Life & Work with Caleb Gilbreath

Today we’d like to introduce you to Caleb Gilbreath.

Hi Caleb, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I grew up in the small town of Waxahachie Texas. My first musical outlets were playing percussion in a middle-school band, which grew into playing in my high school marching band (snare drum), wind ensemble, and drums in a jazz band and at my local church. I became interested in audio as well and went to college at Berklee College of music from 2007-2011, completing a double-major in Drum Set Performance and Music Production and Engineering.

During my last semester at Berklee, I played in an ensemble with (now-Grammy-nominated) bluegrass/Americana artist Sierra Hull. She and I became friends and immediately following graduation in May of 2011, I began touring with her as her Front Of House audio engineer, which I continued to do until the end of 2013. I knew playing was still my first passion, so in between dates with Sierra, I played as many gigs as I could. I left the FOH gig knowing that I wanted to focus solely on playing drums, and started playing with pop-country trio Gloriana at the top of 2014. In August of 2014, I began drumming with country artist Brett Eldredge, with whom I toured until the beginning of 2019.

Since leaving that tour in 2019, I’ve focused on studio work, producing, mixing, and musical directions. I’ve continued to play on the road in short stints for artists when the occasion arises, credits include Zac Brown (with his pop trio Sir Rosevelt), Hunter Hayes, Walker Hayes, Michael Ray, Runaway June, Maddie, and Tae, Devin Dawson, Ryan Hurd, and Charlie Worsham. I built and opened my home studio, Battery Life Studios, in 2019, and have worked producing, mixing, and recording for the last 2 years.

I recently had my first credit on a number one country song with Gabby Barrett’s song “I Hope”. I’ve been able to produce, mix, and drum on numerous projects for new, independent, and up-and-coming artists over the last 2 years from my studio, including Mandi Sagal, Raquel Cole, The Woods, Elisa Smith, Bill Luton, Meaghan Hickman, Zarni DeVette, Natasha Neely, Bryan Loweree, and many more

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Perspective and hindsight make things look more smooth than they feel in the moment. I can recall in my first 2 years in town feeling like I just didn’t have any traction, I wasn’t doing anything, I might be doing everything wrong when the reality is I was blessed with a relatively steady gig from day 1 and a steadily growing list of artists with whom I played drums.

There were ACTUAL bad experiences for sure. Within my first 6 months, I toured with a band for a few weeks (they’re called the Cordovas, you can choose to use their name or not, haha) and had a horrible experience with how they treated me personally. I was literally being yelled at onstage, mid-show.

When I politely gave them my 2-weeks notice, they decided that RIGHT NOW was a good time to part ways, and they kicked me out of the bus in Denver, CO, leaving me to my own devices to get back home (along with my drums) to Nashville. The short version: I mailed my drums home via FedEx and took a 27-hour Greyhound bus ride back to Nashville.

Often, for me, the transition to where I needed to go came about in a way that I didn’t necessarily choose. I knew live audio wasn’t what I REALLY wanted to do, but I didn’t have the courage to leave a steady gig with a great artist like Sierra Hull. The result was me becoming very unhappy in that position, to the point that Sierra (very professionally, politely, and in a friendly way, I might add) called me out on my attitude, and I knew I needed to make the leap to leave that job and focus on playing.

I later knew that studio work was my long-term goal in music, but again, didn’t have the courage to leave my gig as drummer and bandleader for country artist Brett Eldredge. It took getting fired without cause (“it’s just not the right fit anymore”) after 5 years of touring to force my hand.

Basically, it seems I’m often forced (in an uncomfortable way) down the path that I actually want to take, but just didn’t have the courage to.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a bit of a jack of all trades. Here’s a list, haha:

• Touring/session drummer
• Ableton playback programming (backing tracks, show content, etc.)
• Music director
• Producer
• Live/recording engineer
• Mix engineer

I’m mostly known as a drummer and a producer. Other skillsets have come about in professional situations where the question “can you do…” has come up, and I typically just said yes and figured it out.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I try to care as much about any project, show, or product as much as the client/artist does. If I do that, and truly empathize with how passionate he/she is about what we’re working on, all the other stuff (being prepared, having a creative vision, performing with emotion, being a pleasant human being to work with) tends to fall into place as a result.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.batterylifestudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calebgilbreath/
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/caleb-gilbreath-527318832/sets/battery-life-studios-portfolio/s-gc1Du?si=600d5863ac4845f8ab3de2a8d2b092e9&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Image Credits
Michael Sparks, Keegan Edgar, and Evan Moore