Controlling The Room: Glasshouse's Grip
After a 4 am haircut by their barber, a sound check with the biggest speakers they had ever heard themselves through, Glasshouse braced themselves for their debut at Gov Ball. That is, until storm clouds covered the sky, and they were told some disappointing news.
Their set had been cut.
photo by Grace Abdayem
At that moment, they decided not to let this news tear them down. Rather, for the rest of their performing careers, they would use this experience to inform their concerts, no matter the size of their crowd.
“It just kind of changes the way that you perform,” says producer Luis Luna. “Even though we always aspire to elevate the room, now we control the room. We could turn any room into the Super Bowl.”
Glasshouse have always been masters of putting on a vibrant show. Writer and rapper Gerald Liriano (Liri) met Luna through a “beat fair” at Movement City, where he worked at the time. This competition served as an opportunity for emerging producers to showcase seven beat mixes to an audience and a panel of producers.
Several artists performed their full sets, mostly hip-hop, on turntables and laptops. Luna, on the other hand, brought two EDM-inspired beats and played them both from his phone. He won the competition that night.
As the winner, he received a new beat pack and studio time. Luna heard about Liri and his music through whispers around Lawrence, MA. After connecting at the event, they used the studio time together.
For Luna, who grew up circulating between CDs around his house, his musical roots greatly inspired his production style today.
“Music is just something that surrounds you […] It's almost a communal effort to decorate at that time. You can't really escape the surrounding sounds of your environment,” he claims.
Once they found their footing as a duo, the two decided to tie in singer Jahmo Elijah Chavez (Elijae), a new source of inspiration they discovered through Lawrence’s open mic circuit.
“That guy was doing something different every time. He’d play a guitar, play a song, play an original song, play a cover, he’d be featured on someone else’s song!” remembers Liri. “I just walked up to him and was like, You want to be in a band? He's like, okay. And that's it.”
Elijae’s musical roots, like Luna's, inform his style, but this goes beyond sound; they actually give him the ability to perform. The singer couldn’t speak until he was five years old, so music became his way to connect. For him, music is not an escape but a tool.
To this day, he does not stutter on stage. He turns what might have been fear into a way to become a better performer.
“I care for how my brothers look. I care about how the sound looks. I care for little teeny, teeny, weeny things,” he says. “If I'm too far back, somehow my stage presence is lesser because I'm in the middle of the stage and not at the front of the stage. Little teeny things like that probably don't mean a lot, but I will give that meaning if it directs me somewhere.”
Beyond the studio time provided by Movement City, the group received money to start their own personal studio, a unique experience granted to them after performing at a local festival.
Access to the studio pushed their work ethic into first gear. Able to create regardless of the time of day, the three worked constantly on new music.
“We went there at night, and we left when the sun was out, because you have that freedom when you have your own space,” Liri says. “Being in the room with the artists while you're working with them is completely different than just sending an opinion over the internet, you know?”
Since all of their music already exists on a shared computer, they can always build on each other's songs. Often, one of them starts on vocals or a beat, and the next day, another member adds a new take.
Their writing style became non-linear for this reason. Oftentimes, because of their unique process, they’ll start writing the middle of a song before anything else. This works for them; Since getting together, their writing speed has accelerated significantly. Initially, it took almost 6 months to nail down a track, whereas now they’re almost pumping out a song a day.
“It's also just this application for years of not being married to a single idea and absolutely throwing your ego outside of the window when you work with a group,” says Elijae.
“I've rewritten verses. Like, there's no way you're gonna do better than me,” says Liri.
This rapport is also the reason they’re so open to new ideas. They know that everyone is always right to push their music to be the best it can be.
“[Luna’s] job is always to throw beats at us that are really cool, but really hard to perform on, which always gives you this unique verse, you know. You never end up repeating yourself when it stays interesting,” Liri says with a laugh.
Glasshouse knows how to keep things interesting even beyond the studio. They pride themselves on having a set that keeps audiences engaged. One way they do this is by structuring the setlist to shift the tone throughout, keeping audience members “alive.”
Their unreleased track “Slum Village” is played halfway through their explosive set. This song is slower than the rest and acts as a freestyle spoken through a beat, helping Liri both level with the audience and accentuate his lyrics as a moment in time.
Liri believes that music is the closest thing to reliving an emotion, so it's important to be as provocative and raw as possible.
“You can complain, I'm not gonna hear you. I think it's very important for your voice to be heard,” he says. “Music is the only thing we got to fight. So speak your truth. Type shit.”
This is more than just the lyrics; it’s about the production as well. Elijae credits Luna’s production as a key part of this strength: “I would say that what I've learned from him in this journey has been a lot, in regards to structure, how to build tension, and how to release it.”
All of this also goes along with the fact that most of their set is unreleased music. They have to keep people engaged because they don’t have the safety blanket of singing along. To do this, energy has to be high, which, if you’ve seen Glasshouse play live, you know is not a difficult task.
So, Glasshouse has built their following and established themselves as powerful performers. Now we all want to know: when is the album coming out? Well, according to the group, Cullet is almost ready after five years of work. For readers that are anxiously awaiting its arrival, look no further, as the album is set to be released: “On the best day in spring, summer… soon.”
The three grew incredibly close in the time that they have been playing together, now often bickering like brothers. The group even jokes that they could never be each other's emergency contacts. However, this playful catfighting actually informs their writing, with each member constantly building on what they bring to the table, not out of jealousy, but out of spite.