Photo by Stephen Yang
Greg Mendez is a singer-songwriter from Philadelphia, who has been making music for over 20 years. In 2023, he signed with indie label Dead Oceans to release his debut self-titled EP, garnering him widespread attention. Just this past May, he released his album Beauty Land, an incredibly well-written 14-track project, and is currently scheduled to head out on tour within the next couple of weeks.
Interviewed by Sofie Foster on July 23, 2026. This interview has been edited for clarity & brevity.
Sofie Foster: I wanted to talk about Beauty Land. I was going on this long late-night walk, started listening to it, and was entranced. Tell me about your writing and recording process with this album.
Greg Mendez: Yeah, I mean, it was kind of like a long process, I guess. I really just kind of took my time with it, and some of the songs I had already had, some of them I pulled from a few years ago, and some of them were more new. I really just am pretty intuitive about everything, I guess. Like not much planning. I try to think about it as little as possible with the writing and recording, and just kind of go with my gut feelings about things.
Sofie: I think that’s the way to do it, honestly. I think there’s a lot of overthinking that can happen in the recording process, but the more you lean into just going with your gut, it always seems to turn out better. I know you said some of these songs were from the past. How many songs were older in comparison to newer songs?
Greg: Some of them are, well, one of them is quite old, I guess. “Everybody Wants To Be Your Friend” is from 2011, but I kind of just wrote it, played it, wrote the lyrics down in a notebook, and then forgot about it. Then I was kind of going through that notebook, I saw the lyrics, and just remembered how it went. I ended up like trying it out for this record, and I thought it fit. “Concussion” and “Geranium” are from like 2020. I tried recording them for the last record, the self-titled, and they just didn’t fit, and I didn’t really like the takes that I got. But they came back, and then I think the rest of them are pretty new. That little piano interlude is from the late 2010s also.
Sofie: Awesome. Well, I know you mentioned in the past with the self-titled, certain songs didn’t fit. How do you find that cohesion between projects, and did you have any challenges you faced when it came to putting the most recent album together, recording, etc.
Greg: Yeah, I mean, kind of a lot. I find writing songs and playing them pretty enjoyable. And I also like recording and arranging, but it’s not something I really know how to do particularly well. I’m not somebody who went to school for recording or anything. I don’t know how to read music. I don’t really know how to record. I’m really just fumbling my way through it, so there were a lot of challenges in the studio, which was a bedroom in our apartment at the time. That was also a challenge to be doing it in a space where we lived–not a very large space. I spend so much time on the recording that I end up being pretty over it by the time I’m done, and then it takes me a while to want to do it again.
Sofie: That seems like the natural trajectory when it comes to recording. I’ve recently been taking… do you know Philip Weinrobe?
Greg: Yeah.
Sofie: He’s doing this School of Song class, which has been really cool, and he gave me a fresh perspective on home recording. It can be so exhausting, especially when home and your studio setup are combined. It’s really hard to separate and get into the right mentality sometimes. Sometimes I find that they bleed together. He had us do this really cute process of changing shirts and going for a walk before coming back to record. It is quite crazy how recording music can take so much out of you, especially with songs you’ve written. It gets to the point where you almost get sick of them before you love them again.
Greg: Yeah, totally. I think that happens to me 100% of the time.
Sofie: Well, on the other end of things, what do you think your proudest moment with your recent project was?
Greg: I mean, unsurprisingly, being done with it. It was just a year and a half long project. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how many hours and stress and frustration and also joy that I put into it. Every time I’m making like an album, I always feel like it’s insurmountable at some point, that I can’t possibly finish it. So then, when I do, it feels really good. Even though, at that moment, I never want to hear this again. But then there’s still, I did it.
Sofie: It’s amazing to push through and know that you may be feeling one way in the current moment, but knowing you love it and that pushing through it will be worth it. It’s really hard, but at the end of the day, you have to because that’s where you’re rewarded. I know you talked about past albums. How did this one compare to past albums–if your process did change?
Greg: I mean, it was kind of similar. I had a lot more time and mental space to work on it because I didn’t have to work another job during this one. That made it a little bit different for sure, and it was definitely nice to have that breathing room around it. But it was kind of similar in a lot of ways. I just always start it and think, this one’s gonna be easier, but it never is. I’m always trying to push myself, and if I’m doing something fully in my comfort zone, then I actually don’t have a good time. Even if it’s like easier, I don’t like the results, so every album is the same amount of difficulty.
Sofie: Yeah, it’s almost unique to the certain project that you’re working on. Well, in regards to this album, what overall themes or images have shaped it? Do you have any inspirations in and outside of music, other creative mediums and/or artists that you admire?
Greg: Yeah, I guess I was honestly in a big period of watching movies. I feel like that informed it a lot, like the album as a whole. As far as how I wanted to piece it together, I don’t think it creates a linear story arc or anything. But I was thinking about the feeling that a movie gives you, if that makes any sense.
Sofie: Oh, totally, yeah. Movies are very musical, even if they’re not playing any.
Greg: Yeah, which I don’t think I’d really done before. I feel like the last one I was thinking more of like photographs, if that makes sense, or maybe I’m just talking out of my ass, honestly.
