Greg Banks photographed by Shane Augustus
There’s something sacred about the way Greg Banks speaks about music. Born and raised in New Orleans, Greg’s creative path began in community, from the church choir to the marching band and eventually the rhythm of a city built on sound. What started as poetry evolved into songwriting, guitar playing, and ultimately, a style that defies genre altogether.
In conversation with Muse Journal, Greg reflects on his evolution as both the artist and the man, from learning stillness as a source of inspiration to redefining what it means to create without boundaries. His words carry the weight of lived experience, of fatherhood, discipline, and finding peace in the chaos. Through it all, his music remains a vessel for truth, vulnerability, and divine expression.
With his upcoming EP NÜ set to debut this fall, Greg invites listeners into a space where sound meets soul and where every chord reminds us that we are already enough.
SASHA: How did you get your start in music?
GREG:
My music career began as a member of the choir back home in New Orleans. That's where I learned the importance of community. I learned how to be a part of something bigger than me. From there, I transitioned to the marching band where I played trumpet. And from that point, I started writing poetry, and poetry led to songwriting, and songwriting led to learning guitar, and here we are.
SASHA: Your music has been described between soulful and genre bending. Do you think in genres when you create, or do you see yourself building a world without those labels or outside of those labels?
GREG:
I see myself building an immersive experience that is limitless, where people can attach themselves to a true emotion, not limited by a label that someone else created. So if I'm feeling soulful in the chords that come out of me, that's what I'll play. And midway through, I feel like I want to add some funk on it. That's what I'll do. I'm just emoting the things that I'm going through. And hopefully, what I'm conveying someone else can feel. And I give them permission to accept it and acknowledge it and classify it in whatever way that feels right to them. That's what I would say.
SASHA What role does silence or non-music play in your creative process, if any?
GREG:
That's a beautiful question, actually. I can relate to that so much more now at this point in my life because I understand that in stillness, the greatest awareness comes. When I'm not doing and I'm allowing myself to just be, I find my greatest inspiration. When I'm walking or sitting in a park, I'll hear things that I wouldn't hear when I'm strumming through guitar chords. And when I allow myself to center, I could feel ways that I may limit when I'm in an environment where I have to be the artist. When I can just be the man, the person, the being, I'm most inspired. I think that that, for me at this point, is the most impactful part of my expression and interpretation, knowing that the beauty is in the silence.
SASHA: Where do you find your inspiration, and would you attribute that to more discipline or finding it in the chaos, or both, or not at all?
GREG:
Large part of my discipline is understanding that that's the only way to achieve greatness. In addition to that, equally as important is fatherhood. I find a great responsibility of being a father as one of the greatest gifts in this life because I have a chance to guide others to a greater life than I've discovered by being first the example and then holding them accountable to a higher standard. In addition to that, quite frankly, the chaos is a spark at times because in that chaos, you must create peace. So it's like, how can I challenge myself to find peace in mayhem? Because it's easy to find peace in peace. But can you find peace in mayhem? And when I'm able to do that, I realize I'm challenging something divine. And in that divinity, I'm creating the greatest art that I feel I've ever done.
SASHA: From your viewpoint, do you think artists have a responsibility to reflect the times in their work, or is it the opposite, where the times are a reflection of the art that we consume?
GREG:
From my perspective, I feel like those dualities can coexist. The artist is responsible to reflect the time that we're in because we have the capacity to do so in a way that many people can understand. We have a way of using words, colors, shapes to depict something that most people can only think about and imagine. When you've been blessed with a gift to transfer that information in a way that many can understand, you should do it because that's how we can shift the change that we seek. Everyone has a role, has a responsibility to add to the beauty of the world. But when we have the privilege of being influential, we should use that for good. And that doesn't mean you have to create albums of protest music or why not? But you're not limited to that. Your song about love can have something that lifts up the world in unity and oneness. The song about what you're seeing walking to your neighborhood could be the song that changes someone's life, save someone's life. So I think the responsibility of the artist is to be present, to be accountable, and to be a conduit for the things that will shift the world.
SASHA: What's a truth you've discovered through music that you couldn't have learned any other way?
GREG:
Well, I won't discredit life being a great teacher, but music helped me to fast forward to the point and the reality that I'm an emotional man. I'm sensitive. I care a lot, and I have a lot to say about that. I'm very accountable, and I try to pretend like I wasn't, but music forced me to accept that knowing. So I'm emotional.
SASHA: So if someone only listens to your music, what's one part that they never understand?
GREG:
One part that I think they wouldn't understand is probably how a teenage father without a father who, because of society and geography, was on a trajectory of being prison bound, created something so pure, so tangible, so full of love, and so light. I came up in a very heavy environment, and I think if people only listen to the music, they probably wouldn't know how that happened, that I arrived at this point.
SASHA: If your music was a conversation with future generations, what's the one thing you'd want them to hear between the notes?
GREG: I would want them to hear that they are already enough, that all they have to do is just allow the space to become. They don't have to pretend to be anything. They don't have to try and fit in. They are magnificent. They are special. They were selected, chosen for a specific path, and do everything with love. Show the way if you know it. Let it be known when you don't. Be okay with figuring it out because you'll get there in your own time.
