at the same time promoting. I was doing these small EDM parties because I was passionate about the music. I was doing some light production and booking DJâs to bring in fifty people and fill the room. Jinco was one of the people that I booked and he kept saying âLetâs collab.â Up to that point I was wondering what that meant, because my whole life I had been studying opera and studying classical music. I studied at UCLA, and the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco, but I really loved electronic music. So I thought âOkay, letâs collab.â Usually what âcollabâ means is you go to some dudeâs momâs basement with busted speakers, but because his brother had the motion picture studio he had this incredible film-scoring department in place. So when those homies would leave after film-scoring, weâd be in their studio from like midnight to 5 am just pressing buttons, and learning, learning, learning, until it worked. And weâve literally been doing that since.
EDMC: Were there any other people who came in and were a real inspiration to you musically?
Jeremy: Cory Enemy for sure.
Victor: We met him through some really random connection, and as we know he worked with Dillon Francis in the beginning. To us, this guy was a huge deal and he taught us so much, and believed in us, and supported us. We were nobody, but he loved what we were making and saw potential. That confidence from him working with us, and that momentum, weâve kept all that since then just from working with him in the studio and bouncing ideas back and forth. We did David Guetta and Fatal Attraction with him, and I think weâre going to work with him again soon. So Cory obviously, but also all the other homies, shout out to Lookas, Ghastly, Prince Fox, Henry Fong â
Jeremy: We have a good circle of producer friends in L.A. because everyone is there. You go out to a party and youâll see 50 of the biggest up and coming DJs right now. Theyâre all these 19-27 year old kids, and theyâre all fired up and passionate, and we are too. We actually throw a live stream party in Hollywood every Wednesday night. We curate a lineup of three or four DJâs anywhere from Nghtmre to Breathe Carolina. Everyone comes and plays for free, the DJâs each play for like 20 minutes, and then we jump on and play back to back. Itâs a party that we started with Boombox Cartel DJCJ. Itâs turned into this cool party with industry friends and artist, and itâs pretty inspiring to be around all of these artists. Everybody wants to DJ back to back, and you end up getting these really eclectic back to backâs happening like Reid Stefan, Boombox Cartel and Ookay, itâs really fun.
EDMC: Tell me a little bit about your ampersand (&) logo and what it represents.
Victor: Itâs all about inclusiveness. We want to bring people into the fold. Nothing exists in a vacuum; as a duo we come from completely different backgrounds, our tastes are completely different, but we wouldnât have music in general if it werenât for that kind of chemistry. We love collaborating with people and bringing them into the fold. Itâs about unity and coming together to push the scene forward.
EDMC: Definitely, thatâs a good message. Whatâs some advice you guys would like to impart on any aspiring producers out there?
Jeremy: I would say a couple things. First off, donât copy anybody. Just focus on making music. Weâre in this age of seeing everybody playing these amazing shows, but the truth is none of that matters if you donât have the music. My advice would be to focus 110% of your time on your craft, and producing as much music as you can, good or bad. Just finish songs. Eventually, youâre going to make really cool music and people are going to notice. Obviously, you want to create good songs, but you got to go through the process.
Victor: The âgood or badâ is more for you. You have to make shit. You have to make a lot of garbage⌠Jeremy: You have to make garbage before you make the good stuff. If you go to our Sound Cloud, we have almost 300 private ideas on there, 90% of them are most likely garbage. But the other 10% of them could be amazing. You donât even know as a producer, just because you think theyâre great or shitty, someone else could think the opposite. So if you spend your time making music, one of your tracks is going to get noticed by somebody, and thatâs going to be a game changer for you.
Victor: Weâre so grateful for this opportunity, and that there are kids reaching out to us from across the world saying they like our tunes, and that to me is the biggest mind-fuck. My new platform, and almost automatic response to kids is if you want to know what the secret cheat code is to making good tunes, you need to get the idea of âWould a DJ support my music?â out of your head. The minute you erase that thought, you unshackle yourself and can only be creative, because the only person youâre answering to is yourself. Ask yourself: âIs this me?â Is every single moment, choice, texture, lyric, something that naturally came out of you? Thatâs when people start listening. Then they think itâs something fresh and something they can connect to.
