I’ve heard about Zac Greer for years, and I’ve been a big fan myself since tapping into singles like “alive” that are off of his debut album, ‘for the hell of it.’ Today I wanted to sit down with him to learn about what it was like making an album rather than singles and EP’s, and to hear what we can expect next from the Arizona native. I really enjoyed our conversation, and you can learn more about Zac in the interview we did below.

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How’ve you been? It’s nice to formally meet you outside of Instagram.

I’m good dude, and I’m glad we could hop on too. I appreciate your review about ‘for the hell of it.’ But I’m actually about to head back home to Arizona from LA. I’m really just excited to catch up on sleep. I went out on my first night here, and when you combine that with making music mad late into the night – I’m pretty exhausted.

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I figure this interview can start with the build up to your album, ‘for the hell of it,’ we can talk about coming home, and then about your upcoming single, “rude.” Is that cool with you?

Absolutely man, that sounds great to me. I feel like this interview is coming at a perfect time too, so thank you for asking me to do this.

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Of course dude! Before we get into all of that though, I was curious to learn about your start in music. Being from Arizona, was there much of a music culture there?

I’m sure other people here feel different than I did at the time, but I would say no. I felt really alone outside of the internet. I started making beats in high school and I was around music all the time since I was in theater too. Later on I would become friends with the Overcast guys who I’ve been working with for a long time now, but in the beginning it was mainly just me.

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Where would you say you learned how to make music then if it wasn’t with a community around you?

I mainly learned everything I did about producing from watching Nick Mira on Youtube, and then later down the line my sound really started to develop when I started listening to rap and hyper pop. I also wasn’t very cool in high school so I would shamelessly release a ton of tracks, so from the sheer volume of music I released – I’d like to think I got better over time. I really had nothing to lose haha.

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What inspired you to keep going?

It was sort of a long process. I went through a few different names that I released music under, and finally after getting through 3-4, I landed on Zac Greer. There was even a point where I released music just under ‘Greer’ since that’s my middle name and I wanted to do a Drake-Aubrey type of thing, but to answer your question, eventually I released a song called “glitter” that really took off and got on Spotify’s New Music Friday out of nowhere which totally changed things for me once I got out of high school.

I was also friends with Keshi who is a massive artist now, and after talking to him and his manager I ended up going on tour with them and playing all of my shitty songs I had at the time to a bunch of people. I credit almost all of my start to Keshi because I started that tour with 600 followers, and came back with like 3,000. That all really showed me that I might be able to make this music thing work out.

(This is a sidebar because I’m still learning how to keep questions concise, but Zac went on to share that his manager at the time knew someone who worked at Snapchat, and he also ended up getting his song “crazy” a placement on there. Even crazier though, he went on to also be featured on Fortnite during Season 1.)

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In the next question we can talk more about the album, but how was throwing your first ever hometown show? That has to feel different than touring around other places.

It was so awesome dude, I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time. I’ve opened for people here and did a few shows in LA sometime after “melatonin” and they went well, but everything felt like it was moving really fast which left me with less time to put on the best show that I could have.

I really just wanted to spend a ton of time on this, to tell everyone I know to come through, and to bring people together because like I said there just isn’t a ton of music culture in Arizona. It was such a great time though, we had a guitarist and had all of my friends shooting video for it. Koi and Contradash were on the bill too and I just loved every second of it.

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I totally understand what you mean when it comes to it being a special moment to bring your hometown together around music since I’m working on doing the same thing in Cleveland with my brand Kind of Consistent. It’s not easy and it just feels so special when you pull it off.

Yeah it’s tough dude. I thought I was going to pack the room out more, but since we were in a smaller venue than I expected, it felt really full. I can definitely understand why the culture isn’t big in Arizona yet, but with shows like this hopefully it helps to make it more of a destination for concerts in the future.

(He also mentioned that this show served as somewhat of an album release concert, so it felt like the perfect time to ask..)

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You’ve dropped EP’s in the past, but for the hell of it was your first album. What was it like dropping and putting together a larger body of work?

