JOB Interview: Greg Bresnitz

Greg Bresnitz has been thrown a lot of curve balls. Dude’s been in a near fatal car crash, was fully paralyzed for several months, and was working in hospitality when COVID-19 totaled the industry. Fortunately, he’s been surrounded by a lot of great people— including his twin brother, Darin —who, over the years have helped Greg tackle ambitious projects like building the world’s first fully articulated 3D printed gown, opening a theater, and recording nearly 500 episodes of a podcast. This interview was conducted right around the time COVID-19 hit, and Greg’s since moved to Louisiana with his wife and daughter. He’s also published the Snacky Tunes book through Phaidon, which came out in early October.

Ben Sisto: You left New York City just a few weeks ago, where did you land? How’s the family?

Greg: I’m currently at my childhood home in the suburbs of Philadelphia, with my parents. I’m here with my wife of one year and five days and our daughter who is...a few weeks old. Time is a bit abstract right now. We’re good. This was not exactly the plan, but we’re safe and healthy.

Ben: What’s the general mood like in the ‘burbs? Are you interacting with people at all? 

Greg: Did you ever watch The Leftovers? It's very empty, but there are still pockets of people. Having been in TriBeCa, and before that Greenpoint, Brooklyn, it just feels like only a small percentage of the population is still here. When you see one or two people while walking your dog at night, it’s actually jarring. There's no cars. There's nothing. 

Ben: That feeling of, “there’s nothing here,” makes me remember being a teenager. When you were that age...who were you? What was life all about in this town you’ve returned to?

Greg: I was awkward...not a ton of friends. I don’t remember being into anything much at a younger age, but high school was interesting. I attended a public high school like any other except we had a great theater program called Lower Merion Players that was deeply connected to the Philadelphia Theater program, which is phenomenal. It was just an incredible, vibrant team run by Deborah Block, a co-founder of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She built out this high school theater program like you would a regular program. Lighting, production, casting, and high quality props. Being involved really set the stage for my later work in events. You had crunch times, disruptions, and problem solving all culminating in this one big show. Then, this thing you worked on for months would come down in just a few hours and the whole process began again.

Ben: Were you listening to a lot of musicals? Scores and soundtracks or classic Broadway type stuff?

Greg: At that time I was more learning about music like Fugazi, At the Drive In, The Pixies and all that. Oh and Ani. Ani DiFranco was my very first love, beyond anything. I remember making my parents take me to go see her open for Bob Dylan.

Ben: Did this continue into college? Not the Ani love...the theater work?

Greg: I went to Boston University (BU) for the Humanities, but realized about two weeks in it wasn’t for me. A guidance counselor told me “You should be in events. You should be an event planner,” and I was like, “Oh, that sounds...that sounds great.” I transferred to a school of hospitality, and around the same time my twin brother Darin had gotten involved with college radio at BU. I signed up too, and because I’d done so kind of late, I got an overnight slot on Thursdays. It was kind of great. We’d be out around Boston on our bikes with the CD wallets and then pop in for the 2am show. That’s how I got into radio.

Greg: I later ended up in Eugene, Oregon and moved into this kind of boarding house. One of the guys at the house had a radio show on KWVA. I wasn’t in school and had no idea what I wanted to do so I just asked and got a show that eventually led to a slot on Fridays at noon, which was the most incredible time slot. I took it so seriously. The first hour was indie rock, and then the second hour was dance rock. Like when DFA, Bloc Party, and all that was coming out of New York.

Ben: Was that what eventually led you to New York? Follow the sound? 

L.A. Dance Project on stage at Ace Hotel’s Theatre in LA. Image provided by Greg Bresnitz.

Greg: Eventually I became co-music director, which means you do a lot of chart reporting. We learned KWVA was a core station for outlets like CMJ, which meant that it had a lot of weight. So even though we were in Eugene, Oregon, a lot of promoters from New York took us seriously. That provided a lot of my early connections to the music industry there, doing check-in calls with labels and stuff. I really liked Eugene because my East Coast hustle let me get things done, but jobs were limited. I knew that if I moved to New York, at the very least, I could get a job as a busboy or something and try to figure things out there. Darin had already moved there, so I moved onto his couch.