Sofie: I get it. It’s funny talking about inspirations because I feel like it can be hard to put into words what it is that made a song what it is. Sometimes it’s not really a coherent explanation, and it’s a little bit more vague, like an image in your mind.
Greg: There’s obviously a lot of musical things the album sounds like, but I don’t think about that when I’m doing it. I think more about it being a movie. I try not to think about others; I’m not like “oh I want this to be a Beatles song.” But yeah, obviously there’s a lineage that I am part of and wear my influence on my sleeve for sure.
Sofie: I think it’s beneficial, while you’re in the writing process, to not really reference any music, especially of the modern age. That’s the way to stay the most authentic you can to yourself. If you do listen, I find you subconsciously register what you’re hearing. It’s not even like you’re trying to make something similar. It’s just nice, I think, to take from other creative mediums instead of music itself.
Greg: Yeah.
Sofie: When did you first start writing songs?
Greg: When I was a teenager, honestly, I always wanted to play music. Like when I was a kid, I always wanted to play guitar specifically. I think I got one at some point in middle school. It was really hard to play. It was a piece of shit, but I immediately just wanted to make my own stuff. So yeah, pretty immediately. I don’t think I thought that there was anything good about them until maybe I was in my late teens, and even then, I didn’t think they were great, but I thought, “oh, there’s some parts of this that are coming out good.”
Sofie: Well, you have a long tour starting next week until mid-November. How are you feeling about that? Would you say that you like performing or recording better, or are they just different for you?
Greg: They’re definitely different. I just got off like a three-and-a-half-week tour, and this is my break, so I’m pretty tired, and I could be more excited to go out again. I’m sure once I get out, I’ll get back in that mode, and it’ll be good.
Sofie: Plus, you still have a week!
Greg: Yeah, I do really like playing shows. I like recording because I can really take my time and shape things. It is kind of a weird experience too because you’re playing to everybody and nobody at the same time. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re playing a show, it’s very right there. The people you’re playing for are right there, and they’re influencing what’s happening, and you’re feeding off of each other. It’s what music has been for hundreds of 1000s of years, or however long people have been playing music. You’re playing music for people that are there listening to it, or that are there playing with you, or whatever. Whereas, you know, recording is a bit more fake.
Sofie: No, absolutely. Even though we know the concept of it, for humans to fundamentally understand: this recording could be played at any time, anywhere, whenever–I don’t think we’ll ever grasp what that means. It’s weird to record music because like you said, in a way, technically you’re performing all and none of the time.
Greg: Yep, it’s being played right now.
Sofie: Yeah, yeah. It is. It’s really strange. Recording music is super interesting, the pursuit of capturing the “best performance.” I saw that you have like a couple of live recordings, and I wanted to ask you about that. Do you plan on doing more live recordings in the future?
Greg: I don’t know, that one, the Live at Purgatory one, is that what you’re referring to?
Sofie: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: That one was kind of an accident. We just played the show. There were probably like 20 people there at that time. It was 2021 or 2022 or something like that. We didn’t really think that we did a very good job, and then the sound guy was like, “Oh, I recorded it. I’ll send you the stems.” I was like, “Sick!” I just completely ignored it because I was like, “That show sucked.” Then I was in this studio with my friend who helps me with a lot of mixing, and I was just like, “Oh, you want to check out this set?” He really liked it, and convinced me to mix it with him, and also convinced me to keep it as the full show with all the banter and everything. People liked it, and what I like about it is that it is fully just a show, and not even one that we thought was particularly good at the time. It’s a different experience if you know you’re being recorded.
Sofie: Oh, absolutely.
Greg: So it was just a show. Didn’t know it was being recorded. Didn’t particularly like it. It’s just plucked out of any random night in 2021 or whatever it was. I do like the idea of live albums. I was kind of hesitant to do one because at the time, I was like, “nobody gives a shit.” I feel like we live in this …we kind of think of recordings as the real thing, you know what I mean. And I think the live show is really the real thing. The recording could be very different. It doesn’t have to be approximating that, but if I see a band live, I’m like, “okay, I’ve heard them now.” Like, I’ve never really heard The Beatles. I’ve heard recordings of them, but I never was in a room with them playing songs. I feel like the live recordings are the closest thing you could get to that.
Sofie: I completely agree. Especially now, people are craving that raw expression. With how much production has progressed, you could listen to a song and see it performed live, and they could sound completely different. And that could be a good thing or a bad thing–it goes both ways. But it is very true what you said about how you don’t fully experience an artist until you see them in person. I know you recently did an interview with The Creative Independent–I love them. You were discussing your relationship with social media and music promotion, and I just wanted to know what your relationship to it is, how it has changed, how you approach it, and getting your music out there.
