“It’s just been so hard to see the silver lining” laments Dalton Thompson. A temporary despondence is present in his voice as he ruminates on everything he’s poured into his band GROM’s debut album, Frequencies’. As illuminating as silver is to our eye, a mere solitary line of it can’t be roped into a safety net. Life’s murky moments make us forget that a safety net is made of these threads however. Bits and pieces of joy and protection we get from loved ones that are braided into rope and tethered together. I’ve personally misguided myself into believing, as life events play out differently than originally expected, that I’m less in sync with my ‘actualized’ self, a feeling that increased after I left Harlem for Texas. High school senior year my friend Jonas and I walked through Midtown every night envisioning our future, and as different as the paths we described seemed we always kept space for that friendship. Years later, seeing him get married and start a family has taught me I didn’t get here by accident. Sharing life experiences with the people I love is exactly where I hoped to be. I feel most inner-aligned when I reconnect with those attuned to the same frequency. “Every moment spent, happens how it’s supposed to. I thought I told you, I guess you know now.”
“Silver” is in the first in a batch of songs Dalton sent me from new music he’s working on as the record is being mixed. “Silver” is heavy hearted, yet hopeful. “Mom got the diagnosis last year, eight months later we’re in the clear, the war is won but the battle still raging, I wish I could stop all my family from aging” Dalton cries out. He has a gift for balancing his viewpoint and the understanding that things can always be much worse. GROM, Dalton’s artist – producer duo with Nick Politte, craft each song to tell a complete story. Politte sculpts audio soundstages, allowing Dalton to write a script with a depth of character perspective that Christopher Nolan would revere. He expresses self doubt and questions himself and his faith in God, but combats those feelings of doubt with the reminder that the sorrow and grief make the grace and joy worth experiencing. As Dalton puts it, “Thank God I’m Me”.
The duo’s debut album Frequencies released a few months ago in April 2025. In an attempt to seek some solace and clear your head, GROM takes you on a long drive to nowhere, tapping you into wavelengths that meet you where you are and remind you that’s exactly where you’re meant to be. Frequencies serves as a follow up to two EPs that were released under the band name Apt. F. When Dalton and I first connected back in 2021 he was excitedly sending me music written, produced, mixed, and mastered entirely by Apt. F. The group’s four members, Nick Sailer, Brandon Shaiper, Nick Politte and Dalton Thompson met each other playing baseball together at Missouri Baptist University (Go Spartans!). After the two instrumentalists of the group Politte and Shaiper (who produces under the name shaips) shared their interest for music production with each other the group went from teammates to bandmates. Nick Sailer (sicknailer) and Dalton’s passion for songwriting, Shaiper’s voice and ability to play any instrument he touches, and Politte’s architecture of ‘weird noise’ into a chateau manor, sparked the idea to create music together.
The EP’s title, This Is Not A Joke, was a decree to themselves and anyone else listening. The cover art showing the group seated in their college dorm living room mesmerized by TV static is probably how those early days probably looked. As for how they sounded, “Car Ride (Intro)”, features Politte driving his bandmates as they play snippets from songs they recorded on the car’s bluetooth listening in front of each other for the first time. We share in their surprise, as the snippets are shockingly polished and eclectic in sound. Shaips sings an R&B ballad reminiscent of peacoat Drake in the studio with JuiceWRLD. Dalton’s early raps reflect a David Burd homage to the Kendrick Lamar EP . Nick Sailer states he doesn’t rap and then spins a Cool Calm Pete-esque verse about option trading girls for profit. Politte sends the rest of his bandmates into an uproar with the energy of his genre weaving trap-laden emo rap style, before ending with a stoic, “I don’t really think I like it.”
Pearl, Apt. F’s second EP has a title befitting the music. On the cover we see Politte sprawled across his studio floor in a cat shirt on the cover, and inside we hear significantly more polished song ideas and production.