Ben: Around that time, I remember you two were throwing a lot of parties. I imagine your DJ budget was helped by your living rent-free on a couch?

Greg: At that time there were people looking for DJs in New York on Craigslist and you could essentially get in touch with people, bring your setup, and play a short set for no fee as a “trial”. That seemed like a dead end, so I cold emailed this guy with a spot on Grand Street in Williamsburg and was just like, “I'm a DJ and I'm coming to New York.” He had a “Sure, kid.” kind of response but once I got to the city, we met and he offered us this tiny room down a hallway, a private drinking room. We started throwing parties there. We called it Finger on the Pulse. The party was really fun, we played all the music we loved and it led to us throwing in New York every other Friday for about eight years. We just kept doing it, people kept coming and having fun.

Ben: Weren’t you a liquor rep for Bushmills [whiskey] and some different companies then? Was that part of what helped build the party up?

Greg: I had my first internship at Cornerstone and Fader, whom I’d known from when I’d come out for CMJ or South by Southwest. At that same time Sparks, the malt energy drink, was having its moment as a drink of choice at like loft parties and stuff. So I’m at SXSW cleaning up after the Fader Fort event with Silversun Pickups and Wolfmother and there’s all this leftover Sparks. The venue was like, “Take as much as you can,” and I grabbed as many cases as I could fit into a taxi cab. On our next party flyer wrote we were sponsored by Sparks. At the party, we burned through supply so I wrote Sparks to tell them we ran out and they just sent us more. We did the same thing with American Apparel and got a bunch of gift cards. Early on we just kind of started seeing how certain brands could enhance a party, add a sense of legitimacy...like a co-sign.

Ben: Every party in NYC has benefitted from a similar, I don’t want to say scamming but…let’s say, being ready with a bag, just as something of modest value has fallen off a truck? But then you guys began working with a more specific intention. I’m thinking of the TV show…

Greg: Darin had this idea, Dinner with the Band, where it's essentially a band interview show and a cooking show. He had the idea back when I was in Eugene and would ask me to talk to my connections and ask if anyone thought it was a good idea. I guess on the strength of those relationships, certain young or emerging bands and their managers thought it was a good idea. We filmed with Matt and Kim, El-P, Fucked Up...but it was right around the economic downturn and events are always the first casualty of economic downturns. But things worked out in the end; we ended up selling it to IFC.

Ben: It feels obvious now, in the era of Hot Ones, but the show came out just on the cusp of binge-streaming. You had Rufus Wainwright, Mountain Goats, and Sharon Jones …do you think if the show had come out later, it would have taken off to a different level?

Greg: Those bands, at the time, were not those bands. We also had Andrew WK, Murder City Devils...maybe if streaming had been bigger or social media had been, sure. But what made it special and easy to write was we just loved those bands and were not overly concerned with all the other stuff. Maybe we would have gotten picked up by a bigger channel, but also had Snacky Tunes to work on, too.

Ben: Good transition to Snacky Tunes, your podcast with Darin. You’ve recorded like 400 episodes? [At the time of the interview it was 400; by time of posting the number is 450+]

KWVA, University of Oregon. Image provided by Greg Bresnitz.

Greg: I had really wanted to get back into radio, I just loved it. When we were deejaying, we had moved over to a place called Royal Oak and one of the general managers there, a guy named Brandon Hoy one day is like, “I'm opening a pizza shop in Bushwick,” which I was dismissive of at first but, turns out it was Roberta’s.  At that time, aside from dirtbags who partied at the McKibbin lofts, it was really the thing going on in that neighborhood. It really became a huge thing for food writers, blogs, all food people. Out of Roberta’s, this guy Patrick Martins started what would become Heritage Radio Network. They started mostly doing food policy talk shows, but eventually wanted a music show and we worked our way in there. There was no guidance, no feedback, no nothing. Just whatever we wanted to do.

