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Some of Khadejha's Line Photo Courtesy of Khadejha

MZ: Being a rock climber, an urbanite and an artist must often feel like your being pulled in disparate directions. How do you marry those different parts of yourself?

IG: I have grown into it. At first I would always feel pulled. It's like I'd be rehearsing for a play, or in the studio recording a song, or out strolling around the city, then I'd see a climbing mag or get a call from a friend heading out to Hueco and start thinking about how I need to go. Need to get out there. Screw all this creative stuff and urban living shit, I need to go get out on the rock. Need to train harder, get back into living in my car, etc. Then I'd go out on a trip and after a week or so start missing the other creative endeavors in my life, my friends, and the craziness of New York City.

Now I enjoy the balance. I put the time and commitment to each area of my life while I am doing it. Then, when I go out climbing, I'm psyched for it.

MZ: How does your life as a climber influence your art, both music and graphic?

IG: Climbing has brought me so many gifts. I have experienced some of the most magnificent places on earth. Being out in the mountains has given me so much joy, like sitting on top of a boulder at Joe's Valley, looking out over the desert and into the blue sky, or smelling the springtime air while out climbing in the Gunks in May or watching the landscape blaze like a rainbow in the fall, or seeing the snow capped mountains in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah while getting sunburned in the valley... The visceral experience of having been in these places is like ice cream to the spirit, nourishment for the soul.

Climbing has also brought me so much wisdom about humanity. As climbers, we welcome each other all over the world, simply because of our common bond. You meet a climber from South Africa, Russia, California, Texas, Brazil, or wherever, and you welcome them. You feel kinship with them. You show them your local climbing area, give them beta, help them on their way, and trade stories of where you've climbed, what your experiences have been, and on and on. When I've traveled I've gotten to hang with climbers from all over the U.S. and world. Everybody has welcomed me. This is not fabricated. This is not some philosophy of how to be, this is not a religious rule of how to act toward each other. It is just humans treating each other as their kin despite where they are from or what they look like or what political party they vote in.

So because of my experience as a climber and as a person it reflects back into what I write about in my music, the spirit bleeds into my art. They are not separate aspects from each other.

On another note, climbing really gives my body/kinetic energy a place to play. I need that. If I am in the studio for a full day, hammering out a song I start to bug out. I need to get outside and run around, climb, be explosive physically.

MZ: When you started Khadejha with Jason, what did you envision? How has that vision evolved?

IG: At first, Jason and I were just psyched on having an outlet for our art. We saw a void in climbing apparel and wanted to do something new, with a sense of fun and artistry. We'd both been wearing mostly clothes from outside the climbing industry. We were looking at other sports, like board sports, and saw awesome gear. So, why not bring a cooler, more dynamic look to climbing? Climbing clothes were just boring and bland. And climbing and climbers are nothing resembling bland or boring. This sport and the people in it are bold and radical. So we would do a piece of art, make a silk screen, put it on a shirt, and then wear it around NYC or out climbing. People were psyched so we just kept making stuff and growing out into other pieces. Now we are designing a line of pants, hoodies, shorts, packs, hats, arm support sleeves, and a bunch off other new items. We've even some secret innovations to make our sport safer, but with style.