Five Questions With NYC Beatboxer Grey Matter

Grey Matter, Beatboxing Teacher at Lessonface.com

Monday, January 7th 2013

Grey Matter, born Andrew Gutterson, is an underground New York beatboxing savant. He’s a skilled teacher, as evidenced by his beatboxing tutorial series, which has been viewed over 5,000,000 times, and has the charisma to connect with huge names in the music industry. He’s worked with Justin Bieber on MTV and Cee Lo Green for a 7 Up commercial, and had work featured on Showtime and BET. He’s performed for NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Jaleel White (best known for playing the infamous Steve Urkel), and frequents Long Island’s 5 Pointz, the Mecca of graffiti where music legends such as Doug E. Fresh, Kurtis Blow, Rahzel, and Joan Jett stop by. We spoke with Grey Matter, who described himself as “a regular, chill guy who makes noise with his mouth,” for this week’s Five Questions.

Lessonface: How did you get into beatboxing? What made you start and who are some of your biggest influences?

Grey Matter: I got into beatboxing through A.D.D. and boredom. I had my core group of friends here and there growing up, but I was always forced to do sports and all different types of things that I had no real interest in per se, and so I started making noise with my mouth. I went to college at Muhlenberg in Allentown, P.A., and went to an event for accepted students and saw someone beatboxing and said “I want to do that.” I continued beatboxing through college, did a video tutorial online, which has about 5,000,000 views worldwide, made a 7 Up commercial with Cee Lo Green, and here I am.

Lf: What type of music did you listen to growing up and how did that inform your beatboxing?

GM: I listened to a little bit of everything -- country, hip hop, rock, anything that came through my ears I’d listen to. I always want to try and emulate what I hear, so I sit here and go through different types of music. The more music I listen to the better I feel like I can get.

Here’s an example of a Grey Matter live performance at an NYC subway station.

Lf: What got you interested in teaching online and through Lessonface? What experience do you have teaching in general?

GM: My friend told me about Lessonface. He knew someone involved with Lessonface he used to work with and passed on the word to me, and I was interested. I teach people how to beatbox everyday. I give specific tutorials at 5 Pointz, teach people how to beatbox real quickly, and I’ve also worked with corporations like Nike and Nikon, but not in a classroom per se. I can teach anyone I meet -- it’s a great conversation starter.

Lf: You've posted videos on YouTube [a video with Justin Bieber is embedded at the bottom of the page], which has helped you earn fans around the world. Does that best represent your style?

GM: I’m not really sure any of these videos gives you a good example of what my style is per se. I’d have to do a specific video just for you guys. I do a little bit of everything, there’s nothing I don’t do yet. It’s all freestyle, more or less. There’s a video on YouTube of me in a 5 Pointz shirt, just going off, and I think that’s the one that would be best for people to see.

Lf: Can you tell us a bit about what's going on with any musical/educational projects you're working on?

GM: Everything is in the works, everything just happens randomly in my life. Right now I’m open for upcoming projects. I’d love to meet someone off of Lessonface and travel somewhere and teach in a specific place, go and teach somewhere else. I can teach thousands of people in New York City but music, as they say, is universal. Most people are from other countries who watch my videos, a lot are from Europe or Asia. I’d like to go live with someone for a week and teach him or her to beatbox, kind of like what MTV’s “Made” does but on a much smaller scale.