“Hello, my name is really Mozart,” says songwriter Mozart Gabriel – son of designer Patricia Michaels and artist Tony Abeyta, but I will only mention this part once.
Gabriel (Navajo and Taos Pueblo) is back in New Mexico for a brief stint after COVID-19 forced him to leave Barcelona, Spain, where he attended the BAU Design College of Barcelona for the past two years. He has contracted COVID-19 twice in the past few months (once after the vaccination) and regards this time at home as a little breather. Gabriel was born in Santa Fe, grew up in Taos and, as a child, moved with his family to Venice, Italy, New York and Boston. He studied film and animation in Vancouver and art in Chicago, then moved to Nashville to make music videos and write songs. In 2018 he moved to Barcelona, which he now regards as his de facto home base. That is where, he says, he feels most comfortable and most creative.
“I drank a lot – I’ve been sober for about a year and nine months now – and it felt very difficult being a Native American in the US and having to keep explaining who I am,” he says. “When I arrived in Barcelona, nobody cared. I really experienced who I am, I just had to accept and love myself, and that made it easier for me to be sober and come back to my family. “
Even during his studies as a filmmaker and stop-motion animator, Gabriel was always a bedroom guitarist and a full-time music lover. But after attending an open mic event in Barcelona where a buddy urged him to play one of his own songs, something clicked.
“I played the song ‘Hold Back’ that’s on mine [upcoming] Album, and the moment I sang that song I was nervous, but it’s about not holding back and the things that kept me from doing the things I want to do, “says Gabriel . “I had never played music in front of people before, but everyone really liked it and there was this crazy instant gratification. Everyone gathered and said to me, ‘I want to play with you.’ “
Seduced by the cute pop-punk woman, Gabriel formed a rock band he calls a rock band (although his pop and punk influence comes to the fore) with fellow expatriates from Venezuela, New Zealand, and the UK. For the next year he played on open microphones almost every evening, wrote songs with bandmates in the morning, tried out material live and “lived and breathed music as much as possible”.
“The more I became vulnerable,” explains Gabriel, “the less I felt alone.”
There was something about the music that calmed him down, he says, and helped develop a more closed sense of self.
“If you grow up on the first floor, it is difficult,” he says. “I had a hard time finding my identity anyway.”
This discovery, explains Gabriel, helped him incorporate traditional vocal techniques into his more modern sound. The beats of his childhood powwows and gatherings also play a role. It’s always been about pop – Enrique Iglesias, Pixies, and Joan Jett, for example – but something about the driving rhythms and intense vocalizations of tribal music translates well to rock, he says.
“Take the Maori and their haka,” he says. “The energy that is in you is thrown out, and I do that with my punk.”
Said punk has already started to be officially released with the song “Operate”. Oh, it’s late 90s punk / emo, all right, with a driving bassline, chugging riffs and Gabriel howling loud and proud. Unexpected, however, is a wah’d-out solo that feels more straightforward rock. Simple yet powerful vocal harmonies seal the deal. It’s as if Machine Gun Kelly wasn’t the small, watered-down spirit of emotional poetry, wrapped in a fashionable punk garb – Gabriel achieves a reduced rock authenticity that can only come from, as he puts it, “living life”.
With the remainder of the album Eager Within the fire dropping in November, Gabriel has a return to Nashville in mind and now seems adorable impatient. Bringing these songs out is an important milestone for his personal growth, but also the culmination of years of work, self-doubt and ultimately, hopefully, redemption.
“Last year I was able to write soberly and happily, even though I was scared,” he says of the upcoming full-length. “Am I addicted to depression? Heart pain? Alcohol? You won’t understand if you don’t pass it on to people. It’s exposure. It’s vulnerability. It’s the funny thing about being a native of punk – check out the influences, like the mohawk, and face the government. Do you want to know where it all started? Right here at home. “
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