DIGGING DEEPER
A.O. GERBER TRUSTING YOURSELF SO YOU CAN TRUST OTHERS... As a kid, I never played music with others out of insecurity. So, when I was 14 and my singing teacher offered to arrange my songs and put together an album, I nervously said yes. Hearing the final product was a moment I’ll never forget. He’d turned my folk songs into cringey pop— bursting with drum fills and searing guitar solos. I hated every second and I couldn’t articulate why. That experience solidified in teenage me that collaboration was dangerous. It was the only
time I’d let anyone touch something I’d made, and it had gone wrong. It seemed easier to work alone even though I didn’t know the first thing about recording or arranging. Then, in college, a friend asked if he and a project partner could produce a song of mine for an assignment. It seemed low-stakes enough, so I agreed despite myself. On the floor of my friend’s apartment, I plucked away at a song as they noodled quietly on their instruments. My eyes grew wide with recognition— the power of creating 37
something new that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Over the course of the next year, those friends helped transform my songs into landscapes I couldn’t have envisioned on my own, and taught me what’s possible when you trust the right people. But once our project ended, I felt frustrated by my dependency on them. I wanted to show myself I could do it on my own if I had to. So, I recorded, produced and mixed an EP alone in my bedroom with very little