Ben: But there’s more to it than that, yeah? How did it go from a cool pizza shop with few rules and a radio station, to you interviewing Massimo Bottura? That feels like a step up.

Greg: Well, Massimo came later. I don't think I breathed the entire interview with him, I was so nervous. But there’s a long gap between that happening and us just asking Drop the Lime to do whatever the fuck he wanted 8 years prior. During those years I went to a hotel company, Ace Hotel, doing programming and Darin kept on doing food TV. As years go on, if you have X number of bands and chefs on the show and you just keep doing it and doing it, some of those names are going to break out. Darin met chefs through work, I met bands through work and sometimes the other way around. We made friends over time; it wasn't overnight. We also had developed a really amazing relationship with Phaidon, who published Massimo's book, which led to having a couple of their authors on. 

Ben: Oh yeah, Phaidon. They are doing the Snacky Tunes book right? Is that something you can discuss or not quite there yet? [Note: the book is now out.]

Greg: Due to some role changes at Ace I’d gotten really depressed. Two friends, Ben Palmer and Jake Friedman suggested I try to write my way out of it, to try and turn the radio show into a book. Every day I did my job and suffered through this depression, but every night I chipped away at a proposal, too, with the help of some amazing friends. Eventually, my brother and Khuong Phan (Snacky Tunes Producer) thought it was a good idea, my girlfriend at the time [now wife] was a massive help, and it started to come together. I can't speak highly enough about the friends who helped me along the way; I know those first drafts were garbage but they kept me going, making helpful suggestions.

Greg: Fast forward a bit and at like, the peak of what felt like a mental collapse I went alone to a dinner at Four Horsemen that was in support of a book the Sportsman (UK) restaurant was releasing. It was being published by Phaidon, whose  people were there, so I worked up the nerves and just let them know I was working on a book and ask if they’d please look at it. They did, liked it, and now we have a book coming out in the fall. 

Ben: With the pandemic, how do you plan on promoting it? Usually a book will have a tour of sorts and I imagine, knowing you, there were dreams of dinners and in-restaurant events.

Greg: Everyone's adapting in real time. It’s really going to come down to a mix of what’s legally allowed, and also what feels responsible. [Since the book was released in early October, there have been many virtual events, interviews, a capsule collection, etc. Info here.] 

Ben: You mentioned you’d gone off to the hotel world, which is where you and I worked most closely together. But before you were at Ace Hotel proper, you were at the hotel’s restaurant, The Breslin. Correct me if I’m wrong but, The Breslin fired you?

Greg: Wow. Uh, yes, Ben. I originally went to work at the Breslin, which at the time was run by Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield. I was brought in to do events there, and to kind of like turn it out in their basement venue, Liberty Hall.

An interior layout of the Snacky Tune book. Image courtesy of Phaidon.

Greg: Okay so, long story short. I took all the Brooklyn parties I had known from deejaying and gave them all nights there. By the sixth week of us doing it, we had lines down the block. One Friday night, the mayor's task force showed up and shut us down. Monday morning I was out of a job. A friend of mine said Ace was looking for an events-person and I just like, harassed them to give me a job like, “Please, please give me a job.” I was at a Paper Magazine party one night, knew Ace was up for an award, so I just waited at the door until I saw Ace’s founder Alex Calderwood. Like I waited for an hour and a half. We finally spoke and Alex said they had nothing in NYC but eventually he and Kelly Sawdon [one of Ace’s partners] offered me something in Palm Springs. So I went out west to like, eating steak and watching music in the high desert at Pappy and Harriets and rode horses at the oasis like, “Where am I?”. Then I went up to Ace’s corporate offices in Portland and just before we were going to go to Coachella, I got in a near-fatal car accident.

Ben: Greg this isn’t shaping up to be a “Long story short” kind of thing...

