Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with firebrand

Hello! My name is Gabe, I’m the vocalist and primary creative behind firebrand – a hard rock / metal project based in Cleveland, Ohio. 

What is your earliest memory connected to music? 

I remember watching MTV with my parents as a kid – specifically seeing the music video for “Rockstar” by Nickelback. This song is probably my earliest favorite I can remember, and since then I always gravitated towards rock more than anything else. 

How did your passion for creating music begin? 

When I was 12 years old, my friend Jordan and I went to see Three Days Grace live (who were one of my favorite bands), and this was our first ever concert experience. It was not only incredibly inspirational, but also brought the two of us closer together as 

friends – Jordan was already learning to play the drums, so I decided to start taking guitar lessons so that we could form a band together. This ended up leading to the start of our first band called Dying Desolation, which lasted for 6 years and introduced us to the world of writing, recording, and performing music and everything in between. 

What’s the story behind your current music project? 

A little over a year after Dying Desolation ended, I went through a very difficult breakup. It was a very emotional time for me during which I felt depressed and lacked any motivation. I hadn’t been writing much music in the year since my band had split up, but this experience led me to start writing again as a way to express my emotions – it was therapy, really. Since the subject matter of these new songs was so personal to me, it felt inappropriate to have anyone else singing the lyrics, so I started singing completely on my own for the first time, and this project started out as a solo effort through and through. Only more recently have I started inviting others to join me, including Jordan on drums, as this project finally starts to take the shape of a true band. 

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before? 

I think my greatest strength has always been writing infectious and memorable hooks. I aim to capture a variety of sounds, ranging from alternative rock all the way to heavy metalcore, but I always try to include a catchy chorus to tie it together and to keep listeners coming back and singing along. My main influences are bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Linkin Park, who follow the same philosophy of experimenting with

sounds that push genre boundaries while still being fun and catchy. Lyrically, I always want to maintain the emotional core at the center of the project, so I will always write about things that hold meaning for me, and I hope that the emotional honesty will resonate with listeners and that they may be able to relate through their own personal experiences. 

What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music? 

One thing that has been huge for me is starting the writing process with different elements. I was the guitarist in my old band, so for many years I would always come up with the guitar riff for the song first and then write everything else around it. As I mentioned, when I started firebrand, those initial songs came from a very emotional place, so that was actually the first time I ever wrote lyrics first – those songs basically started out as poems. This change of approach opened my eyes to new possibilities, and I feel like I’ve been able to orient my songs around emotion and subject matter much better since I started writing that way. 

What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process? 

I write all of my music on my Macbook with Logic Pro, and using Odin II by Solemn Tones is quite essential for writing digital guitar parts that sound pretty close to real guitars. This is great for being able to capture ideas and hear what they will sound like right away without having to learn them on an actual guitar first. 

Which indie artist or song are you loving right now? 

One indie band that I’ve loved for many years and can’t recommend enough is Deligma from Australia. They have less than 1,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and they only dropped one five-track EP back in 2011 before disappearing off the face of the earth, but this EP is absolutely incredible and highly influential to me. I’m also going to take this opportunity to shout out my friends in Short North and NOVAGLØW, both bands have been putting out great music lately and everyone should check them out! 

How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision? 

My personal experiences have completely informed the tone and art direction of this project from day one. As I mentioned earlier, firebrand wouldn’t exist (or at least it might have looked very different) if it hadn’t been for a breakup I went through that inspired me to start writing again as a form of therapy – in that sense, it’s been fundamental.

What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work? 

I hope that listeners can relate my thoughts and experiences to those in their own life and feel the same catharsis that I felt through writing about them. 

What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far? 

The most important lesson music has taught me so far is that art is all about the human experience. Authenticity is everything, and real emotion will always be felt through art. This is why I strongly advocate against AI “music” – it is, by definition, not music (on top of all of the other problems it presents). 

What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at? 

I would love to perform at Sonic Temple in my home state of Ohio. I’ve attended the festival many times and seen many of my all-time favorite bands perform there, so it would be really cool to experience it from the stage. 

If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why? 

It might sound funny, but my favorite artist is actually Eminem – if I could go back in time to the early 2000s during the Marshall Mathers LP or The Eminem Show era, I’ve always thought that his aggressive flows and delivery during that time would have been really cool to see on a metal track. His verse on the song “Go to Sleep” is a perfect example. 

Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links) All of my links can be found here: https://hyperfollow.com/f1rebr4nd 

Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey? 

Given that pretty much all of the music I’ve released for this project so far has been about the breakup I mentioned, I’m excited to finally move on to other topics, haha. I also look forward to taking this project to the stage soon, hopefully by the end of this year. While I’m definitely nervous to sing to a crowd for the first time, I’m just as excited since it’s been about three years since the last time I played a show. 

What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?

I hope that my music is able to act as a window into my mind and personality through which listeners can feel like they understand at least a little bit about me. I think that people’s art can sometimes speak louder than their words, and I think that’s really special.