Greyson Zane: Pop Punk Artist from Orlando Ready to Rock Your World

Greyson Zane: Pop Punk Artist from Orlando Ready to Rock Your World

Based out of the thriving Orlando, Florida music scene, Greyson Zane is ready to rock your world with his super infectious pop punk anthems.  Songs such as 2 Cool 4 Me, Dead @ 16, and Emo Trash are garnering the artist a good deal of attention above and beyond the Sunshine State.  Greyson has played the iconic Van’s Warped Tour and he’s about to open for Hawthorne Heights at their Emo Block Party.  Highwire Daze recently interviewed Greyson Zane the night before Thanksgiving weekend to find out a whole lot more about this amazing artist on the rise.  Read on…

Where are you based out of, and what is your local music scene like there?
I’m based out of Orlando, Florida, and the music scene is amazing. We have a bunch of amazing artists like Magnolia Park, 408, Felicity, Dark Divine, Not, Better Place – there’s so many great acts coming out of Orlando right now and it’s awesome like we all really want to see each other succeed, and we really all help each other in any way possible.

I just saw Magnolia Park out here in Los Angeles, and they put on a tremendous show.
Yeah, I love the Magnolia Park guys. Josh actually does my music videos, and he helps me with a lot of my TikTok stuff.

Let’s talk about your new song 2 Cool 4 Me. What is the story behind the lyrics to that song?
I go to college in Boston and I originally wrote that song because I was feeling a certain type of way, I was feeling like, you know, people felt like they were too cool to hang out with me or be my friend and that’s what I wrote the chorus about. Then fast forward to about April of this year, I went to New York and I ended up finishing the song with Alex Magnan from Young Culture and Billy Mannino – he’s a really great producer who’s doing a lot of the amazing emo bands that are coming up in the scene right now. And so we went to that studio in Queens, Billy’s studio, Two Worlds Recording, and we finished the song. And then I brought it to my producer in Orlando and we finished it. The song kind of changed meaning when I brought it to New York, it kind of went from being about people that are too cool for you to a song know, all of our exes, and it kind of meshed together from our shared experiences of past relationships.

You’re about to do the Emo Block party with Hawthorne Heights. What are you looking forward to the most about that?
I’m really looking forward to playing with all my friends, I mean, 408 is playing, Felicity is playing, I did Emo Trash with them. Twin Rova is playing. I’m really excited about playing with those bands because we’re kind of, like, in the same scene, going up together. I’m really excited to play with Capstan, they are Orlando legends. So, it’s basically kind of like five Orlando bands that all go to the same studio, which is really funny, Audio Compound here in Orlando. So, yeah, it’s like five Orlando bands that all go to the same studio and are on various labels and Hawthorne Heights, you know – a legend. I’m really excited to play with Hawthorne Heights. I’ve actually never seen them live, and I’ve seen most bands that I’ve ever wanted to see live. So, I’m really excited to get a chance to play on the same stage and then watch them.

Will you and Felicity maybe perform Emo Trash at the Emo block party?
Yeah, it’s actually going to be the live debut of that song. Well, technically not the live debut because Felicity has been playing it and they’ve had other people from the scene, for example, Jason from Twin Rova has been doing my parts in the song while I’ve been in Boston, but it’s going to– that show is going to be the first time that we ever play Emo Trash together, like, the way that it was in the studio.

For people who haven’t heard it, what was the inspiration behind Emo Trash?
That was, like, an interesting story because– I became friends with Drew from Felicity, he’s the guitarist, probably a little over a year ago. And one night I went to a Felicity show to support the Homies and hang out. And me and Drew ended up going downtown Orlando afterwards to our favorite bar to just hang out, and he was showing me some of their new demos of songs that are out now and I was showing him some of my demos of songs that are also out now. He just brought it up, he’s like, Yo, we should do a song together and I was like, really? You want to do a song with me?  Because at the time, Felicity had, like, 50,000 monthly listeners and I had like 200 at the time, and now they have 80,000 and I have 10,000, but it was really crazy. So, it was an amazing opportunity.

What should we do it about? He’s like, we should do it about being like, emo degenerates and I was like, okay. He’s like, yeah, like emo trash and that phrase was the first time that he’d ever said it.  He just said it out of the blue, and then we kept talking about it for months and months and months, and then I finally came back to Orlando, and we wrote it together. And then we went to the studio with my producer, and we finished it. I guess the inspiration behind the song is just definitely making fun of a lot of the emo stereotypes that we grew up, because I was bullied in middle school and high school for listening to all this type of music and stuff, but it’s just like the stereotypes, and we just thought it’d be fun to make fun of, you know, as emo people, it’d be kind of fun.