The boys all graduating, starting careers, and in the case of Nick Sailer, relocating, made getting in the studio as a group difficult. Life doesn’t always follow our plans exactly as we’ve set them for ourselves. Eventually studio sessions primarily became Dalton’s songwriting with Politte at the helm from a production side. The two found a routine that produced a song every time they got together. The abundance of new music that derived from those Apt. F sessions lead the duo to create a separate project they called GROM. Dalton’s evolution in songwriting is highlighted by the breadth of perspectives in his lyrics, enchanting choruses, and enough confidence to convince themselves and anyone listening This is Not A Joke. The lucid storytelling on a song like “KEEP WALKING”, the staccato machine gun flow on “TAKE COVER”, the lost and love found on “Slipping/Cold Nights” and the serenity of a songs cry in “Paradise” convey an wide spectrum of emotions. Politte’s soundscapes are more vivid than Robert Daly’s Infinity, inhabiting each song with a granularity that makes for a celestial listening experience. The beat on “wyd?” and “C3PO” are vivacious and dancy. The production behind “Good Luck With That!” and “TAKE COVER” feels a torrential downpour over a mosh pit, kicking the album’s energy up at the perfect moments. On “Farside” Politte takes over on the songwriting side as well delivering a stand out fresh from the City Morgue, “I cannot pretend I’m right where I intend, til I’m making my way to a lonely descent”.
Shaips and Sicknailer were kind enough to help out their old teammates too, adding to the tracks “Rearview” and “Clocks”. Their verses focus on progressing forward and the time that can be lost when caught rudderlessly peering backwards. While Frequencies is GROM’s debut, it was born from Apt. F’s brotherhood. I got to speak with Dalton and Politte, seated in Politte’s studio and accompanied by Shaips. We discussed the band’s beginnings, goals, and the album that tunes its frequencies to find you where you are and deliver you the mental reset of a car ride to a great album. Our conversation is edited for brevity and clarity:
**Feel free to click any of the links and check out all the work from all these talented artists.**
GSC: Dalton, Nick, and Shaiper, thanks for taking the time to chat. Dalton sent me a few of the unreleased songs you have, When do you know a track is complete?
DALTON: What we have a problem with most is knowing when something is finished. When we sit with something too long we’ll pick it apart. I tell Politte all the time, we’re done when we say it’s done and then we’re not touching it anymore. We get 95 percent of the way finished and then it goes back to 90 percent.
POLITTE: We have more than that, we have so much music just sitting around. I’m a perfectionist too. I can never call something done, ya know. I just want it to be better and better. I keep screwing up songs, so we’ve been working on interfering less.
GSC: Dalton sent me a few of your tracks while you were working on Frequencies. I always enjoy the roughness of a song before it’s mixed, but as the songs were perfected it did create a fuller story so the intention held its purpose.
POLITTE: Sometimes it feels like I just mess the songs up because I need to have the quality to say, “Let’s just send it out”, because some of our first bounces are good enough. Working on it more and more, making it cleaner, doesn’t necessarily make it better. I just need to be better at–
DALTON: What he doesn’t say, both of them [gesturing to Shaips], produce at a very high rate and get a lot of shit done, but they both have 9-5 jobs and work five days a week, so they’re working on their own free time late into the night, early into the morning, so the perfectionism isn’t sacrificing something. Even if nobody hears the music, we want it to sound exactly how we want to sound because that’s all that matters to us.
GSC: Originally you released music under the name Apt. F, with the Pearl EP and the This Is Not a Joke EP. Now releasing under GROM, I was interested in how you originally began creating music as a group.
DALTON: It really started as a joke. We were all playing baseball together in college, we met in the dorms, and became friends while living together, and Politte kept it a secret for a while that he was working on beats and making music on his own time. When we heard about that we all got into the studio but as a joke. I’d always been interested in recording, and I had always written on my own time because I enjoy it. So it started as a joke, but eventually the three of us and our buddy Nick Sailer decided to just try it. We were all living together at the time and were all musically inclined enough to complete tracks. We worked on that first EP for about a year, Shaips and Politte produced or co-produced all of the tracks. We really enjoyed that process so we released the next EP.
POLITTE: We eventually had a hard time getting everybody together so, Dalton and I decided to start GROM.
DALTON: We spent more time one on one with each other, and put a lot of effort into the music. Whenever
Politte and I would get into the studio we’d come out with a song every time. At one point we had 10-15 songs completed. We realized we had enough for a project. Once we had that momentum we decided we’re actually going to make it into something.
POLITTE: Each album has a different feeling for me. When I listen to PEARL it reminds me of that time in my life. Each album is like a different era of my life, is how I look at it.
GSC: Is part of the reason for making music to create a stamp of where you were when you made it?
DALTON: With Frequencies we went in with this idea that it’s going to have a cohesive thought or feeling throughout the entirety of the project. Whatever we’re going through at the time does affect the theme of the project. With PEARL it was winter time. Winter time in Missouri sucks, it snows six inches, you can’t go anywhere, it’s dark.
