Serving as one piece of the six-man collective known as ¡MAYDAY!, Gianni Ca$h has earned a resume worthy of envy by any of his peers in the music scene. Taking on both bass and keyboards for the band, Gianni has also proven to be a serious threat on production, alongside Plex Luthor.

With Wrekonize’s The War Within just around the corner, we caught up with Gianni Ca$h to discuss his role in producing for the album and how he feels about Wrek’s official solo outing on Strange Music.

When you guys found out that he wanted to do a solo album, was that a surprise or something that you expected to happen?

We were definitely expecting it, it was no surprise. We’ve all wanted him to drop an official album. We were waiting for the right time and the time is officially here.

What directions did he want to take with this album that he might not necessarily have been able to take with a ¡MAYDAY! project?

In my opinion anything that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a ¡MAYDAY! album. I think being able to have complete artistic freedom over a project is the key here – being able to go where ¡MAYDAY! wouldn’t normally go. Not to say that ¡MAYDAY! is opposed in doing certain things musically, but ¡MAYDAY! has a very distinct sound that consists of layers and textures that you don’t hear very often in music nowadays. When we all come together we become the identity that is ¡MAYDAY!, but now Wrek has the ability to create his own identity and you will be able to hear it on this record.

When he got these beats from you, were they specifically made for him or ones that you and Plex had already made?

No, those were some beats that we just produced. “Galil” for example has been around for a minute. That song actually could’ve been on Take Me To Your Leader and it happened to not make the album. We had to filter some and we ended up scrapping over 20 tracks from Take Me To Your Leader. “Galil” was one of those songs. “Galil” is super dope, I told him… “Dude, that song would be awesome for your project, whenever your project comes out, that’s something you need to put on there.”

How about “Paper Trails”?

“Paper Trails” was a recent track. That beat was probably done about 6 months ago. That was one of those tracks that he heard and had a concept for. It also features Bernz and they both kill it.

Do you and Plex basically have a factory going on by now? You guys seem to churn them out pretty often.

Yeah man, we make beats all the time. We are constantly making music, all these beats are put in a bucket and then the guys go through it and pick the ones they really dig. That’s basically how half of Believers was made. The other half was more conceptualized and focused, a step in which I think is a bit more mature as we are getting better as producers and songwriters

I take it you’ve heard The War Within?

I heard the roughs about a months ago before he turned it in and it was dope, and then I heard the finished product on the way up before tour when we were driving to Kansas City. Yeah I heard the album with all the transitions and all the skits and it’s amazing. It’s an amazing body of work. He touches on a lot of topics and genres, it’s super-dope – and that’s what he is man. He is very diverse and there is a lot of different types of music and you definitely hear that on The War Within. Super-happy for Wrek and he killed it man, he fucking killed it.

Are there any standout tracks to you?

“Haunted”. I love that fucking track. It actually features Bernz. “Freak”, that shit just goes off. “We Got Soul” produced by Seven, that shit fucking rocks. There’s a few bro. There’s one track that I wish I would’ve produced called “Isolophobia” and definitely a lot of tracks that are like “Damn, I need to go back and listen to that shit again,” because it just grabs you.

What do you think about Wrek as an artist and emcee?

Dude, he’s fucking amazing. I’m blessed to have such a brother like him in my crew. He can do it all. He can sing, he can rap, he can chop, he can make beats, he’s an editor, he can film a video, he can do it all. He’s a techie, he’ll figure things out for me on the computer when I need some IT and shit. He’s amazing man. I have nothing but good things to say about Wrek, he’s an amazing artist and I’m lucky to share the stage with him.

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