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Photos by Santiago Warren

OnesToWatch darling grentperez joined us wearing his Tuesday best: a colorful plaid shirt adorned with an assortment of modish buttons (“Blue Dress” by Yoshitomo Nara, an eyeball, and the phrase “SHOVE IT!” among the collection), Gentle Monster-esque glasses, and an effortlessly cool pairing of slacks and loafers. Since we last had grent as a guest on Chef’s Choice and as a performer in our OTW Showcase, a lot of life has happened to the singer-songwriter: he opened for Rex Orange County on tour, released his debut studio album, headlined his own tour, and made his Lollapalooza debut. Visiting Los Angeles from his homebase of Sydney, his infectious energy and joyful enthusiasm going into the interview is impossible to ignore.

grent’s approach to music—and especially his own music—is proof that he is truly stepping into his own. His most recent EP, g00se, was released in August of 2026, but is a labor of love that culminates his journey from 2021-2023. In the Instagram post announcing the release of the EP, he refers to that time as a “period of immense change, in an attempt to find [himself].” He personified this struggle to better understand himself in the character g00se, a tito (“uncle” in Tagalog) that works under grent. To compliment the release of the EP, grent released a series of short films where the viewer can see the internal struggle of grent vs. g00se externalized, introducing a layer of thoughtful introspection that we haven’t seen from the artist thus far.

Just months after the release of g00se, grent released “close to you,” with fellow OnesToWatch alumni, UMI. Recorded a world away from each other, grent and UMI’s vocals blend effortlessly, creating a beautiful duet with lyrics and harmonies that gracefully compliment each other. The relatively stripped down production of the song coupled with lyrics like “But for as long as I’m alive, I will be close to you,” craft an intimate and raw profession of love that you can’t get enough of. grent visited us during Filipino American Heritage Month, which the internet has colloquially deemed as “Filipino Fall.” In between doodling, taking a peek into his camera roll, and experimenting with portraits that only grent could pull off, we chatted with the artist about “close to you,” how playing the character of Tito g00se has allowed him to feel like his most authentic self, and reflecting on his art (and life) now that his frontal lobe is almost fully developed.

OnesToWatch: Why was UMI the perfect collaborator for “close to you,” and how did the song come about?

grentperez: UMI and I met for the first time in person at a college show in San Diego, but before that, I had been a pretty big fan. I'd covered her music before I started making music of my own, and I was like, “Hey, we get along so well, we should totally write a song together.” So we did it. We set up a session with my producer friend MarcLo—great guy, I wrote “Movie Scene” with him. I know that UMI is a very spiritually led person, and has such a beautiful insight on the world, and I felt like I would love to see her perspective put into a song of my own as well. I came in with a very open mind; initially, I was going to write a song about memories, and how homes are associated with memories. But memories are also associated with love too, and when you have memories included in love, it's much bigger than just the feeling. It's bigger than what's on Earth, essentially, and you can't really tap into the psyche of a person in a physical sense. 

You celebrated the release of “close to you” with a karaoke event with fans. Why did you decide to celebrate the song in that way? 

I thought it was just a really fun and non-serious way, for one, to get people together. I love doing community guided things, and it was also a good excuse to do karaoke. I mean, come on, I'm Filipino. 

What's your go-to karaoke song? 

It's “One Last Cry” by Brian McKnight, but I don't know if I'll sing that. We'll see how it goes. It's a bit intense.

What was the process of creating the song like?

“close to you” was a very fun and interesting process because we sang that song in two separate studios, but it sounds so nice. It sounds so real and raw, I would say. To me, I think it was just a surprise that the song sounds the way it does because it feels really, really sweet. 

The song is called “close to you” but you recorded it in two separate studios. Does that add a layer of meaning to the song?

It unintentionally does, we've kind of been meme-ing about it on-and-off like chats and whatnot. We're just like, “Damn, we wrote this so far away from each other.” But as soon as I landed in LA, we [filmed] a bunch of videos together. 

You wrote on Instagram that your EP g00se was written during a time of immense change and an attempt to find yourself. How do you feel you were able to do that with this new song in particular? 

With this new song in particular, I have been playing around with production a lot more, purely from my end, and I intend on doing that for the next project too. I think everyone is just doing something in an attempt to make sense of themselves in a way, right? This was my way of doing that: through this song, through the EP, it was kind of like tying up loose ends in a way. 

If I was looking at things I wrote three or five years ago, it would bring up a lot of emotions for me. Did it feel like you were opening a time capsule when you went back to these old songs for this project? 

It definitely did. It was really interesting because a lot of those songs were written during a time where I was just blissfully pacing through music and writing. I was just like, “Oh, this song was okay…” but looking back on it, [the song] was actually really beautiful. My subconscious was probably telling me something at that point, before I even knew that I was feeling the way I did back then. In hindsight, it would have been fun to reproduce those, even the songs in g00se again, because it's just fun to experiment. But I'm very pleased with the way they came out. 

Were your long-time collaborators (Gladius, Nick Lee, Julia Church, and Eli Teplin) pretty instrumental in that process? Did they help mold this new EP into the vision that you wanted? 