POLITTE: So we made a bunch of sad songs.
DALTON: We’re all down so we just tried to creatively express that feeling. I do think that, that stamp in time helps give the record some cohesiveness.
GSC: Going back a bit, when did things go from everybody secretly making music independently with baseball as the centerpiece of the friendship to that first song together?
POLITTE: I started making music when I was eighteen on my own. I sucked obviously, it was my first time making music. During my freshman year of baseball I met Shaips and realized he also produced so we started talking about that. I made a lot of wack beats for the first few years, but my confidence didn’t really take shape until I got to the point where I was making beats that had a full idea and I wasn’t just looping the same patterns. We were all friends by that point so it was like, let’s just make music together.
SHAIPS:I had been producing for a couple of years by the time you had started. We’d get together and start making beats and Politte would be very self conscious about it. So when we got together as a group I asked Politte for beats but still he was too shy to show us anything. The first beat he finally plays we recorded a song for it, and that sparks the idea for Apt. F, all from that first beat you showed us.
GSC: For context, what year is this?
GROM: Beginning of 2018 into 2019.
GSC: How did the music develop from those early Apt. F days to form GROM?
POLITTE: COVID gave me a lot of time to work on my craft, I kind of enjoyed it to be honest, being able to sit inside all day and make beats. We just haven’t stopped since then. There was a period in between when Apt F was slowing down and Dalton and I weren’t sure what to do about it. We had never gotten into the studio, just us two before that, and we just decided one day to get together and it took off from there. We haven’t put a lot out because we only get together once a week and I’m slow when it comes to mixing stuff. I love the production side of it, but when it comes to mixing I’ll work on it for a night, ruin it, then have to go from there. It takes me a while to be satisfied with the way it sounds.
GSC: Is that related to having the confidence to put it out?
Shaips + Dalton (in unison): Yes!
POLITTE: I make a lot of weird beats, and I want it to sound how it could at its full potential. I feel like I don’t get to a point very often on a song where it’s exactly what I wanted it to sound like.
DALTON: Politte is the opposite of a producer who–and I love this type of music, but the loops Westside Gunn raps over, Politte would rather die than let something loop for more than 8 bars at a time. It adds an element to his production that can’t be matched with anybody. He’s my favorite producer, there’s something about Politte’s production that fits what I’m chasing and I feel like that shows in the music too.
GSC: I agree, you both put more into the song than just a loop and a verse, each song feels thought out completely.
DALTON: It’s a fine line of making it fine tuned and perfect in our eyes but also getting it out. That’s the hardest part right now, is just finding the point where we’re happy with something to the point where we could release it and not second guess it.
GSC: How do you approach writing?
DALTON: I try to write full thoughts as much as I can. It’s hard for me to write outside of the studio too. I would say ninety-five percent of what I’ve recorded was written in the studio during that session. I’ll think of a thought and write it down if I’m out and about, but I can’t write if I’m not in the studio and it’s looping, there’s something about being in the zone when you’re in it.
GSC: So you come to the studio and then all of your writing takes place?
DALTON: Everytime, that’s why I don’t change it. I’m a creature of habit, if something works I’m not going to mess with it. That’s how it’s been from the beginning. It’s something about I just catch it and I write it really fast, and it usually works out okay. I enjoy it, I feel like when you enjoy something it gets easier.
POLITTE: I wouldn’t be as confident going into a session without something written, but we rarely come out of a studio session without something, it’s not common that we do. He’s a freak for sure.
GSC: Politte gave a bit of his background starting producing at 18, Dalton and Shaips what were your development like as artists?
DALTON: I didn’t start until we formed the group. I’d never recorded anything, I’d never been in a studio, I’d never been in a studio session until college. That’s the cool part about it to me is you can see my progression from 2019 to now just by listening to the music. It tells its own story. That’s what I’m most proud of, the only music background I’ve had is I played drums in a jazz band in high school. I loved playing percussion but I can’t play piano, I can’t play guitar, it’s strictly rhythm.
GSC: Like Politte I often hear artists say they started by creating songs they perceived to be bad in secret, but I’ve begun hearing more artists releasing their first songs to document their evolution within the music.
DALTON: Music has been everything to me since I could remember. From downloading off Frostwire, making sure the album art cover is perfect, making sure the tracklist is right. I’m so obsessed with music as a whole. I know when something is good and something is not, so I knew if my music wasn’t good I wasn’t going to chase it. It naturally felt right from the beginning so that’s why I chased it. I love listening to the music we make, it doesn’t matter to me if anybody else does.
