GTA Tell Their Pre-Performance Ritual And Goals In iEDM Exclusive Interview

Miami's own Julio Mejia and Matt Toth, better known as GTA, are living the life as a young and successful DJ and producer duo with main stage performances around the globe. 

With a strong take on their motto 'Death To Genres' you can expect the unexpected as you walk into their performance.  

Touring and partying all over the world is what these guys are all about. The boys were kind enough to take a break and have a word with me before their set at Sziget Festival in Budapest, Hungary. 

iEDM: You're at Sziget Festival! How does it feel?

Matt: Pretty crazy. This is our first day here in Budapest. I'm actually half Hungarian, my grandparents were born here. It's pretty cool walking around the city. We were here last year, but only for like 5 hours and we played at 3am. No where near enough time to do anything. So it's been pretty cool to experience this whole city. We went to some bar earlier today, it was crazy. You can check it out on our Instagram. It's been fun.

Julio: It's cool. The city is beautiful, I'm glad we got to check it out. And we have heard nothing but great things about this festival, so we're excited to be here. 

iEDM: What can we expect from your performance tonight?

Matt: A lot of crazy music. Some screaming on the microphone. Hopefully people cheering along and dancing. 

Julio: Just lots of good times. 

Matt: Yeah, good times, loud noises, and drinking. 

Julio: That's what we like.

Matt: That's what what we're here for!

iEDM: Do you always do 30 push-ups and a shot of tequila before every performance?

Julio: It was actually an idea we both came up with. We've been doing it before every performance for about two years now. You know, we like to hype ourselves up. 

Matt: It really works! And it works pretty well. 

Julio: Yeah, we can hold our hands up for longer, it's just really awesome. 

iEDM: What's your favorite type of tequila?

Matt: Don Julio 1942.

Julio: Same. 

iEDM: You're from Miami, but you have been all over the European rave and festival circuit this year. How would you say the festivals out here differ from those in the US?

Matt: We can definitely play a lot more hip-hop in the US. 

Julio: But it's cool because I feel like Europe makes us dive into the DJ aspect of our job. Reading the crowd. Every single festival is different for us. A lot of the tracks that are being played out here in Europe are more of old songs that we've heard before and we make edits. 

Matt: All the countries out here are different too. The crowds go off to different things. Some countries like Germany play crazy hard trap shit. Everyone goes nuts. Hard style- everybody goes nuts. Some countries will play house-tempo music, and people are diggin it. It really keeps you on your toes as a DJ, which kind of makes our job interesting. Well, it's actually what makes our job interesting, that's our fucking job. It's really fun.

Julio: We try to read the crowd every time. We cater to that specific crowd. If we're on a dubstep stage, we will play more dubstep. We never know what we're expecting. We never expect anything. We play our set and whatever makes the crowd go off, we'll go with that vibe. 

Matt: We make sure to play our music, but then we just incorporate that into whatever the crowd is feeling. 

iEDM: What are your professional goals as artists?

Julio: I guess just make more music with more artists that we love listening to. Our whole thing has been making all kinds of music. Not just electronic, but hip-hop, R&B, anything. We love all kinds of singers, rappers, anything. We just want to work with all of them, and bring that to the club; bring that sort of energy. The energy we bring to the studio and to the crowd. We want people to go crazy. That's our job, that's our thing. It's what we've always wanted to do, and we're doing it. 

Matt: As long as we're happy doing what we're doing, that's pretty much our goal. We have been lucky enough to do that for pretty much our entire career. 

[INTERVIEW PHOTO]

iEDM: Do you have anything else you'd like to tell your fans?

Matt: If you want to check us out on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, anything... it's WeAreGTA. Follow us! Follow along with our lives. 

Julio: We have good snaps!

Matt: I don't know if you know this, but We Are GTA!

Big ups to the We Are GTA boys for their insane performance that night. Thank you both and the awesome press team at Sziget Festival for setting this interview up. Check out more Artist Interviews HERE on iEDM.