Finding his groove
Local musician finds his groove as Gregatron
Local musician and producer discovers his alternate identity,
For local musician Greg Williams, wearing different hats is just part of what’s so exciting about working in music.
Williams writes his own music and performs it himself or with other artists. It’s a piano-based dance music, a fusion mashup of many different styles like jazz and euro-dance. In his day-to-day music work, he’s known by his regular name.
But for his stage performance and producing, he’s adopted a persona of sorts, that of Gregatron, with an appearance that reminds one of an astronaut geared up to travel into the vast reaches of space. As part of this character, he dons a helmet and special gloves adorned with LED lights.
It’s all a definite indicator of the sense of fun Gregatron wants the audience to feel in his music. And this open, engaging attitude about his musical approach is partnered with a dedication to the craft of it all.
While he’s a talented pianist and music composer, he’s also a producer, working with artists in such places as Nashville or Los Angeles. Indiana-born, he came to Texarkana in a roundabout way, via nearby Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, where he met the minister of music at his current church.
It was while attending Taylor University back in Indiana that he first adopted the Gregatron persona. He was studying jazz and classical music, composers like Chopin and Rachmaninoff. Only 18 years old back then, he was thinking of ways to flash his keyboard skills in a manner that appealed to people at the time. It didn’t seem to be popular then.
“I fused electronic music with my keyboarding skills. Where most deejays do like a quote-unquote deejay drop, I do a keyboard solo instead,” Williams said. A school friend dubbed him Gregatron, a moniker Williams didn’t think much of at first.
“When I had my first show, I was like I need a stage name and Gregatron sounds kind of cool,” Williams said. Thus, Gregatron was born to give him a broader appeal.
Music was always present in family life for Williams, and this was part of his musical evolution. His dad was a musician so a drum set was forever at the home. He got his first keyboard when he was just a youngster. His grandmother purchased one for him when he was around 11 years old.
“It was for Christmas. It was a Casio,” he recalled of this basic beginner’s keyboard. He played drum sounds on it. Eventually, he got more serious with it. He’s largely self-taught. Church music involvement helped nurture his skills.
With Gregatron, Williams can bring music to parties and various events. It’s his live act. He writes his own music, but he admits he’s not a singer. He often writes songs and then hires a singer to perform with him, something the French DJ Snake does a lot, as does the Russian-German producer and deejay Zedd.
“It’s a way for me to express my art and have my songs out, and I don’t have to actually sing them,” Williams said. He released his first single, “Touch the Sky,” last year; it’s EDM with heavy synthesizers. His more recent songs include “Galactic Love.”
“I’ve really been liking the retro vibe that pop has been going to,” Williams said, describing the 1970s and ’80s sound that permeates his new material. “What I Want,” featuring local singer Logan Wesley, has a sort of Marvin Gaye feel to it, he believes.
“I did dance and techno for a long time, but for now I’m experimenting with new sounds,” Williams said. At club performances, he’ll mix it up with his music and cover songs performed in his style, featuring those keyboard solos.
“When I’m on stage I just want to focus on bringing the energy and bringing the keyboard skills,” he explains.
At a recent deejay set in town, Gregatron brings exactly those elements to the act, entering the club room dramatically while wearing the helmet, a light show flashing across the stage as he hops up to start performing with other musicians, then removing the helmet to reveal glasses and flashing white lights as he puts his own keyboarding touch on recognizable tunes. Her personalizes the songs, in a way.
With the Gregatron getup, Williams gets to express his love for outer space. It also marks him as different from the rest. “How can I stand out?” he remembers asking himself. He has a new helmet on the way.
Williams plays events as a keyboardist for hire and plays with other bands, too, but Gregatron is about seven years old. It’s taken off in the past two years. He takes it on the road, often in his home state or in California.
He’d like to play large music festivals someday, and he dreams of starting his own label. He recently opened up for R&B artist Tank.
“The flipside is just producing,” Williams said. He might flesh out the music for an artist who’s written lyrics, for example. He often works remotely with FaceTime, which he enjoys because of the real-time feedback.
You can look for Gregatron’s music to be on a Netflix show sometime in the future with a new series called “Neal and Vee,” he said. He’s not sure when it will air, but he lucked out knowing an actress in the show. It’s not surprising to him because he’s always dreamed he’d be successful and up on stage.
“Whenever things happened for me, I’m shocked but I’m not shocked,” Williams said. It’s about putting himself in a successful mindset, which he believes helps him make better decisions.
Being on stage? “I just enjoy watching the crowd have a good time,” he says. And that includes youngsters, with whom he works teaching piano lessons. He hopes to inspire people to go get what they want to go for.
“I enjoy being in that spot where you may be somebody else’s source of inspiration,” Williams said.