Yeah, very much so. A lot of it had a through line of this one producer who stopped making music, Gladius. He stopped making music, but he said, “I wouldn't mind doing it one more time, but I'll only do it for you.” I did two other songs with him previously: “Old With You,” which is like a pretty old one, and “Yours to Keep,” which was in Backflips in a Restaurant. I had worked with him previously and I was like, “Yeah, let's do it again.”

You’ve always been a very multifaceted artist. On top of making music and writing, you also draw, and your entire rollout this time was presented through a series of short films. How has art of all mediums contributed to your creative evolution as an artist? 

It's been very, very fun. It's been very freeing, this whole EP in general. It's ironic, because I do play a different character, I play the character of g00se. But in a way, that character of g00se is kind of a representation of my pure self, of not caring, and I felt that way with the creative process too. I just wanted to do something for creative freedom, to just try it. They're mainly just skits, but doing all that stuff helped me free up my creativity. I would love to explore that a little bit deeper and really be intentional with some of those skits, and rewrite them to be very prominent and eye-catching. But it was a good introduction to that world, I'm very pleased with [those] too. 

I want to talk about g00se. He seems like your uncle, like someone that you know. Was he a character that you’ve been thinking about for a long time? How did he come about, or how was he freed from your subconscious? 

How was he freed from me? Honestly, it just came up as an idea. The idea for the name g00se came from the car that I was driving around the time that I wrote some of those songs. I had a custom number plate on my first car ever. It was 0G00SE, with zeros in the number plate, which explains the zeros in the name. My creative director mate Dylan, was like, “Why don't we just turn it into someone? Like a tito, I feel like that'd be so funny, Tito g00se.” Because from my observations, a lot of older Filipino immigrants had to put their life on pause. I feel like a lot of them have dreams that have never been explored, and a lot of unfulfilled potential. I wanted to bring that to life in a way, but subconsciously, I don't think I really intended to do that.

Photos by Santiago Warren

Has it been really fun to act as g00se? 

It's been great. It feels so cool to just not care for an extended period of time. It's funny that you find yourself when you lose yourself because you realize the things that you were missing. It was very, very fun to not be me, but at the same time, be the most me. If that makes sense.

I'm hoping to see more acting from you, all of your videos were so good. 

Thank you so much. 

I actually have a confession. I was in your first 3,000 subscribers on YouTube. 

What? 

I was a subscriber of yours in like 2019. It’s crazy to hear that you feel that you've really lost yourself to find yourself, because as a viewer and as a listener of your music, I feel like you’ve become more yourself over time.

It is very funny that you mentioned the viewer's perspective of things. It does make sense because I'm constantly evolving and being this ever-changing version of myself. 

I think the first video that I watched was your RINI cover. 

“My Favorite Clothes” or something.

Even back then, you were really true to yourself as an artist. You’ve had a very public adolescence, so how does it feel to reflect on your journey? 

It feels really good to reflect on the things that I've done. I don't reflect very often, I'm very, very bad at that. I guess that's why sometimes I'm so jaded and I don't feel like I'm in the moment. But my girlfriend was like, “Let's go through your old photos or like your old stories.” I forgot that Instagram has this whole archive, and I went through videos of me in like 2017 and 2018, and I just started crying. I really bawled because there was a part of my life that I just completely forgot, and then I realized there's so much life that happened while I was just like on autopilot to some degree. I was being myself, but I wasn't being the world around me. I think in the future and nowadays, I want to be more vigilant and attentive to the things that I react to, and the things that happen in my life. I don't know what that means for the future of music, it could just be very reflective. But there's beauty and fun in knowing who you are. I don't think the music's gonna be too introspective, but I think it'll still hold the same character that I've always had. 

Do you feel like it's because your frontal lobe is developing? 

It probably is. That happens at 25, right? I'm starting to do this thing where I have an email thread where I write every month so I have a backlog. It's either like made-up stories, real stories, thoughts and journaling and whatnot. But I had a thought about the color gray because I remember for a lot of my life, I hated gray as a piece of clothing. I just thought it was lazy, I thought it was uninteresting and boring, and I didn't like it. But one day, I don't know what happened. I put a piece of gray clothing on and I was like, “Wow, I really like this.” And after that moment, I was dyeing a bunch of stuff like dark gray or gray, and I hadn't even negotiated with myself, you know? It just clicked, and it just made me realize how fast you can change subconsciously without even agreeing with yourself. Your opinions and little ideas can change so fast. I guess something was developing inside. It was weird, it was so strange. Something as simple as a color that I hated just made me really reflect. 

You're wearing the complete opposite of gray today, so you're rebelling against it. 

Yeah, I'm doing that. 

Lastly, who are your OnesToWatch? 

I mean, off the bat, I feel like this guy has— he's had multiple phases of blowing up and has had a recent blowup, but I think his future is insane. He's already pretty big, but Forrest Nolan. Dude, Forrest’s stuff [euphoric spasms] is crazy, bro. 

How would you describe that motion that you just did for readers?

Euphoric [laughs], euphoric spasm. It's just cool. I think we're of similar age, so a lot of his music resonates with me on an emotional level and a nostalgic sense as well, and visually his works are creatively amazing. He's such a crazy visual storywriter, which I didn't really know until this recent project. I'd love to work with him as well before that blows up, you know? 

The hand drawn frames were crazy!

I hated that, dude. Literally I saw it, I was like get that shit off my page, bro. What the hell is this? Nuts. 

Listen to "close to you" below: