Music for the Masses

The sleepy town of Santa Ana, California, didn’t know what it was in for on that Thursday night in August. The Yost Theater was packed with those eager to enjoy another edition of Havoc Thursdays, this particular week presented by Insomniac’s Bassrush and White Rabbit Group. There was a lack of dance space on the main floor, but no one cared. The crowd was all smiles and ready to go hard. Evidence of the night’s performer lay strewn about the venue, in the form of free pizzas dotting the booths. It had to be Crizzly.

Crizzly (aka Chris Lee Marshall) was there to bless the crowd with crunkstep—a bass-fueled mix of dubstep and hip-hop—which he originated following his time growing up in the suburbs of San Antonio, Texas. It was there, at a young age, that he picked up the influences of electro and hip-hop, while studying music theory, fine-tuning his production skills, and listening to DJs at school dances.

At a Rusko show in Dallas, he was hooked with the track “Sweet Shop” by Doctor P. Seeing the crowd’s reactions, he learned there was nothing to do but give them what they wanted—a lesson he’d carry with him as he began his DJ career.

“I grew up in the middle of nowhere, but I knew what the kids wanted,” he says of his early DJ days.

Then he found dubstep, a style of music he enjoyed at raves, but one he felt was lacking an important component. To him, that missing piece was hip-hop. His mission was clear: add hip-hop to dubstep. End result: crunkstep.

A series of skillful maneuvers—including handing out USB drives to his favorite producers following his set at EDC Las Vegas 2011—helped boost his stock. His EDC stunt caught the attention of Diplo, who regularly plays the Crizzly remix of Waka Flacka Flame’s “Hard in da Paint.” Next, he planted his own version of A.J. Hernz’s “Snap Back Swag” onto Skrillex’s tour bus playlist. Now Skrillex plays it in his sets. Soon Crizzly was sweeping across the nation, acquiring more followers at shows like Warped Tour and Lollapalooza.

Living in Austin, the 23-year-old Crizzly is focused on building his empire, which includes constructing a new home studio, starting a label, and as always, preparing to release new tracks.

There were a lot of baby steps that led up to big moments, but the first time I realized things were really happening was when I got to quit Walmart around 2009.

You’re in the process of creating your own label now, yes?
Yes. Right now, it’s all the legal work [and] making sure everything is set up right for this release. The first release on the label is going to be mine. The main reason I’m doing it is to get my music out on iTunes and Pandora. I’ve tried to work with labels, but it takes forever, you have to give them everything, and then they take a lot from the product. You can’t say a whole lot. Because my whole career has been to just give away tracks on my own, we’ve never had to use labels. So we are just going to do my own label.

Good for you.
I think what I’m going to do in the beginning is put out my tracks and then just give them away for free. Once you are in control of it, it’s easier. When you have to ask someone to do something with your music and you have to depend upon them, it’s just a pain.

Do you have artists in mind whom you want to put on your label?
I have a lot of close friends I want to put on there. I know that they go through the same struggles as me. They have tracks, and they just have to wait and wait to put them out.

Do you remember the moment you came up with the term crunkstep?
It all started with me going to raves and stuff in Austin. Everyone was playing dubstep, and I thought it would be really awesome to add in hip-hop. I made it a goal. No one was really doing it. Some people would mix in little samples of hip-hop, and people were going crazy.

Yeah, you’d be going off, and then it would just stop.
Yeah. So I added rap, and I eventually had to come up with a term. Then crunkstep happened.

What hip-hop artists were you really into in the beginning?
I grew up in the ’burbs in San Antonio, so mainstream music was all I [had] at first. There was a lot of hip-hop on TV, and it was doing well in the clubs—Lil Jon and all that stuff.

When did you start getting into electronic music?

I’ve been listening to EDM a lot longer than dubstep—like, for six years. I wouldn’t even call it EDM back then. It was more electro, which I was really into. I liked Diplo a lot.

Do you remember the moment when you realized everything was going to change for you? You were just living an everyday normal life and then, “Whoa, I’m going to the Warped Tour!”
There were a lot of baby steps that led up to big moments, but the first time I realized things were really happening was when I got to quit Walmart around 2009. I was like, “Yes, I’m outta here. I quit!”

It’s like that movie Half Baked, when the dude’s like, “Fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, I’m out!”
That’s pretty much how it was. I had just been doing a weekly in San Antonio. That wasn’t a crazy gig or anything.

But it payed the bills, right?
Yeah! One day of work was about two weeks at Walmart.

What’s your dream gig?
It’s tough to say. I just played Red Rocks, and that was amazing and really beautiful. I mean, as far as dream gigs go, it doesn’t get better than that.

What would be your dream lineup?
Probably Drake and Lil Wayne. I’d also pick a bunch of random bands that are hard to see, like Rage Against the Machine.

What’s up with your #Pizzagang trademark?
You know, you gotta have your team, and that’s what it is for me.

And you sling it out to the crowd?
Usually, other people will throw them out, and I get blamed for it; but if the crowd is really hyped up, I’ll sling some out to them.

The later the hour, the more hungry they are, I guess. Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
Doing the same thing I am doing now, hopefully. I will always be making music, or something can be invented in technology and completely change everything. I mean, the DJ, for example, that came out of nowhere and became a career. It’s amazing.

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