So Grenade will be my oldest track that is actually getting released, it’s been circling the internet as a Chainsmokers x QUIX - ID for the last 5 years.
Initially, the boys DM’d me on Twitter early 2018 just as I was finishing up mowing my parents lawn, I remember distinctly as it was a massive milestone in my career. I got working on a fresh track to send them as a WIP “work in progress” and they said to me they’d try play it at Ultra Miami 2018 if we got the drop to a good place. I struggled to come up with something “cool” and kept getting writers block until a week before Ultra I came up with what is now the first drop of the song. I remember thinking to myself that I had rushed the production of the drop and I didn’t think they’d like it… quite the opposite!
An amazing moment in my life was watching them drop it at Ultra and being in the crowd to experience it, that was also my first time playing/attending Ultra swell. Fast forward to the end of the year and the boys invited me to their INSANE studio in LA and we got working on the rest of the track, Drew recorded some vocals and we worked on the 2nd drop. The song was probably 80% finished, it just needed that extra fiddling around with the arrangement and mixing etc.
As time went on, Drew and Alex prepared to launch their next album and understandably their focus went away from finishing our track, and thus the idea of releasing the song slowly fell away. End of the day I wasn’t that guttered or sad, because the experience I had been given until this point was beyond anything I could have asked for, but still wished we could have released it.
More time elapsed, Covid happened, I started a family, I had 100% shoved the collab in a locked box and thrown away the key until… I had the idea of randomly reaching out to the boys on Twitter (note that I hadn’t spoken to them in years…) and presented the idea to them of releasing the collab by myself, just as QUIX. I was 100% expecting a gentle decline and “sorry bro probably not” but they came back super positive and keen! Literally I was in shock by how chill they were. So I got to work, finished that last 20% of the song and sent it back to them and they approved it immediately!
One of the hidden meanings behind this track is the ‘idea’ that I’m putting this record out that I started 5 years ago, and I’ve applied my advanced mixing and creative skills to this track, that when started I was still figuring out how to “do stuff” in FL Studio.