It was a doozy man. I saw a lot of people around me releasing projects when I was more focused on EP’s, and I never felt like I immersed myself in the world of making an album like some of my favorite artists did growing up. They all had albums that I loved and after a while, I realized I hadn’t done that yet.

When it comes to making music I do everything myself, so making this project took a lot longer than I expected it to haha. It was a good and a bad experience in that way. Everything now is on the schedule to release a single, promote it, hope it does well, and if you don’t drop every two months, people will think you stopped making music forever.

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That’s definitely a tough part of the culture right now to stay “relevant.”

Yeah forsure. With the album though I sort of dug myself into a hole because I wanted to stay committed to it. It was tough to keep making music and to constantly try to figure out if it was something I wanted on the project. That’s overall why it took so long, but even with it being released three months back, it’s still something I’m really proud of and that I still listen to. Not to sound like an old head, but I really feel like it’s something I would have listened to as a kid in high school, and I hope other people can feel that same way when they listen to it.

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What’s the most underrated song on ‘for the hell of it?’

If we’re talking about streams wise, I would say the outro “blue” because that is probably one of the best songs I have ever released. The double song too because I worked so hard on that track. “911” also deserves a shout out because that song is insane; it came from a time where I felt pretty isolated living in LA, but it definitely needed to be mentioned.

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Pretty soon after the release of the album you dropped “coming home.” What made you decide to drop a single so quickly after releasing the album?

Because the whole time I was making the album everyone was just saying “it’s not that deep” or “just drop it.” I kept telling people that as soon as the album’s out that I would just unleash what I’ve been holding onto. “coming home” actually came from a day that I was tired of working on “pda” and it just felt so different. I finished it super fast, and it was the only single at the time that was fully complete and I decided to just put my money where my mouth is and to release it without thinking too much about it. 

It was a lot different from what I usually do too since I was rapping, and I really wanted to make a song that was like something Mac Miller would do. It’s sort of a loosey but it felt right to get it out there.

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Now you’re about to release “rude” on April 3rd. What should people expect from that single?

To be honest with you, I made “rude” like two weeks ago [at the time of this interview]. I don’t even have a cover. I’m a pretty slow music maker, so to finish that song so fast just made me want to put it out right away. I have a ton of songs that I thought would be next that are like 95% done (that you can expect soon,) but I knew this one was ready. It also was the first time I really talked about sex and it has a more edgy feel to it, so I don’t know what to expect honestly. If people really like it I might have to undergo the craziest music identity switch you have ever seen haha.

To lap back to ‘for the hell of it’ though,’ the whole project is kind of ironic. It was so meticulously done and took forever to finish, so releasing music like this feels like I’m finally letting go and just doing what I want to do.

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Finally, is there anything else you want fans to know?

I will let fans know that I am not making another album for a MINUTE haha, and it’s for everybody’s own good. For my mental health really. If I were to sit down to make another album I would probably go ghost for a year. I have a bunch of stuff I’m working on that’s more pop leaning though, and I’m super excited about it. Right now I’m really trying to find the balance of putting things out that I like, and to take note of what the culture wants too. I’ve been working for a while now and I’d love to pop off and really make more money haha.

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You heard it here first, Zac Greer will be bag chasing all 2024.

Yeah dude. I will say that “rude” is really really good though, and not to sound egotistical, but I think this could be the single that our generation really grabs onto. Hopefully it will even have some mom’s listening to it too. I’m super excited though, and I can’t wait to keep showing it all to the world however that manifests. I’m pumped to step on the gas this year.

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I appreciate you taking the time out dude, and best of luck with the release.

Thank you dude, I’m sorry in advance if I talk too much, but I’ve seen your writing about my music before and I know you’ll get me right.

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Huge thank you to Zac for taking out the time for this interview, and if you want to listen to my favorite tracks of his you can check them out on my playlist here. You can also stay up to date with Zac and his releases on his Instagram here. “rude” will be out on April 3rd, and stay tuned for a lot more from Zac in 2024.