SHAIPS:It’s always been music for me pretty much my whole life, I started playing drums when I was super young, I got into playing piano, I always wanted to produce. I found out how to produce and started on Garageband before moving to Logic. I was looping and chopping a lot of beats when I met these guys, and I slowly graduated to making house and EDM music now. It’s been a struggle with the consistency of working on it and releasing stuff. But that’s why I’m here tonight too. These guys are talented, we have a lot of plans we’re working on.
GSC: I had similar issues with putting things out, what do you think is the root cause of that for yourself?
SHAIPS:I think it’s partially overthinking what I’ve made, listening to it too much and overanalyzing it. But also just because I’m not making music as much as I’d like. I’d been working on music for the last six months for an EDM album and I just feel like it’s not there. I’m similar to Politte in the fact that I overanalyze the living hell out of everything I make so it never gets released. On my MacBook I think I have over 1000 beats, and 99.9 percent of those aren’t released at all. That’s why I come over here, I get some ears on my stuff and it’s a sanity check.
GSC: I find it always feels better to release your expression than holding it in, regardless of your perception or even awareness of the feedback.
POLITTE: It’s easy to worry about what people are going to think, because starting off it feels cringe. But it’s getting to the point where you get through the mental break of caring about anyone’s negative opinions and create something knowing that the right people are going to support it.
GSC: You called Politte your favorite producer. Talk to me about having someone like that to work alongside or to create with and get that feedback from, what is the recording process like?
DALTON: This is my favorite part about what we do. These are my best friends, they were groomsmen in my wedding party. I can’t imagine getting to any kind of height without them. We’re friends before we even made music. If my vocal cords fried tomorrow or Politte decided he didn’t want to make beats any more we’d still be best friends. Whenever I come over to hang and make music we spend the first hour showing each other music we’ve been listening to, showing each other TikToks, and showing him videos of my son. I could never imagine doing this with anybody else. I think it makes recording a lot easier too. I say very personal things when I’m recording music and I wouldn’t be able to do that with a stranger. I can only do that because I don’t feel judged, I’m with my best friends.
POLITTE: Early on I struggled making beats in front of them, I would always have to have something complete just to show them. When you’re starting off on a beat, it doesn’t take shape for a while. I would always worry about what they think of it, if they think it’s terrible, should I stop. Going from being super anxious about it, where nowadays it feels like whatever we’re working on is going to end up in a good place no matter what beat I’m producing. It’s helpful having Dalton here because he’s a writing machine, if I were alone just machine beats it would be too much on my side. Having him here always reminds me to leave space, he’ll tell me when to stop or I’ll keep going.
GSC: Will you work on a song at the same time or do you let the beat guide the idea for a song?
DALTON: The beat inspires the idea most of the time.
POLITTE: There will be times where he’ll have an idea for a song, and he’ll give me a reference track for the kind of vibe of the song. But most of the time it’s me making the beat and then he catches the vibe and writes how it should sound.
DALTON: I find a lot of inspiration from what I’m hearing presently, I’ll try to think of a word that the beat is making me feel. And then revolve it around that idea, so it’s definitely him inspiring me, which in turn inspires him to make the beat complete
.
GSC: The songwriting matches the beat perfectly in each track, I was wondering if the songs feel that way because of concepts you both established before any music is created.
POLITTE: I’m not too good at creating beats based on a concept, we don’t do it often. I started getting into music when I discovered metal, screamo, heavy stuff, so a lot of our music will be hardcore, noisy, and dark sounding.
GSC: Who were the artists that inspired you to create music?
DALTON: I’ve been waiting for this question my entire life. I grew up in a house where music wasn’t so important. My earliest memory of hearing a song was “Harder to Breathe” by Maroon 5. I can remember it plain as day listening to it on the radio in my parents car, I’ll never forget that. 2000s pop was always playing in my house. I grew up going to church so Gospel music was big in our house, then it evolved into listening to music I knew my parents didn’t like. Eminem and Lil Wayne, that was in rotation heavy early on, then I would try and find music from artists they did features with. My overall music taste was shaped in 2012 at a Christmas basketball tournament when I listened to good kid, m.A.A.d City for the first time and my thoughts and perspective on music changed drastically. Since then I found a lot of inspiration in rhymes with a lot of specificity. J.I.D is someone I love, Vince Staples, MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt. Tyler, the Creator was an era for me. All of that together shaped my idea of music, I find it so inspiring when something is so intentional. good kid, m.A.A.d City tells a story from beginning to end, and it has a message and a meaning, something to take with you. I want whoever is listening to the music that we create to find some kind of meaning in it.
