Review Fix Exclusive: Gabriel Talks ‘What A Shame’ And More

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Gabriel, who discusses his origin in music, new work, “What a Shame” and his goals for the future.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Gabriel: My parents had a very large CD collection and when I was little, I would spend a couple hours each day taking CDs out and putting them in my portable player and just listening. That exposed me to a wide variety of music; artist like Eric Clapton, AC/DC, Boston, and Guns N’ Roses. But when I heard the first Alter Bridge record, I asked my parents for a guitar and lessons. I ended up having to take a year of piano lessons because I was too small to grip a guitar, but when I turned six I got a guitar and have been playing ever since.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Gabriel: It varies from song to song, but specifically for “What a Shame” there wasn’t much of a process. Me and my producer, Joe Kaltenbach, sat down to write. I tuned my guitar to a weird open tuning I stumbled upon, and from there the parts just kind of flowed out. After we arranged the parts, Joe had the first lyric “Shame on you, shame on me” and the rest just came naturally.

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Gabriel: For me writing music is my way of expressing my thoughts. It’s nice to be able to write about the things I’m happy and grateful for, but also about my frustrations. It’s therapeutic to write lyrics about these things, and sometimes I get a song that’s worth sharing and something I think people can relate to.

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Gabriel: Music is a part of who I am. When I have free time I’m playing. And when I can’t play, I’m listening to music. I know it sounds cliche, but if I didn’t have music, I honestly don’t know what I’d do. 

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Gabriel: Melodic hard rock, with a focus on lyrics and guitar. When we were mixing the songs we recorded our goal was to create dynamic songs that sonically sound huge.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Gabriel: Unfortunately with the current lockdowns, I haven’t been able to play a live show with my new original music, but we’ve got some things in the works. My hope is to have a live sound that is very similar to what we recorded. 

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Gabriel: The song was written a couple weeks after the lockdown was put into effect. Being in such a limited environment I took an extrospective look at what was going on in the world. I realized that despite all of the chaos and no matter our many differences, at the end of the day we are all the same. We are one race, the human race. And that message of the song has only become more relevant as time has gone on.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2020?

Gabriel: Keep writing more music and hopefully get back in the studio to record some new tracks. I’m really excited about some of the stuff that I’m working on right now.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Gabriel: On Friday the 23rd, we’ve got a music video coming out for the songs, that is really cool. Looking further into the future though: when we went to the studio we recorded three full tracks and part of another. So the plan is to release one more track by the end of the year, and another at the beginning of next year.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

2 Comments

  1. So nice to read an article giving some insight into a young new artist. I look forward to hearing much more from GABRIEL in the future!

  2. Great article— heard to believe Gabriel’s talent and insightfulness at what appears to be such a young age. Say Gabriel preform as a guest artist in Richmond VA playing some funky blues about a year ago— really talented— JR Pinehurst NC

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