Greg:  …long story short, the doctor said I shouldn’t travel to New York. I hung in Portland a bit but then went back to Palm Springs to basically live out of the Ace property, recover, and started doing events and cultural work for a period of about five months. 

Ben: That is wild. I forgot about the accident. Maybe in my mind it’s overshadowed by your other, totally unrelated life-threatening situation, Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Greg: Not to keep score but, I also was hospitalized for MRSA before that. Guillain-Barre is an autoimmune disease where you are paralyzed overa majority of your body. I was hospitalized for about three months and had to go through the paralyzation process and then rehab my entire body from toes to eyebrows. I had to relearn how to do facial expressions, how to talk.

Ben: You are not a quitter, that’s for sure. Makes me think of your first big Ace project with Shapeways; I remember you telling me about how long it took; how intense it was. Could you speak about it?

Greg: While at Ace, I was fortunate enough to be around and work with Alex when he was still with us, and Alex was really into making people step up. I started there as this ex-DJ and indie promoter, but Ace was like “You need to do a major Fashion Week event.” I just had no clue. I started doing research and kind of came across these two things. First, Nike had released the first Flyknit shoe, which everyone has now, but at the time was so innovative. Then I also learned about the work of Iris Van Herpen which led me to the designer Michael Schmidt. Michael and I spoke and towards the end I was like, “Hey man, um, have you ever heard about 3D printing?” 

Greg: More research. I came across Shapeways and in the middle of one of their videos I recognized a guy I used to DJ with. I reached out, and that began the partnership. Shapeways had the tech, a CAD modeler, so thus began the design for what would become the world’s first fully articulated 3D-printed dress. The CAD modeler was like, “This is fucking impossible. You're never going to do it.” But then we've got Francis Bitonti involved, and Shapeways really committed. We ended up having to take over their entire printing plant and involve further production overseas, and then Swarovski crystals. All this took what felt like endless hours on calls, talking people off walls, researching things I knew nothing about...but we got it made.

Ben: I always loved those Swarovski kiosks at the mall. Like with the little crystal penguins for moms. I  digress...

Greg getting a visit from friend and chef Travis Hayden while recovering from Guillain-Barre syndrome. Image provided by Greg Bresnitz.

Greg: That year, February’s Fashion Week got hit with a huge blizzard; totally snowed out and we had to move our reveal back three weeks. That’s actually where the event gods smiled on us, because we ended up in a fashion-media cycle lull; writers were eager for some new content. When it debuted, it was insane. It was just something people hadn't seen before. Iris’ work was obviously an inspiration and touchpoint, but her work is like exoskeleton, very conceptual. This was a little black dress that Dita Von Teese is wearing and it was 3D printed, and just looked amazing. It ended up in the Museum of Art and Design. It's traveling the world; I don't even know where it is right now. That was the first time that I realized the full power of partnerships and how much bigger you could actually go if you found the right partners with complementary skill sets. You have to really listen to each other.

Ben: When I hear you talking about finding the right partners, or how the right partners can really change the scale you’re working at, I think of The Theater at Ace Hotel Los Angeles. You were on the team that really brought that space to life.

Greg: This theater was originally founded by The United Artists, which was Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith. During a work retreat some of us were brought into this old Spanish Gothic theater and were asked, “Do you think you can run this space?” I thought “no,” but said yes. I had become friendly with the Goldenvoice people over time, and they brought their entire office down to the theater just to kind of say “Welcome to Los Angeles. Let's see what we can do together.” It is such a special room; anyone who got early tours saw what we saw. There’s a certain “Ah-ha” moment when you just look up and see all of the possibilities. I actually still have the original key from the front door because it was so special opening those doors and knowing how people would react.

Ben: Did that meeting lead to anything? Or what early tours led to some of the venue’s key events?

Greg: FYF, a division of Goldenvoice, brought us two nights with Spiritualized as our opening event, and both sold out immediately. Shortly after, I was introduced to L.A. Dance Project, who was looking for a home theater. Everything was out of their price range, but we believed in them so much we said “Come on in, do whatever you need to do. We’ll make it work.” The combination of those two helped us tell the public this space wasn't going to be pigeonholed or easily categorized. 