POLITTE: I have a hard time recalling who I really fuck with, my favorite artists are just weirdos. People that make music that just doesn’t sound good to the normal person. I just like how weird it is, people that come to mind are Poppy, Knocked Loose, Danny Brown, Portishead. Growing up my family always had music going they would always play weird music too, rock was always going in my house, screamo stuff, at eight years old. Weird music has always stuck with me.
SHAIPS:It’s been everything for me. I grew up initially on music like John Mayer. He was big in my household, my parents were playing country for a bit, Maroon 5, Matchbox 20, and then I kind of got into what I call butt-rock now, music like Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace I loved for a long time. Then I got into TDE, Kendrick and Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, I loved growing up, and now it’s a mix of everything. A lot more EDM, I don’t listen to rap as much anymore and if I do it’s a more mellow, Kota the Friend style rap, alternative rock, more indie music. I’m a fan of everything that sounds good.
DALTON: We’ve sent each other a lot of music that has shaped our music taste over the years. Music glues in a lot of friendships and it really did for us too. Even if we didn’t make music.
GSC: I usually ask solo artists about their community outside of their audience because having a group of peers who inspires you to keep going seems vital for creating.
DALTON: It creates its own world for me. Whenever we send our music out, we’re sharing it with our friends. We have a group chat of 12 of us that we post our music in, and it may not always get a reaction but that’s who we know is listening to it.
POLITTE: We got lucky.
DALTON: Big time, to meet the way we did and to stick with it. Everything does happen the way it’s supposed to.
GSC: Do you feel like you have a stronger love for music, or for making music?
POLITTE: I think they’re different for me. I love them in different ways for sure. I’ll always need to listen to external music, but I love listening to our music, I love making our music. I think they’re two separate things for me.
DALTON: The process of it is different. Making music and listening to it, but having the external sound of what you’re listening to match what you’re making or inspire what you’re working on.
SHAIPS:I will say, listening to music is different now than what it was before becoming a producer. Dissecting a beat now if I listen to a beat from my favorite artist it’s like, ‘That’s an interesting snare he used there, would it have been better with another snare, or how can I incorporate that snare into my own song’. It brings a whole new dynamic to listening to music that is cool, it’s a curse and a blessing.
POLITTE: You can’t really enjoy music the same way you used to because you know so much about what goes into it.
DALTON: I always think of that aspect, less from the technical aspect, but from what were they thinking when they made the song, how many takes, and what version of the song is this, that’s that part of music that is different to me now. Not as much the creating versus listening, but I don’t think there’s bad music I think there’s bad execution on the vision. If you execute correctly it fits what you’re looking for, but if you don’t execute that perfectly it might still sound good to someone else’s ear.
GSC: What inspires your music outside of other music?
DALTON: The dream of being able to create music as more than a hobby. Being an artist and not having to worry about getting time to get into the studio. I would love to do this everyday, as a job, and be able to create a living for our families. Creating a different lifestyle we can do together.
POLITTE: For me, I’m not going on a hike and coming back and getting inspired or anything. I’m bad at expressing myself, so I think producing helps a lot with that. I can put out how I feel in a musical way. I can’t express myself through writing and recording so I put it in a piano
GSC: I feel like I can hear your self expression in your instrumentation even though Dalton is the one expressing himself verbally.
POLITTE: It works with us well too, because the way I listen to music I’m all production I love just the sonics of it. I don’t listen to lyrics as much, there’s probably a lot of songs on my Spotify that have dogshit lyrics and I just love the way it sounds. It’s why I like weird music, it’s for the sound of it, so the lyrics aren’t taking away from the beat, it just adds to the vibe of what I’m expressing.
GSC: Dalton how are you able to express yourself differently in music than you can in your life?
DALTON: A lot of the things are feelings that don’t bring me joy that I don’t know how to process other than to write about it. A lot of the things are faith based, and the battle I have with myself and my faith, and my mental health, and not using it as a crutch. Being able to write that on paper and saying it out loud takes away the sting. I say a lot of things that I might never say to my wife or my parents or even Politte unless it comes out on the mic. I take the negativity that I feel in my life and put it on paper to ruminate on it and get over it. It always feels like a weight is lifted after recording.
