PARTICIPANTS: V / G / D / B

DANIEL: Nice to meet you. I’m Daniel Reed, a freelance journalist. I’m here on assignment for an online series spotlighting emerging musicians.

V: Likewise. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

DANIEL: I read Cole’s article.

V: Do you know him?

DANIEL: I know who he is. He’s a veteran reporter at a competing publication.

I hate to admit it, but it was a good piece.

DANIEL: I wanted to ask how the roles are divided among—

G: Hey, Daniel. Is that a NotePin?

Before I could get any further, G spotted the small device I’d set on the table.

DANIEL: Yeah. Good eye.

I’ve got it on loan for a review I’m doing for a major electronics retailer.

D: What’s that?

What do you use it for?

DANIEL: Basically, it’s like a notepad you talk into.

You record something, and afterward the AI organizes it for you.

G: Can I see it?

DANIEL: Sure.

G picked up the device.

DANIEL: Do you use anything like this yourself?

When you’re making music, melodies can come to you out of nowhere, or you might get an idea you want to save right then, right?

G: Nothing.

DANIEL: ...Nothing at all?

V: Once something gets into G’s head, he hardly ever forgets it.

DANIEL: Really?

G: The things I need. I try to forget the rest.

I couldn’t help a wry smile.

I’d heard about him, but in person, G had quite a presence.

DANIEL: That’s almost superhuman. I guess you don’t really need one, then.

G: Yeah, I don’t need it. D should get one. (laughs)

D: Why me?

G: You know why.

G: D talks forever and never gets anywhere.

And what he says changes from one day to the next.

Was he talking about the creative process?

DANIEL: Like when you’re planning an album or deciding on the visuals?

G: Yeah, obviously. What else?

Then he looked over at D.

G: Have the AI sort it out for you. That’s the way to go. No question.

D: Isn’t it kind of boring talking to this thing?

G turned the NotePin over in his hand, studying the seams in its tiny casing.

G: Wow. Makes me want to crack it open. Whose cells are they using?

His attention had already shifted to the hardware inside.

DANIEL: They haven’t disclosed the cell supplier. If I had to guess, ATL or Sunwoda.

It’s rated for up to 20 hours of continuous recording.

G: Twenty hours? All right. That’ll last as long as D’s up.

D shrugged and looked at G.

I would’ve liked to watch them go back and forth a little longer, but I had to move the interview along.

DANIEL: V.

Within G:B, do the four of you have fairly well-defined roles?

V: Yeah, more or less. B and I do most of the composing, and G does some too.

D and I usually handle the lyrics.

We leave the online side to G.

DANIEL: I see. G:B doesn’t really put individual songwriting credits front and center, right?

So do those individual styles still come through strongly in the finished songs, or do they tend to blend together?

V: Hard to say. Some songs might make it more obvious than others.

If it has a real sense of momentum, that’s G.

If it feels more grounded, with a stronger groove, that’s B.

And D’s lyrics... you know. (laughs)

That made sense.

It also made me want to put it to the test.

DANIEL: Can I take a shot at one, then?

V: Go ahead.

DANIEL: “My Precious One”—V.

V: I see. What gave you that impression?

For a moment, I thought I saw a smile flicker across V’s face.

DANIEL: Even if the speaker reaches out for help for a moment, there’s still that date circled on the calendar, and in the end, they vow to turn it all around on their own.

You just don’t strike me as someone who’d sit around waiting to be saved.

D: Hey, Danny. I circle dates on my calendar too, you know.

D immediately protested, sounding a little put out.

Right. I might’ve phrased that badly.

Maybe it was the “sitting around waiting to be saved” part he’d reacted to.

G: Hey, your calendar’s covered in circles.

D: How do you know?

D gave G a puzzled look.

G: Because every time you push the start date back, you send me another Google Calendar invite. I’m not even involved.

See? That’s why I’m telling you to let NotePin sort it out.

I couldn’t tell whether G had changed the subject for my sake or whether this was just their usual routine. Either way, I felt a little relieved.

DANIEL: (laughs)

V, that’s probably a drawing of you in the thumbnail too, right?

To me, the whole song feels very V.

V: Yeah. That’s right. I wrote that one. Though the imagery may have originally come from D.

B: No. That idea is pure V.

B, who had barely said a word until then, suddenly cut in.

DANIEL: What do you mean by “that idea”?

B: He’s already decided what he’s going to do, but he still wants one last push.

V: Do I?

V smiled a little, as if something had come to mind.

B: Yeah. Sometimes.