Jeremy: At the end of the day, itâs not about the big DJâs supporting your music. Obviously, itâs a great thing, but Tiesto doesnât have to play your track in order for you to play shows. Take Kygo for example. Nobody is playing Kygo at their shows.
Victor: But everybody is playing Kygo at their house.
Jeremy: My point is Kygo is making music for Kygo. Heâs not making it for everyone else, and now, everybody is making shit that Kygo makes. But he was just making music that he liked. Even with Skrillex, he wasnât making dubstep like âIâm going to do this so everybody will start playing it.â Victor: Or making dubstep for the radioâŚ
Jeremy: But honestly, most of the people playing Skrillex are bass music DJâs and those people werenât even a thing until it blew up in America. The point is, create stuff you want to create; donât worry about the shows; theyâll come once the musicâs there. Never stop learning; never think youâve reached a point where you know everything. Honestly, I still have zero idea what Iâm doing, but I know what Iâve done over the last three years, I know the process we go through is working, but thereâs still so much to learn. Weâve only cracked a fraction of the possibilities with ideas and engineering.
EDMC: Letâs change gears before we wrap things up. Are there any crazy stories that have come out of some of your recent shows?
Jeremy: I have a crazy story. We were in the Dominican Republic hanging out after our show. These random Russian girls were hanging out with us after our set.
Victor: They looked like the daughters of the villain from Rocky.
Jeremy: They were super tall, skinny, and had platinum blonde hair.
EDMC: This is setting up nicely.
Jeremy: We leave, and weâre walking into the Hard Rock Hotel. And Victor decides to pick her up
Victor: This 6â5 womanâŚ
Jeremy: And drops her on her head.
Victor: There was just this moment of silence in the hotel lobby, and Iâm like âOh shit, Iâm so sorryâ and the night was over. They got in a cab and left. As far as shows go though, I think itâs crazy how different places, different markets, react to certain genres of music. When we first played in Mexico City, it was a culture shock for us because we play a lot of trap and bass music. We started off playing house, and then played some bass music, and people were just like âwhat the fuck is this?â It was like a commercial in the middle of watching a movie. People just tuned out.
Jeremy: Two seconds before it was the most insane thing with 5000 people all jumping in unison. But that was almost two years ago. We played EDC Mexico at the beginning of the year, which was incredible, and now itâs crazy to see that trap is on the main stage.
EDMC: What do you guys have in store for the rest of 2015?
Victor: We have this secret weapon weâre working on called writing actual songs.
Jeremy: Weâve been sitting in the studio and literally writing lyrics and everything, and not worrying about whether the song is going to work in the club. Weâre writing original songs.
Victor: We can make it in any genre now, weâve made it through the boot camp of putting out tried and true tunes, but weâre constantly discovering singers on Soundcloud singing R&B and hip hop stuff
Jeremy: But theyâre singing a lot of covers, and the hardest thing for these people is to write original lyrics. Now what weâre doing is spending the time with them writing together, because they have the voice, and a lot of times they have ideas too, but they canât get them out.
Victor: So we have a lot of songs coming and people are going to be like âoh so these guys actually write songs too.â We want to surprise people.
Jeremy: We decided weâre gonna put out an EP. Not sure when but probably early next year. Maybe sooner. But weâre going to continue to put out music. Right now, like every two weeks weâre putting out a new song. We literally have so much music, and thereâs no point to sit on it. We have an official remix for Diplo & Ivy Levan coming soon, and then we have our first original vocal track on Thrive Records.
Victor: Our first original vocal track is coming out on September 11th. Like I said, the future for us is having completely original vocal tunes. Doesnât matter what the genre is; weâre just ready to show people.
Jeremy: And then play as many shows as possible. Who knows, whatâs going to happen after this tour. We feel extremely blessed and grateful to even have the opportunity to play a bunch of shows in a row, but after the tour who knows where life will take us. Weâre just along for the ride.
EDMC: Thatâs good stuff guys, thanks for joining us.
G&J: Thank you.
Goshfather & Jinco showed their fans a great time at Soundbar in their first ever Chicago appearance. Their energetic performance was strongly supported by Chicago producers and fans alike. Keep an eye on these guys as they phase into an exciting new chapter musically, and catch them on tour now!
Thanks to Soundbar for hosting, and to Kris Lori Photography.