Gavin McGee on new single 'Loan' and upcoming EP

Connecticut based singer-songwriter, Gavin McGee, joined us on zoom to discuss new music, writing inspiration and the importance of caring about your art. With his new EP ‘What Was Will Be Again’ coming out later this summer, his songs talk about what every other young adult is experiencing; change, loss, and growing up.

So you just released a new song, Loan. It’s a sneak peek at your upcoming EP, can you tell us if we can expect a similar sound on the EP, or are the other tracks going to be different from each other?

Gavin: Loan is one of my older songs, but it does represent the general vibe of the EP. I tend to go back between writing and recording songs; like in the beginning I was really attached to the atmospheric indie folky thing, and now it’s a lot more indie-rock and slow jam that builds into super proud peaks. I love the duality of it all. The EP to me, is going to be more like a playlist.

I mapped it all out so that those songs will sound very good next to each other, because at the end of the day I think EPs and albums are just another way to organize music into eras. This is how I’m actively making music and how I sound now. I wish that I was always releasing songs, so that I could look back and be like ‘Hey! Seventeen year old Gavin sounded like that.’ but I was too in my head back then, that I couldn’t put it out.

Continuing about the EP, called ‘What Was Will Be Again’. You’ve described it as touching on some deep topics such as memory and mental health. Can you share a bit more about that, like the writing process and your inspiration while writing it?

Gavin: Most of the songs I have, are talking about my friends. They’re the true inspiration. Even though I’m not singing from personal experience, I draw inspiration from their stories, because it subconsciously spills over into my songwriting. People get so into their heads about being authentic, but it doesn’t have to be a personal experience to you. It can be a story. It might not be true to you, but it’s probably true to someone else. Just let the song be the song, it has a meaning don’t try to change that because you’re in your head about it. I also think you have to have a certain kind of confidence to write about your own personal experiences.

You’re only 23 and you’ve opened up for some great people, such as Florida natives Flipturn, what was that like and how has your journey been so far?

Gavin: We had a community event, and [Flipturn] were playing in the area and took the offer to play at our event. So then I got to thinking, ‘How can I do this?’. It was the most young people I had ever seen at one of those community events. Usually it’s just older people who want to see Grateful Dead covers, and here come these seasoned rockers just killing it. They were super sweet, and it opened up a door for me and broadened my following and helped me grow my brand.

You have a really strong sound, how long have you been making music?

Gavin: I was young when I started. I grew up in a very musical household, and I started recording songs when I was kid on a Tascam eight track. You had eight channels to do whatever you wanted with it, and I would play around and record on it. When I turned ten, I kind of stopped messing around with that, I still stayed musical and played instruments, but I just kind of stopped. I remembered it a couple of years ago and I’ve been scouring for it for a while. On my eighteenth birthday, my dad bought me LogicProX. I went to school with a mini keyboard, an acoustic guitar that I didn’t know how to play, and a SM58 microphone. I didn’t touch that guitar once my entire freshman year, but in my sophomore year I finally picked it up and started learning it. Anyway, that whole process taught me the whole process of recording. At a young age, I learned what faders were, what EQ and compression were; so then when it was on my laptop it all just came flooding back to me. I’m very grateful for the privilege I had growing up, being able to just play music after school and pick up those hobbies.

What advice do you have for other people who want to get into performing live and make their own music?

Gavin: First of all, if you want to make music you don’t have to play live, and if you want to play live you don’t have to make music. For people who want to start recording music, you just have to start. I was always caught up in thinking ‘This doesn’t sound professional enough,’ and was so focused on not releasing it unless it sounded like it was recorded in a professional studio. There’s something really intimate and really special about those first recordings that you do, when you’re just starting, when you don’t know all the rules. When you’re just focused on playing by ear and making what sounds good and cool to you, and making all those happy accidents. If someone critiques you on something, it doesn’t matter as long as it sounds good to you and it’s something you like. Don’t spend money until you’re ready to take that leap, and you’re confident in yourself and know what you want your project and passion to be. Until then, get around that barrier by just doing it.

I wish that I had an old Soundcloud or something, just filled with old tracks and songs that I could listen back on. There’s stuff that I‘ll never get back because I was so in my head, and now I don’t have much to track my progress with or compare to. I feel like your next track should always be your best track. I fully believe that every song I release is better than the last one. You can’t get caught up in the comparison of your songs to other songs. I always say it’s good to learn the rules so you can break them. For those who want to get into live music, my advice is to start slow. You’re not going to be playing huge audiences right away. It’s going to start out with just a room of you and your friends, and then maybe it’ll go up to ten people, and then twenty, and then maybe a hundred. Just start slow, practice, and do it. Show them you can do it.

Who are your biggest artistic influences?

Gavin: The three biggest for me when I was just starting out were: Billie Eilish, The Beatles, and Nirvana. I was listening to how they built their music, and how they conveyed their emotion. That’s what I was hyper-fixated on, not their sound. From a sound perspective, I kept getting in my own way. I would put out a song and then Dominic Fike would release something and I’d start freaking out, and thinking I needed to make music like that. Once I started creating my own music, and had something I could call my own, I got out of that and started just focusing on me. Right now I’m listening to a lot of Hey Nothing and Pine Grove.

You can listen to Gavin McGee’s new song Lost and find his upcoming EP on his Spotify, and keep up with him on his Instagram and website.