GSC: Getting into the album, when you were sending me some of the demos for the tracks “Silver” stuck out and it perfectly introduces the ideas in Frequencies perfectly.
DALTON: That came about in one night. We recorded some of it to make it sound better with the new set up, but that song from the night we made it I said “This is the intro.” I would never have placed it anywhere but the first song, that was the intention; it fully encapsulates the feeling of the project from the beginning. If I had to show anybody one song of ours it would be “Silver”.
POLITTE: That came together like butter. It starts off super stripped back with just his vocals. From there it just starts building and building into this wall of noise, I think it shows all our strengths, it’s a perfect introduction to our sound. Whatever that is. It’s probably his most vulnerable song too.
GSC: The sentiments of fear in all the things that are changing but the hook of “Thank God I’m Me” is a perfect way to express hope and tenacity.
DALTON: That’s the feeling I had when I listen to that song, no matter how shitty my situation feels in the present moment I wouldn’t rather be in anybody else’s position. When I say at the beginning it’s been so hard to see the silver lining, one thing I try to do is find hope or joy in every scenario. “I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed”, no matter what though I’m still me and I’m thankful.
GSC: “Good Luck With That” is a great follow up because it feels like a punch in the face to some of the self doubt in “Silver” and leans heavily into its sweltering confidence.
DALTON: “That song was going to be at the end of the album, but the more we listened to it we thought why not just put it after the intro. The car door slams, and there’s this moment of reflection where he drives away, and I thought if I was having this self reflection and I’m getting my mind off of things what would I listen to? It would be a song like that.
POLITTE: We want people to listen to our music. No one listens to our music right now, so we didn’t want to have this super slow introspective start. We wanted to show all we’ve got in our chamber. It’s called “Good Luck With That”, because whenever we tell people we make music they’re always like, oh yeah ‘Good Luck With That’ because what else are they supposed to say? Its our response, here’s what we’ve got.
GSC: “Clocks” is a more introspective song with a mesmerizing verse from sicknailer. I love the line, “8 hours go to sleep, 8 hours go to work, 8 hours go to wishing that my life had a purpose”
DALTON: It’s one of our older songs from Apt. F, it’s been around since 2021-22. We didn’t change it much besides re-recording it. It’s probably the oldest song on the entire project. I love that song so I wanted to put it on the project from the beginning.
POLITTE: It’s funny he’s such a finance bro. If you talked to him you’d never think Nick had that hook in him, but he is much more artistic than meets the eye.
GSC: “TAKE COVER” is a showstopper, but “C3PO” made me dance the most out of any track on the album.
POLITTE: I’ve always thought C3PO was the weirdest beat that not a lot of people were going to vibe with. So it’s funny to hear you say you danced to it.
GSC: It’s part of a really upbeat three song run ending in “DKC” which has a similar energy.
POLITTE: “That was one of our earlier ones too. It has a swagger sort of feeling that comes to a climax with “KEEP WALKING” which goes from swagger to aggression, that’s the final stage before and then you come down. From then on the songs start getting more chill, a little less in your face. Because after you have a blow up like that or something, you start to think about what you’re doing or what you’ve done..
DALTON: I have a bar, “beating on my chest bang bang, gorilla” and the retro sound of the beat felt like it needed drums from an old Nintendo game so we sampled Donkey Kong Country drums throughout. The concept with the tracklist, slamming the car door shut and playing upbeat music to keep your mind off of things before it gets aggressive. So those three songs encapsulate that aggressive feeling with “KEEP WALKING” being the exclamation point of that feeling. Then from that point on it’s okay, I’ve exercised that demon, what else do I have to talk about. From “Rearview” forward, it takes that different perspective.
GSC: “KEEP WALKING” tells a lucid story, you even say “He’s killing the beat, it’s feeling unstable, it reminds me of a story listen closely to this fable”, the thrashing of the beat mirrors that peak aggression.
DALTON: It was inspired by a dream I had, about a fight I got into outside a gas station. I had too much to drink, went to the gas station, guy looked at me funny, I whoop his ass, the cops come, and then I wake up. It encapsulates this tough guy image, lashing out over anything.
POLITTE: I made the beat for it that night, That was one of the songs we made all in one session.