B didn’t smile. He said it matter-of-factly.

DANIEL: Earlier, you said you leave the online side to G.

So I wanted to ask about that next.

You’ve been putting your songs on YouTube.

But you haven’t released a music video yet.

Is that a deliberate choice?

Or are you planning to release one later?

V: Honestly, I’d say we just haven’t quite settled on a direction yet.

G: Someone’s pretty picky about that stuff.

“That expression...” “I think I liked what you wore yesterday better...”

G laughed, mimicking D’s tone.

D looked at him as if to say, “So? That’s normal.”

From what I’d seen so far, G gave D a hard time, but he also seemed to go along with a lot of what D wanted.

After a brief pause, G went on.

G: But that’s not all.

Right now, I don’t have enough power.

DANIEL: Interesting.

If you could get exactly what you wanted, would something like a Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra do the job?

G: No. Right now, I’d want the RTX PRO 6000.

DANIEL: Ah, Blackwell. Cooling a 600-watt card in a dual-slot form factor is wild.

G: Right? That double flow-through design is awesome.

DANIEL: What is it now, around $12,000?

G: I checked yesterday. It was $13,250.

DANIEL: Wow! It’s gone up that much? It does have 96GB, though. Prices just keep climbing.

G: And the bandwidth’s huge.

At 1.8 TB/s, that should speed things up a lot.

DANIEL: But Rubin Ultra’s coming in 2027, right?

Aren’t you curious what might trickle down from that?

G thought for a moment before answering.

G: If I wait for that, I’ll never end up buying one.

DANIEL: That’s true. (laughs)

That was when V, who had been listening to my exchange with G, spoke up quietly.

V: Well, G...

I don’t think we can go that high.

G didn’t argue.

He just looked V straight in the eye and grinned.

For a moment, it looked as though something passed between them without a word. Or was I imagining it?

Anyway, bringing the NotePin was the right call.

I hadn’t expected G to be this interested in it. That was a welcome surprise.

I already knew a few things about G:B before meeting them.

I’d listened to their music, and I’d read Cole’s article.

So I thought I was reasonably well prepared going in.

What stayed with me most, though, wasn’t so much the answers to the questions I’d prepared as the reactions that came when things drifted a little off course.

B barely spoke during the interview.

He didn’t seem unhappy to be there. Maybe he simply didn’t see much reason to jump in.

But when V said the imagery might have come from D, B suddenly cut in.

“That idea is pure V.”

When I asked why, B said, “V has already decided what he’s going to do, but he still wants one last push.”

B didn’t seem interested in explaining it at length.

But judging by V’s reaction, B seemed to have been pretty much on the mark.

Anyway, meeting V in person didn’t change my prior impression of him all that much.

There was a consistency in the way he approached the conversation, and he chose his words carefully when it mattered.

And when G was clearly enjoying talking about a $13,250 GPU, V was eventually the one to bring up the practical matter of the budget.

G didn’t argue.

He just looked at V and gave him a meaningful smile.

I still don’t know what that meant.

G and I got along better than I expected.

Once we got onto the RTX PRO 6000, I may have forgotten for a moment that I was supposed to be conducting an interview.

Cooling a 600-watt card in a dual-slot form factor. 96GB of memory. 1.8 TB/s of bandwidth. Whether it made more sense to wait for the next generation.

I’m the same way. Once I start talking about that kind of thing, it’s hard to stop.

I do regret making a remark that was a little rude toward D.

When I explained why I thought “My Precious One” was V’s song, I told V, “You just don’t strike me as someone who’d simply wait to be saved.”

D immediately cut in.

“Hey, Danny. I circle dates on my calendar too, you know.”

At that moment, I thought I’d phrased it badly.

I assumed it was the “waiting to be saved” part that had bothered him.

But thinking about it afterward, I’m not sure that was really what bothered him.

Maybe D was literally just talking about circling dates on a calendar.

G did, after all, immediately point out that D’s calendar was covered in circles.

And even if something I said had bothered D a little, he still called me “Danny” right then and there.

Was that a protest, or was he also trying to make things a little less formal between us?

I still don’t know.

If it was the latter, I’m glad.

Now that the interview is over, I’m listening to their songs again.

I got “My Precious One” right.

So, one more.

Who composed “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”?

G, B, or V?

If I go by speed alone, I can hear G in it.

But when I hear the sheer presence of that powerful bass line pushing the whole song up from below, it makes me want to put my money on B.

If I get the chance to see them again, I’ll find out whether I got it right.

—Daniel Reed, Freelance Journalist