Glaive
Glaive
Ash Gutierrez was born and raised in Florida before his family moved to the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains to Hendersonville, North Carolina. So what does this kid, signed to Interscope Records as a teen with a massive online following of his angsty genre-bending hyperpop music, have to do with Minnesota? Basically nothing besides his newest single "minnesota is a place that exists," an angsty ode to our great state—kind of. He even just released an acoustic version of the ode to our state.
Born in 2005 (in case that makes anyone feel old), Gutierrez is freshly 17 and better known as Glaive through the internet-sphere. His stage name was plucked from a weapon from the video game Dark Souls III. He started making music in the peak of the pandemic two years ago messing around with recording software in the dread of Zoom classes, often during them.
The song is the lead single of his forthcoming debut album and describes a growing resentment towards a partner. Steeped in the edgy intensity of emo punk, he sings about offing her and just telling her family that she went to Minnesota. At first glance, the music video looks like a crazy new season of Stranger Things where they shoot at cats instead of mindflayers but with just as many pool parties.
His inspiration for the song? “It is entirely because of the movie Fargo, which I had seen a few weeks prior to recording the tune,” Gutierrez says. He had originally penned it to California but ultimately replaced it with Minnesota. “I thought, ‘hey, everyone talks about California, but not too many people talk about Minnesota.’”
You can catch Glaive at the Varsity Theater on September 13 on his "america is a place that exists" headlining tour. “I’m truly so excited to see if Minnesota truly is a place that exists,” he says.
