Moonrise Festival Artist Profile: GTA

Moonrise is fast approaching. (Only 5 more days left!) So far, we’ve covered Carnage, DJ Snake, and Kaskade. For our last edition of our MF artist profiles, we decided to take one last look at the duo who’s made it all the way from the sunny streets of Miami, to the biggest stages around the world: GTA.

Usually, when you meet a nice-looking couple, or a pair of best friends for the first time, one of the first things you ask them is how they met. It’s inevitable, it’s one of those types of things that interests us all. Nowadays, we can expect a variety of answers to this question. “During junior year of college.” “At a coffee shop.” “At an Echo show.” The possibilities are indeed, endless. When you look at a duo as dynamic as GTA, who has rapidly garnered legitimate success in an industry that isn’t the easiest to break into, which possibility comes to mind?

Keeping in tune with today’s trends, Julio Mejia and Matt Toth, were introduced via a mutual friend on Facebook, who thought that the then-solo artists could do some real damage if they joined forces. Their partnership kindled instantly, through the form of a System of a Down CD that Toth played in the car right after picking Mejia up. “He knew every song, I knew every song. That was how we became friends.”  The day after that, they began producing together, and finished their first collaboration in a single session. “It just worked,” said Mejia when he was asked about that first sitting. “Just worked” is a bit of an understatement, seeing as how after the two sent that song out to different labels, they got an email from Afrojack stating the desire to sign the track to his own imprint.

Since then, the GTA stock has skyrocketed, with tracks being signed by some of the biggest labels in dance music, such as Musical Freedom, Mad Decent, A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold, and Calvin Harris’ Fly Eye. They’ve collaborated with Diplo, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, and even found time to embark on a 19-country tour with Rihanna. It’s safe to say that these two are one of the biggest up-and-coming duos in EDM, scoring well-deserved credit for hits like “Turn It Up” and “The Crowd“, which have each enjoyed a lot of airplay across many of the main stages in the world.

The most unique part about GTA is not only their ability to create quality music that gains widespread appeal, but their mission to push the boundaries of dance music as much as possible. When you hear a set or mix of theirs, it’s a guarantee that you’ll be blown away at how many different styles they can fit into such a short amount of time. A quick search through their recent set lists will reveal songs from the likes of Rage Against the Machine, Beyoncé, Eazy-E, and Daddy Yankee. Some will say that these two are killing genres, others will say that they are creating them. One thing is for sure though, this is a movement that’s going to keep shaking up our scene. We’re just glad that we’re a part of it.

We can’t wait to bring a little #DeathToGenres action over to Pimlico this Saturday at Moonrise. Tickets are still available here, don’t wait too long to buy yours..

Words by: Daniel Chamorro