DALTON: We’ve done that a couple times where the beat and the idea are created at the same time, the “Car Ride” intro for Apt. F first EP and “Shoulders” on the second Apt. F EP for example. Everything worked out so perfectly on “KEEP WALKING”, that’s one I would want to perform live so bad.
GSC: “Rearview” represents the tonal shift of the album. It’s both a celebration and devastation mood set by Shaips’ verse and the chorus.
DALTON: Where that is on the record, even the name of it, getting into the car using the rearview mirror to look back. That’s another song made closer to the Apt. F times. It’s a person hopelessly devoted to somebody, whatever they need is yours, forever, no matter what.
SHAIPS:What’s weird about that too man, I really don’t know where that verse came from. I’m almost speaking in third person for someone else. It’s not necessarily coming from me, I’ve had that pain in the past but when I came over that night I was not in pain, I was almost speaking for someone else or someone in a past life that I’ve lived. I don’t know where it came from but it felt right in the moment.
GSC: “wyd?” is one of the more unique songs on the album. The beat is different, it’s very sexy and it reminds me of a 12am car ride.
DALTON: That song has a full concept. The first verse is very braggadocious and confident. The chorus “what you doing tonight, let me take up your time”, sounds like you’re sending a text to get together. The second verse divulges into the despair you feel when someone doesn’t text you back right away. Outside the tone of the album it sounds almost like a love song, but within the context of the album it sounds like a cry for help. You can hear him typing multiple real long texts, trying to get this person’s attention. Then at the end they give up with the FaceTime call that isn’t answered.
POLITTE: It’s an immature feeling. You’re double texting, you’re kind of freaking out towards the end. Then you realize they’re done and they think you’re weird, it’s more of a feeling of insecurity. I made that beat a long time ago. It was too busy but I changed up the beat to make it a little more palatable and that’s where he went off with it.
GSC: “MOON MAN” is special, there’s a flip of the chorus on “Pursuit of Happiness” and the homage with the song’s title. It’s centered around what sounds like a conversation with yourself, and a conversation with God.
DALTON: The number one thing I struggle with is my battle with faith. I try to think of everything as a conversation with God. “My I’m scared, maybe I’m terrified, that all of my fears are verified”. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of in life, is that all the things I’m scared of are true. Even if it’s irrational, what if it’s not. What if all the things I’m worried about with my faith in God or lack of faith are true. So that second verse is just an honest conversation with myself while talking to God. It’s healthy to question everything, if you have everything figured out you’re lying. So if I don’t question what I believe I’ll never grow to be the best version of myself. “The question of you proves you like an equal sign”, I was raised to believe, and all I saw was the light growing up, but I want to believe because I choose to believe.
GSC: “Farside” is similar to “wyd?” in that it’s the only song like it on the album.
DALTON: That’s all Politte, I fought it tooth and nail to get put on the album. That second verse is my favorite verse he’s ever written.
POLITTE: I’m an insecure person when it comes to my thoughts and presenting them. I felt cringe about it at first because it’s very in your face. It’s very loud and I’m not hiding anything I’m saying, I’m saying exactly how I feel. It’s vulnerable so that’s hard. I started off with writing something to it, I didn’t like how it sounded, so I cut out some vocals, and played it in reverse in the background. It felt super eerie and dark, and that’s how I wanted it to turn out. That second verse I wrote a little later and it just felt right.
GSC: “Incomplete” feels like a catharsis and completely letting go of frustrations, expectations and everything in between.
DALTON: That song was the last song we made for the project, after we made that song we cut it off. That’s one of the more complex tracks we’ve had, it has so much beyond what you can hear even. It’s very much like “MOON MAN” with a lot of thought inward, instead of outside. I’m almost talking to myself, saying “I can’t solve you when you’re incomplete”.
GSC: Is it easier to write personal songs versus concept songs?
POLITTE: I think if I make a good enough beat that gets you into that zone.
DALTON: Politte does a really good job eliciting an emotion that I’m trying to feed off of. If I hear something I’ll stop everything we’re doing and focus on the part of the song that brings inspiration. So the piano, the way the drums come in, allow me to get deeper into those thoughts that I have.
GSC: What is your favorite song from the project?
DALTON: These are all my babies. I do enjoy the music that we make. “Silver” will always be my choice if I had to show anybody a song, but I love “Incomplete” for different reasons, I love “DOWN” for different reasons. I have such an emotional connection with a lot of them because I’m saying things that connect me back to the moment when I made the song.
GSC: The sequence of songs from “DOWN” to the end of the album made me cry as I was listening to it.
