It’s clear that Greg Wigz is not your run-of-the-mill  musician.

Going by the name She Loves 2 Shop, he’s the latest entry into the ALT 99.5FM/102.3FM Homegrown Spotlight with his unorthodox music that he says cannot be categorized.

“I’m 10 percent artist, 90 percent producer,” he said. “I don’t take the artist part too serious.”

His interview with ALT DJ Zack Skyler can be heard at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 12, and Sunday, Jan. 15, and a pair of his songs, “Scavenger” and “Rubber,” can be heard alongside other local acts during the station’s  hourlong Homegrown Showcase every Friday at 7 p.m.

In the blood

Growing up in Kosciusko County, Wigz says he was raised in a musical family, joining his brother and father to play gigs.

“Then life got in the way, and I went the other way with work and other things,” he said. “But to be a songwriter is what I always wanted to do, then a mix engineer was my next thing.”

Earning his livelihood in construction and as an electrician, things eventually took a turn, and music once again infiltrated his life.

“The music is just something that never goes away, the desire to do something,” he said. “Slowly, I got back into it, and life threw me some curveballs and things changed, and music was able to be put front and center.”

Learning new tricks

The music might have always been there, but it had changed very much since his days of playing guitar with his family. The digital age was upon us, and his desire to mix overwhelmed him.

“When I listen to music, I have this imagination where I think I can put the sounds here and there, move stuff like adding a little more vocals this way, guitars this way, drums louder … all that kind of stuff,” he said.

Those things might have lived in his head, but presenting them to the rest of us came with some trial and error. To make the sounds a reality, Wigz said he spent plenty of time learning the craft on his Dell computer about 20 years ago.

“It was a nightmare,” he said. “So glad I don’t have to learn it again.

“You do have to be able to teach yourself and smart enough to learn how to learn and research stuff,” he said. “There’s a lot of gold on YouTube. The biggest key to it is, you have to pay your dues. You have to be in that chair, put in those 10,000 hours. Fortunately, I have a very comfortable chair.”

Releasing albums

Although he was creating music, it was not until 2021 that he began to put it out to the masses, beginning with 2021’s She Loves 2 Shop on Bandcamp. 

The desire to share his music came about thanks to an online community that he had been engaging with that gave him the confidence, which he says he lacked when he started out with the moniker Cosmic Clown.

After years of hiding behind a fictitious band that included “musicians” with such names as Rocco, Rollo, Quake, and Digit, he changed the name after analyzing the opening song off his debut, “She Loves 2 Shop.”

“It represented consumerism, materialistic things, basically what we’re seeing right now that is ruining everybody: consume, consume, consume,” he said.

Later in 2021, Dead Right & Blew was released on wider streaming services, followed by Profanity in 2022.

His music might be listed as “alternative,” but that’s a pretty loose definition. Bringing to mind the off-kilter music of Frank Zappa and Primus, it’s impossible to know what to expect from song to song, which he does by design.

“I like rock, but I like country, I like bluegrass, I like jazz, but I don’t like too much of it all at one time,” he said. “I can’t sit down and listen to heavy metal for too long, but there’s some catchy tunes. I’ll rock out for about 10 minutes, then move on to a jazz piece for 10 minutes.”

No matter your preference, She Loves 2 Shop is worth a listen, and he hopes you find a message along the way.

“It’s a platform that helps me address some things that need addressed,” he said.