GAREK “Save The Queen”

“Save The Queen”

New York-based, electro industrial, recording artist GAREK, has just released his debut single “Save The Queen”, a dramatic majesty of sound, with a flashy display of monochromatic glam video to support.

Having done several Prides, international gigs in Spain ,Copenhagen, and an appearance with his new song in the London’s fashion week, “Save The Queen” has gotten recent radio play, and a buzz world wide. London’s EQ Music has saluted him as “a deity of Industrial-Electro mastery”, MTV’s Logo says” for all his influences, there’s something distinctive about what GAREK is doing”.

Get Out was able to speak with GAREK about his inspirations, intentions, and influences. He was super candid, very humorous and extremely ambitious. He is definitely a powerful force to be watched…..

Congratulations on your new single, I think it’s astounding.
Thank you, I’m glad to here that.

You have been influenced by a lot of different sounds growing up, did you have any favorites?
Marilyn Manson was a huge influence, one of my heroes. I also liked Alanis Morissette. Musically they are very different but I was attracted to their voices. She was very vulnerable, and at times angry. He was very angry, which is why I was attracted to him. He was a voice that gave my anger and outlet.

What were you so angry about?
I was angry because I’m from a small town in Wisconsin. I am a country boy. My town had about 400 people in it. I didn’t fit in. I was a kid that liked music and art, and got made fun of for being smart. Where I was from it was cool to be dumb. The dumb jocks and the people that were dumb, considered it funny. I knew there was a world outside of my town, but I just never experienced it before. I was very hopeful about this world, but I was also very angry that I was stuck where I was stuck. I tried to make the best of it, but a lot of times I would internalize. I wasn’t out at the time, but there were people who called me gay, and being gay was bad, according to them. I had no gay influences or role models, so I started to believe that being gay was wrong and bad, so I would try to change it. Then I would get mad at myself because I couldn’t change it. That was a whole really destructive cycle of self hatred that is not healthy for anybody much less a teenager. That was my own fault as far as listening to what they were saying and allowing them to create that reality for me. I should’ve just thought that they’re all going to stay there in the town, have kids and get fat, and many of them did. Playing music was me trying to be honest with myself and therefore the rest of the world.

How long have you been in New York City, and what motivated you to come?
I’ve been here for five years. It was very hard. I moved here by myself right after college. Being very shy it was very hard. It was like being in kindergarten all over again. I had to force myself to go out to the clubs and bars, by myself and talk to people, because it was either that or sitting in my apartment alone all day. I came to New York because I was tired up Wisconsin. I had always heard that it was a challenge to make it in New York, but it was the hardest period of my entire life.

How did you come to write “Save The Queen”?
“Save The Queen”, happened by accident. I worked as an intern for a production house, and they gave it to me as an assignment. They gave it to me as a joke, because no one else wanted to do it. They needed an industrial contemporary song for a TV show, and the producer knew I liked that type of music. I wrote the song with the producer I was interning with, and they liked it. I did the video with a friend of the producer who was a photographer and who had never done a video. I put all of my friends in the video. All the people I worked with, or slept with.

Some of those dancers in the video were cute, I hope you slept with at least some of them.
The blonde dancer, his name is David Flores, he choreographed the whole thing. He was brilliant, a genius. He and I were hanging out horizontally at the time. To say that it was an accident is only a half truth. The fact that I was there at the MUSIC house wasn’t an accident. I put in a lot of hard work, to be where I am today, and the universe handed me the opportunity to make the song. It put me in the right spot with the right people at the right time to make something good.

What is the song actually about?
The song itself is about chess. Chess is black-and-white, you either succeed or you don’t. When I was an intern that was my frame of mind. Who was I going to pledge my allegiance to, who was I going to align with, who did I have to be nice to, who is going to waste my time? The chess metaphor was an appropriate song for that time in my life.

It’s a little bit like Alice in Wonderland.
Thank you. I see myself as an alternative kid, rather than a club kid.

With a gay flair.
There isn’t a closet big enough…..

Are you going to tour?
I have done several Prides. I have done gigs in Spain in Copenhagen, and appeared on the runway at London’s fashion week. I don’t really care about being super rich or super famous I just want to play music. I see myself as an alternative artist. People  listen to me and think that maybe he’s a gay artist, or a Lady Gaga, or an Adam Lambert. I would love to do something like Warp Tour. I see myself as a rock ‘n’ roll kid, not as a club kid, because I don’t even like to be in a club. I can’t dance unless I’m wasted, and even that’s nothing spectacular.

But recently you’ve been getting a lot of radio play.
I am currently working with my publisher, Ed Steinberg. He has been around forever. He did Madonna’s first video back in the 80s. He heard me play an acoustic show, which I never do, and took an interest in the project. He has been helping me get the song out to different radio people. For the longest time no one was making the kind of music that I wanted to hear, or that I like, so I said fuck it, I’m going to make it myself.

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