Ben: There’s no guarantee that “awesome” leads to profitability. I know that room had really high overhead...How were you able to offer chill deals to emerging dance collectives? How’d the cash work?

Greg and his twin brother Darin; three years old in Bala Cynwyd, PA. Image provided by Greg Bresnitz.

Greg: I think the people who own the building didn't really get it, money wasn’t always flowing in and we were just pleading just like, ”Please, please trust us. Trust us. This is going to work. It's going to be incredible.” What one party sees as just a bunch of sweetheart deals for artists, we saw as thanking our early adopters who in turn, bring in their friends and so on. That's how we built it. We also had amazing sponsors early on, like when Amani Duncan was at Martin Guitars. Pendleton made custom blankets we could gift to all the artists. These early believers allowed us to go all-in; then the musicians and people just fell in love with the room. When people love a room, they’ll keep coming back and it just worked. It led to huge partnerships with like, David Lynch Foundation which in turn yielded more partnerships, more rentals. You find a balance, hopefully.

Ben: Eventually, you left Ace Hotel for a more global position with another hospitality brand, Selina. What’s that gig all about? What’s going on with Selina during COVID?

Greg: Joining Selina as their Global Vice President of Concept and Programming felt ambitious, much like The Theater. It doesn’t have roadmaps that are immediately obvious. But you begin to get a certain feeling for what could be, and it’s really exciting. Right now though, I feel very nervous. I’m not quite sure how this [hospitality during the COVID-19 pandemic] is gonna work, but I’m going to keep diving in. It’s really interesting to think about a project like this, which is working to scale much faster than Ace, but during such uncertain times. Then you add in multiple languages, multiple cultures, and the mix of excitement and nervousness grows but, it’s what keeps you interested. Like you want a great queer drag night at each property but what does that look like operationally?  I’m really very proud of the work that we did during my first year with Selina; we developed some shared cultural values, programming values, and ideas about how to articulate individual needs or concerns. 

Ben: Something that I found interesting about your work with Selina was the way you were approaching artists residencies. Can you talk about that for a second? 

Greg: There's a fallacy in the hotel industry that you're always occupied. Before the pandemic really hit, we were in the process of building a global residency program where the empty rooms would be taken out of circulation and given to artists from around the world and put them in empty properties around the world. To kind of be more open about that emptiness and turn it into something positive. To do some programming, but also to work on their craft. We built a real framework behind that with the idea that an always-moving network of artists would help naturally shine a light on the properties. But the really great thing about this program, we didn't own anything. We didn't want anything in return. Artists retained all the rights; we didn’t want to exchange a room for intellectual property. That’s something I got from you when you started residences at Ace in New York. Just let people be themselves and do what they do. 

Ben: Do you think that you're gonna have a long future with Selina? Is Selina done? I know this COVID shit is just hitting but I gotta be honest, I think the industry is about to totally tank.

Greg: Like I said before, events or experiential stuff is usually the first to go in an economic downturn. I’m looking at my life right now, at my wife and as a father and what it might mean to pivot generally, with or without COVID. I have to think about it. 

Ben: At Selina, or for Snacky Tunes...wherever...how are you still discovering new artists? Do you have go-to messageboards, venues, or what?

Greg: Instagram is an incredible thing. I’ll just let myself go down wormholes there, clicking from one interesting person to their friends and their friends until something clicks. Also my wife is incredibly brilliant and turns me on to a lot of stuff happening in the art world. Everyone has their networks, too. Over the years I’ve built and retained beautiful friendships with all these incredible people who love to share.

Ben: Is that what keeps you going, people? 

Greg: In the events and partnerships game? Yes. I love people. I love seeing what we can create together. Maybe it's because I have a twin brother, but the work has never felt like I’m on a solo mission. I like teams, creating more together. There’s just pure joy in it. It probably goes all the way back to my high school theater days. You do the show, rip down the set, and start the process over again.