Life & Work with Gabby Patrice

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabby Patrice.

Hi Gabby, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Boston, MA in a family of thirteen children. I am the tenth child and the only professional musician. My whole family absolutely loves music, but we grew up more so with athletics taking the number one role as far as hobbies or activities.

I absolutely love sports, but I would always find myself listening to music and dancing or writing poems whenever I got the chance. I won a few awards growing up for poetry and once I got my hands on a guitar I taught myself how to put my poems to chords. I will always remember when I wrote my first song. Something clicked. For the first time in my life, I felt those butterflies people say they feel when they are in love.

I was absolutely full, and to this day am still head over heels for music and songwriting. I played lacrosse in college and graduated like I thought I had to do. Then I joined the corporate world and lived in South Boston with my best friend and had a blast. Unfortunately, with a job taking over most of my time and my friends and family taking over the rest, I rarely wrote or played music. I had gigs every now and then and everyone would come support, but I was barely writing. I was barely creating. I was barely doing the one thing that made me feel completely full of happiness.

It took my second job out of college for me to realize that I was working a job 50-60 hours a week that I cared nothing about. In fact, I was stressed about something I cared nothing about all the time. My one form of happiness was playing maybe once or twice a month. I knew in my soul that no one should do anything that made them feel the way I did for so much of my week every week. Was this going to be my life? Stress, anxiety, and money with a gig on the side every now and then?

In the middle of my confusion over the right decision, I met my dad’s friend named Arthur and I told him exactly what I said above. I knew I was a songwriter living in a world I didn’t belong. Little did I know, I was talking to the exact right person at the right time. Arthur called me a few days after that conversation and offered me an internship at his company in Nashville, TN. I left my job, packed up my things, and moved to music city all alone. It was by far the scariest, loneliest, saddest, and best thing that I have ever done.

I went to a venue called “The Listening Room” alone often to understand what writers’ rounds were and hear some of the best songs. I was so inspired every time. I realized that it didn’t only take me writing a song to feel full with butterflies. It was the writers, the stories, the music. I left everyone I knew and love in Boston, but somehow sitting alone in a venue knowing absolutely no one, I was finally home.
January will be six years since that move. Six years has contained so much more than I could have imagined. I have written so many songs and met so many people. I have created almost every day.

I am not making the money I use to because unfortunately, that is a songwriter’s life, but for six years I have been doing something I love. I have had six years of missing my family. Six years of eating ramen for dinner, singing to empty bars, heartbreak, and struggle. But I have also had six years of new songs, new friends, learning, GROWING, creating, and performing. Most importantly, six years of understanding my value. Six years of butterflies.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I gave up a lucrative life for one that was not. There are a lot of struggles that come with that decision. But money has never been an interest of mine so that is what I will say as far as that goes. I wrote my song Bad Girl about the industry. I was new and trying to learn. I was nice to everyone and constantly did what I was told in order to get where I wanted to be.

Unfortunately, a lot of snakes come out when they smell someone willing to listen, and being a woman did not make it any easier. People will try to convince you of how to act, what songs to release, what parties to go to, and with who. They will name-drop and make you feel like you will be famous. The minute I formed my own opinion is the minute I lost a few friends, and I have never looked back. I mentioned six years of growth and I think a big part of my growth was understanding the intentions of others and what to do with those intentions.

I am so blessed to now have an incredible group of friends, co-writers, and supporters. I guess my struggles have been the same as most in this industry, and that is what makes the supporters and listeners so important. We need them more than they will ever know. And I am so grateful every day for anyone that listens to my music, comes to a show, comments on a singing video, or just simply believe in me.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
This is a fun question! I am a songwriter and a pop/EDM artist. I have been writing for a while but co-writing and writing seriously for six years. I majored in creative writing so I love writing for all genders and genres. Any chance to step into someone else’s life and write about it is exciting! When I write for myself it is definitely more therapeutic.

I came to Nashville with a guitar thinking I would end up as a country artist and slowly but surely fell into pop. I have always loved pop and listen to it every time I exercise so it was not that surprising to me. EDM, however, was the real left-field genre for me as an artist.
I never thought about EDM until I went on a writing trip to LA and caught up with a former middle school friend. He had been doing EDM and asked if I would be interested in writing. He had never written an original and I had never written an EDM song so it was definitely new to both of us.

We ended up writing a song called Time Zones, which is now my number one listened-to song I have put out! After Time Zones came out, more producers in that world reached out and I worked with MC4D on a song called Lose Track. We released that in May and it played on stations all over the world! I am not a big EDM fan and have more to release next year! I am definitely proud of my releases and my music, but I am also thrilled that other artists have released songs I wrote with them.

I have a Spotify playlist of the songs I wrote but that I am not the artist on and although I want that to grow to be far more songs, I am still very proud of it. I know my writing sets me apart. I have written songs that were released by EDM artists in Germany, country artists in Nashville, and pop artists in LA.

My raspy voice works well for pop and EDM, and I have not stopped growing since I started this journey for real. I am thrilled with what I have accomplished especially with how hard this world is. I look forward to what I have next!

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
What I have learned but I wish I knew, is to not compare yourself to anyone else especially when it comes to success. Learning from artists or being inspired by artists, are great.

But to get down on yourself because someone is moving faster than you or getting more attention than you can really cause insecurities and stunted growth more than you know. Your time and your talent are yours alone. Trust. Also, if people got famous in a couple of years everyone would do it.

This is NOT easy. It’s actually very hard. So always ALWAYS remember WHY you started.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabbypatricemusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gabbypatricemusic
• Twitter: https://www.Twitter.com/gabbypmusic
• Youtube: YouTube.come/gabbypatricemusic
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/XSBx1K774s8gbHzWA
• Other: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM87DU6V6/

Image Credits
Matthew Allen