Greg: Honestly, like I just don’t really give a shit about it. It’s kind of difficult because at this point, take Instagram owned by Meta, they’ve fully hijacked our form of communicating with each other. I had these friends who were in a pretty successful band. They were selling out 1000 cap rooms on every tour, and then one tour, they didn’t post on Instagram. Less than half the people showed up to the same sort of rooms. We’ve let it take away our ability to communicate with each other. It’s so done that now we can’t even imagine doing something else. I really hate that aspect of it, and I really hate how much pressure there is to like, you know, cultivate this like persona on there or whatever. I’m also aware that even the fact that I’m not particularly active on it and that I don’t try to do that is a persona in itself, even though I’m not trying to do that.
Sofie: Isn’t that hilarious? The irony of it all. It’s like, “this artist I really mess with because they don’t do the social media thing, they don’t buy into it, they’re really authentic.” Well, half the time you can’t even tell the difference between someone who’s really like that and somebody who’s like, “ooh, this is a cool look. I’m purposefully not gonna cultivate my social media.”
Greg: Yeah, and is there a difference? I don’t know the answer to that, but I just feel better when I’m not on it. I really don’t give a shit how it makes me look, or whatever. I’m not really concerned about whether it’s hurting or helping my “career.” I just fucking don’t care, and I don’t think that it’s how I got to where I’m at. I don’t think it makes a fucking difference.
Sofie: I really admire that. How did your current record label find you if it wasn’t through like social media? Ultimately, I would say that’s like 90% of how current musicians are being found.
Greg: I mean it probably was through social media, honestly. I definitely use it only to like tell people when things are happening. It’s kind of a rule of mine, and then sometimes I break the rule for something that’s like funny or whatever. But really just: “I’m playing this show,” “this song is coming out.” I could post flyers all over every city and do all this fucking work, and nobody looks at street posts anymore. It is what it is, and even press and shit. People see that through Instagram, not through a magazine. So it’s fully, it is the thing, and I think I got lucky with the previous self-titled record. I really just told people about it and other people shared it, so they did all the work for me.
Sofie: Yeah, it’s really nice when that works out. It’s funny that you mention the whole press side of things. It’s hilarious how many outlets I follow, but I would say that subscription or email list-wise, I’m probably on 10% of them. It’s wild. I’ve found that I’m clicking through Instagram to find these articles, and that’s so sad. It’s all funneled into this one medium. But anyways, enough bashing on social media. On a more positive note, what’s your biggest dream or milestone? Whether it’s a venue, or making a certain record, or a collaboration, or even playing a certain festival that would fulfill that inner child musician within you.
Greg: I don’t know. This is not really a fun answer, but my true goal is to just make something that I think is so good and so complete that I don’t have to fucking do it again.
Sofie: I mean, that’s kind of the ultimate goal. To be like, “Wow, this is such a representation of me as an artist. This is my best foot forward.” Can you ever really fully get there? But then maybe you will.
Greg: So I don’t think I will, but I think that’s probably why people make art, because you can’t do that. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of an artist who’s been like, “and that’s when I decided that was my best work, and I’m done now.” You at least try a few more times, and then you’re like, “wait, that other one was the one.”
Sofie: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: It’s like, “okay, wait, I think I can make one more attempt” and then, “all right, no, maybe that was it.” Just something to reach for.
Sofie: Yes, I like that answer. What is your biggest advice you would give to smaller artists right now pursuing longevity, authenticity, and also just pursuing their art?
Greg: I would say to not think about it as a career at all, and not that you don’t want to make a living from it at some point. I think there’s this really counterproductive mindset, especially. I think it’s always been there, like throughout. Since people have been capitalizing on their art, but I think especially now, it’s like all the advice is based on how to reach people, promotion, cultivating an image, marketing, and I think that that is probably the worst thing that you can focus on. First of all, it’s not the reason that you’re doing it, right? Second of all, it’s like you could have all of the best. You could look so cool. You could market yourself. You could really get in the ears of all these people. But if you’ve neglected the thing that is the substance, and you haven’t put that first, and if you put your focus anywhere else, then you’re taking it away from that. You just really have to, like, follow your heart with what you’re making. It doesn’t fucking matter how you dress; it doesn’t matter. What you post on social media, it doesn’t. You don’t have to not be on it, but it’s not gonna take you where you want to go.
Sofie: I love that perspective. Yeah, that’s great. Speaking of smaller artists, do you have any recs you’ve been loving recently?
Greg: Yeah. One of my favorites from Philly is Nyxy Nyx. It’s this guy Brian. My favorite album is probably Dream Junkies from 2020, and it’s like just him. He ripped some drum loops from YouTube and recorded songs over them. It’s got such an incredible depth of feeling to it, and immediately its own thing. Scarlet Rae, who I just toured with, is so amazing, and her live set is mind-blowing. I watched it every single night, which is not always the case. Who else? I’m kind of blanking, but those two are really good.
Sofie: Well, that’s great. I’ll see you August 10th for your show. I’ll come by Sid the Cat, which is a great LA venue. I don’t know if you have ever performed there before.
Greg: I haven’t, but I’m really excited, and I’ve played a few shows that were like booked by them.
Sofie: They’re super down to earth. It’s really cute. I don’t know if you know much about it, but it’s built in this old school building, and so it has an auditorium vibe. But then they kind of revamped it.
Greg: Yeah, I’m super excited.
Listen to Beauty Land here!
