gnash is an American producer, singer, songwriter, who started out as a DJ. His stage name comes from a shortening of his real name Garett Nash.

He stated he transitioned from DJing to producing his own music by having “a bunch of feelings I wanted to get off my chest and all my friends and family were tried of hearing me talk about it, so I started making music about it instead.”

His best-known song “i hate u, i love u” is an interpolation of Olivia O'Briens’s “hate u love u” and peaked at #10 in the Billboard Hot 100 and on #1 in the national charts of Australia and Israel.

On January 1, 2016, gnash announced on Twitter that “:):” (pronounced “happysad”) is his own label and genre of music.

His EPs u, me, and us are gnash’s way to cope with a breakup he went through. When asked on the Zach Sang Show how he handles the feelings he writes about on those EPs, gnash said that it’s a skill he acquired through his father’s way of parenting:

Growing up, my dad was very insistent upon the idea that if I was in a position where I was able to talk about how I felt, I wouldn’t be put down for it. And so, instead of getting into an argument or fighting with somebody or getting upset or crying about it or things like that—those are all fine emotions to have, but at the end of all of that you have to be able to communicate how you feel. So the first thing I do when feeling anything, is I write it down on paper and I free write as much of it as I can to get it out of me, ‘cause I don’t want it in here anymore, I want it somewhere else, so that I can look at it and either say “Wow, I’m being ridiculous, I’m glad that I see this now” or “Oh, this is actually something that is affecting me in my day-to-day life.” And if the feeling doesn’t seem to leave my body after I write it down, then I usually take it to the next step of turning it into a song.