DALTON: “DOWN” was created towards the end of our studio sessions. It’s a song I’m proud to show my family and my closest friends. Growing up where I did and believing the things I did compared to why I believe them now, and why my faith has grown. It speaks more to that, having this faith and still wondering why these bad things happen. No matter how much faith I have, and how much I do, why do things keep happening? Our lives are great as far as bad things go, but we all have mental health struggles. I have days where I don’t feel like getting out of bed. Just being able to look at those emotions of why I keep falling down and then realize there is a reason.
GSC: “Slipping/Cold Nights” two songs on one track continues the descent into the end of the album. “Slipping” discussing the passage of time, and “Cold Nights” being an ode to your wife.
DALTON: “The first song is talking about the struggles you go through with getting older and having a partner. It’s a privilege to have that pressure because it means you have something worth being worried about. “Cold Nights” is dedicated to my wife, the lady in the transition between the two songs is my wife. That’s my wife’s favorite song.
GSC: “Paradise” bookends the album quite nicely. It ties into “Silver” so well, they could almost switch places and have the same effect.
DALTON: I immediately knew that was going to be the outro, it had the sound of the credits rolling after a big movie. It felt like a period concluding the thought posed fourteen tracks ago. I feel like when we were recording over it we knew we had a completed project. As already discussed on the album, I wouldn’t rather be anybody else.
GSC: Why did you choose that album cover and name Frequencies?
DALTON: It’s about getting in the car and letting the radio dictate your mood. It’s forty five minutes, for me that’s a drive from my house to Politte’s studio. That’s why I feel like everything happens how it’s supposed to, I can press play leaving here and when I pull into my driveway it’ll be the end of “Paradise”.
GSC: What is the local music scene in St. Louis?
DALTON: I know local artists, and promoters, getting connected has been the biggest problem we have. I’ve sent our music to local promoters to try to get them to give us the time of day. We’re not involved in that scene, we’d love to be but somebody has to give us a chance. Even if it’s an open mic, I’ve been looking into those but it’s been hard to get on the docket because you have to have some level of credibility that we don’t yet. The natural next step is to find out where to play it live.
GSC: How would you describe your sound?
POLITTE: We don’t have a sound, we just make what we think sounds good. We’ll make a rock song. I don’t think we really care. It’s song to song dependent.
DALTON: That’s the hardest question. I think it encompasses alternative to pop music, some elements of it are rap, some elements are pop. I don’t have a sound that I can tell somebody. It’s not what you’re expecting.
GSC: Congratulations on being married for two years, and your newborn son. How has that transitional period of your life been?
DALTON: Our anniversary of being married is June 17th (Ed Note: Congratulations!). Which is awesome, I love my wife, I love my son. I write about my wife a lot in my music just because it’s so easy to. I could go on and on about how incredible she is, that’s where I draw a lot of my inspiration from. I think about when Archie gets older and he listens to the music, I don’t want him to question what something means. I make music for my enjoyment first, other people’s enjoyment second, and hopefully something for my son to remember me by. Something that can last forever. I’m very initial about what I record and what I say, I try not to cuss a lot on the record so he doesn’t hear me cuss. Concepts that I hope he ponders one day, stuff I hope he thinks about. My wife is the only person I want to show the music to when it’s done. Politte’s girlfriend Stephanie, gives her feedback, and it helps having people so important in our lives perspective to make the music that much more fulfilling. There’s no judgment.
GSC: Starting with Politte, what do the other people sitting in the room mean to you?
POLITTE: They’re my brothers. I love them. It’s so much better that I can do this shit with them. I’d go to war with these guys.
SHAIPS:Music is such an important part of my life. I’m blessed to say I have a lot of good friends, but music has always been a constant for me, so having friends that I can go to for anything and it all revolves around much which is my overall passion in life, I’m blessed. These are my boys for life.
DALTON: I always think about everything from the perspective of if we ever made it. It would be such a lonely feeling to do this by myself. I always ground myself in the sense that I truly enjoy what we do because we are band mates, or musicians, or whatever. There’s nobody else I would rather do it with. I love these guys. The dream is we all quit our jobs, we make music and we tour. I don’t want to make enough to lose myself, I want to make music, I want to tour, and I want to do it with my best friends.
Stream GROM’s Frequencies album on Spotify and on Apple Music. Stay tuned for more updates and follow Dalton on Twitter and Instagram for GROM updates(yes, TWITTER)
