Gabe Donnay has been playing music since he was six years old. Starting off with classics like violin and guitar, he eventually picked up the guitar and started playing around with electronics as he got older. In 2012, he took all of his musical knowledge to create Satchmode, his current project. We sat down with the dream pop frontman and reminisced about his musical journey as well as talked about the upcoming album, Love Hz.
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Homebase: Los Angeles, CA
What are some of your first memories with music?
I've been playing music forever and grew up playing classical violin actually. I started when I was six years old, and then I started playing piano when I was 10. My mom plays cello. So she brought me into that world at a very young age. Then when I was in middle school and high school, I picked up guitar and bass. Then I started studying jazz organ in college. So it's kind of all over the place, but I kept playing in bands the whole time. After I graduated from school, I moved back to Baltimore, where I grew up, and that's when I started working Satchmode. That was 2012.
You play a big array of instruments and have musical training, how did that factor into Satchmode's sound?
I think it gives me a very meticulous approach to songwriting and production. Having that knowledge of harmony and music theory is really helpful. But I also feel like I spend a lot of time trying to unlearn a lot of that stuff because it's a very rigid way of learning music. And there's no improvisation taught at all. When I started playing jazz and started playing in rock bands, it took a while to loosen up again and let go a lot of that rigidness of classical music. I still enjoy classical and still play it.
I did read that you studied neurosciences for a little bit — so different from music. So what made you go that route?
For one thing, my mom was cellist, but she was also a doctor [laughs] so it took a while for me to get over the expectation that she wanted me to go into medicine, which was something I was always conflicted about. And when I really decided I didn't want to do that and went into music, it felt like a huge relief. But I still really enjoy neuroscience and find ways to tie it to music.
I actually published a paper for Johns Hopkins, where we did brain imaging of jazz piano players while they were improvising. So it's always been connected for me, and I think there's a lot of overlap with math and music and science in general.
Where it do the band name come from?
Well, it's a play on Louis Armstrong's nickname. I thought it was commonly known than it is, but a lot of people don't know it. It's a nod to the fact that even though you don't hear influence of jazz directly in our music, it's certainly a nod to the fact that we have a lot of respect of where we came from with this music and an appreciation of that.
With Love Hz, you took your time working on it for two years. Why did you decide to do it this way instead of speeding up the process?
[Laughs] That's generous to assume that's the choice that I made, but it's how much time it needed. For me, the writing is usually really fast, and the production process is really slow. It depends on the song, but it just took a long time to get it right. We learned a lot from this process. I definitely learned a lot. It probably would be quicker the second time. But I'm glad I took the time to get it right. I'm happy with the finish product.
Since you were so meticulous about the songs on this record, what is the one that gave you the most trouble?
"Happiness." I wrote the first half of that song maybe two years ago now, and I thought it was done at the time. I left it for a while. Then when I came back to it, I actually added a whole three minute outro to it, which I think totally makes the song now. But when it's not right, it needs space and time to sit and then approach it with fresh ears.
What's next for Satchmode?
We're going on tour, starting this week, and then we'll be on the road for a couple of weeks. Then the album comes out on February 7.
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