The video turned out great.
Yeah. That’s actually the bar that me and Drew were going to that night. It’s the same bar.

What’s the name of that bar?
Sly Fox.  That’s where a lot of the local bands hang out in Orlando.

Tell me about Dead @ 16 and the inspiration behind that.
That one’s a little dark.  I OD’d when I was 16, and I kind of wrote that song about that because when I was in the studio with my producer, Andy, we decided to write a song from scratch, and we were like, well, what should the lyrics be about.  And he was just talking to me, being like, let’s talk about some of your past life experiences, maybe stuff that you haven’t written about yet. So, we were just talking, and I realized that I’d never written a song about me OD-ing – and I kind of had this phrase in my head – Dead @ 16 – and we kind of just wrote the song about how I felt, and we wrote the lyrics together. I’m really proud of that one. That one means a lot to me, but, yeah, it’s kind of dark.

Greyson Zane via Zoom!

Is a song, like that kind of difficult to perform live?
Not anymore, because I’m 22 now, so it’s a little different because it was, like, six years ago. It’s definitely a little bit emotional, but it’s not going to make me cry on stage or anything like that. I wouldn’t say it’s really that difficult to play it live, but it does bring me back to those times, singing those lyrics every time I do.

I noticed on your bio it said you played the Warped Tour.  What was that experience like?
That was with my old band back in 2018, we played the last four Florida dates. We played Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm of the 2018 Warped Tour.  I was 16, my drummer was 15, the other guitarist was 16, the vocalist was 18. We had an amazing time. Our parents really supported us a lot through that, and they really made it possible for us to do that because they knew that that’s been one of our dreams since we were like 12, – basically, to play a Warped Tour and we had a great time. We had an amazing turnout in Orlando, our hometown, and West Palm and, yeah, that band broke up about three years ago now, but, yeah, that was an amazing experience. I got the wristband that I could do whatever I wanted and being 16 and bands that I was super into at the time, like Motionless In White or Real Friends or Chelsea Grin or Falling in Reverse or Movements – I got to hang out backstage while they got to play Warped Tour. It was just like a dream come true and it was awesome, and I got to go to catering and it was just a lot of fun. I would say that’s definitely one of the highlights of my young life so far.

What was the name of the band that played Warp Tour that you played with on Warped Tour?
We were called Steal The Day.

Steal The Day?
Yeah. S-T-D.  We came up with that name when we were, like, 14. We thought it was funny that our acronym could be S-T-D. Our first song ever was called Protection is for Losers. Just because our name was S-T-D.

Away from S-T-Ds and back to Greyson Zane and his solo stuff. So if you could open for any band or artist, either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
I would say, it might not work because they wouldn’t like me is Metallica. Metallica is my favorite band of all time. I have Metallica tattoo. Metallica is just the greatest band in the entire world to me. I know how to play literally every single song on guitar, I know almost the lyrics to every single Metallica song. My music doesn’t really reflect that at all, but Metallica is just my favorite band of all time and it’s just I can’t even describe in words how much I love that band, how much they mean to me. But a band that would work and their fans would probably like me is Bring Me The Horizon. So, those are probably the two.

If you could do a pop punk version of a Metallica song, what song would you choose and why?
That’s kind of tough because, I mean, Sum 41 is kind of already like the pop punk version of Metallica, because if you change Sum 41 riffs into a minor key, it kind of sounds like Metallica. But if I had to choose one off the top of my head, I would probably say Damage Inc because that one is super-fast paced, and that one could be, like, a classic, super-fast paced pop punk song. So, yeah, I’d probably say that.

If the music of Greyson Zane was a donut, what kind would it be and why?
Probably a glazed donut with strawberry icing and sprinkles and I’d probably say because it’s delicious, yummy, nice to look at, but, yeah, I don’t know–

What’s up in the new year for you?
I have a headlining show here in Orlando at Will’s Pub, January 19th. I have a lot of great bands playing that show with me, like Felicity and Twin Rova and Not and Better Place – shout out to all of them, they’re amazing! And then my EP comes out the same day, January 19th.

Have you ever played out here in Los Angeles, or is that something you’d like to do, come out here to the west coast?
Yeah, I’d absolutely love to come to the West Coast and play. I’ve been to LA twice, I absolutely love it! I have a lot of friends in LA, and I think it’d be a lot of fun to just come out in LA and play and have all my friends come out and support and watch.

Do you have any messages for people who are listening to your music right now or people who are about to discover you who are reading this article right now?
I hope that you can listen to my songs and know that someone has gone through what you’re going through and that you’re not alone in a lot of these things that you go through.  I write all these songs from a personal experience. There’s at least one person that’s in the same boat as you if you listen and relate to my song.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

Greyson Zane on Instagram