After a viral TikTok video of his song covers, singer-songwriter Gabe Douglas’ lifelong passion turned into a future career. Douglas first found his love for singing at two years old when he would join his siblings’ singing lessons. Now, he boasts 1.4 million followers on TikTok. Through the app, he has been able to connect with collaborators, his management team, and fanbase. While creating content online and releasing new music, he is also a junior studying communication at USC. Douglas says he pulls musical inspiration from everything — from artists like Ruel to the film “La La Land.” He discusses using the “sad pop” genre as a creative outlet for his emotions. His recent release “Talk” tells a story of betrayal and the inner battle one experiences with the process of confrontation and forgiveness.
Annenberg Media spoke with Gabe Douglas to learn more about his experiences as an artist through TikTok, studio sessions, and releasing “Talk.”
Full transcript has been edited for clarity.
Editor’s note: This episode was recorded in April 2023.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So my name is Gabe Douglas. I’m from Yucaipa, California, and I’m a communication major at USC.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: Yeah, so I’m a singer-songwriter and I would describe my style as, I like to use the terms like “sad pop” - kind of intertwining, like the ballady emotional style with more pop-centered production, I would say.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: My inspiration stems from so many different artists. Every time I get asked this question, I struggle to respond because I draw from everything. But I would say I grew up listening to Adele. Adele is a huge influence on me. Everything from Adele to Journey to even more modern-day artists like Ruel, who’s this really cool Australian artist. Bruno Mars. I just, I love drawing from so many different places and putting it into my music.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So, the beginning for me with music starts when I was two years old. My mom loves to tell me this story over and over again. But when I was two years old, both of my siblings were in music lessons. They would have their music lessons at home. And when it was time for the recital, I was sitting in the audience with my mom. My siblings would go up to perform and apparently, I would be singing their songs along with them in the audience. And so from that point forward, my mom put me in music lessons when I was two, and I would just start doing singing lessons for like 15 minutes a week, which transitioned into a little bit more time each year up until I was probably about nine or ten years old. And I just fell in love with singing. You could not stop me from singing at the top of my lungs at every single hour of the day. So I definitely got a very early start into singing.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: I always knew that no matter what I did when I grew up, that music would be a part of it. But I never really, I guess, considered it to be my main thing until I started performing more at talent shows and things like that. I remember my eighth-grade talent show. I did a cover of “Unsteady” by X Ambassadors and this was my first time actually putting myself out there. I was homeschooled growing up actually until sixth grade, so K through six. I was homeschooled and then in middle school I threw myself into the classroom setting, met a whole lot of new people. And my eighth grade year was the first time I really put myself out there. And I just got overwhelming feedback from all of my teachers, all of my friends. It was crazy to me because that was something that I could actually connect with people on that level. Music was like a bridge that led me to, I don’t know, just so many great things. And so from there on, I have continued to sing and continue to do all that. And then I think the moment that I started to think of it as a career and something I could really do would have been my junior year of high school. I started posting my singing on social media and got an overwhelming response. TikTok, such a weird app. We all know how that goes. But I started posting my singing on TikTok, and I remember I went to bed at night and woke up the next morning and one of my videos had like 30,000 views and it was just insane to me. I don’t know. I just like, jumped with joy. I just remember waking up like, ‘Mom, look at this. Look at the views, the numbers.’ I don’t know. And yeah, I just kept posting on TikTok, posting on Instagram, eventually just like growing my platforms. And yeah, I would say that it was like junior, senior year of high school that I really started to think of it as like my future.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: Yeah. So I started on TikTok junior year of high school at 16, and it just - I honestly just started it just like I wanted to post my singing covers. I loved covering other artists’ music. And I would post maybe once or twice a week. And as my platform began to grow, I just stuck with it. And it wasn’t until a year or two later that I really got into songwriting. It was hard for me to like - it wasn’t hard, but it was like it was definitely a change for me to transition from like, ‘Oh, I really like to sing covers to I want to be an artist.’ And it was when I started songwriting that I tried to blend the two because everybody loves hearing stuff that they already know, but it’s a whole new thing trying to introduce something new. Yeah, every person that I’ve worked with so far, for the most part, has been a connection that I’ve made through TikTok, either like reaching out to me through my DMs on Instagram or my entire management team that I work with has been through TikTok. They found me on TikTok and I definitely would not be here without TikTok paving my way for me. So yeah, I’m very grateful for that app also.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: The craziest feeling was I did this cover of a song called “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence and just posted it on my TikTok. I remember I hopped in my car, drove to my friend’s house. I was 17, still in high school, and by the time I got to my friend’s house, like 15 minutes later, the video already had like a million views. And at that point that was more likes than any other video I’d ever posted before. And that video kind of just continued to go viral and I got to connect with so many people that I viewed as my idols. People started following me and I was able to communicate with people that I just looked up to for so long. And I think it was just like the craziest feeling. There’s no words to describe that feeling of just like something - I don’t know, just having that type of attention. Because like I would say that I’m more of a shy, introverted person. So, to have that type of audience was just something that I never expected nor could comprehend at the time. I still can’t comprehend that whole thing. It was insane.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So I released my first song last July. So, July 2022. It’s called “City Dreams.” And it was actually not the style that I saw myself going down for my first release, but I wanted to release something uptempo, upbeat for my first song. And it’s kind of like pop rock vibes, and it got a pretty good response and I’m really happy with it. And that song’s basically just about graduating high school and moving to USC basically. I wrote it directly after I graduated high school and it just encompasses every single feeling I was feeling at the time: being nervous to move on and leave all my friends behind, but also just being ready for something new and being an adventure seeker and always wanting to just have something to do. So that was that song.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So it’s interesting because I think my favorite part about writing music is that I get kind of a diary log of how I’m feeling at every single stage of my life. And the music that I’m putting out now is actually still from two years ago, even though I’ve been writing ever since then, because it takes like a whole process for it to come out. But I think that, I don’t know, I think my new music just shows the state of mind that I’m in and how I’ve changed from being in college for two years and I think the new influences that are influencing me, just from the new friends I have and the people I’m surrounding myself with. I think that it’s really cool to just have that music as a physical - well, not a physical thing, but just as something to show how much I’ve changed over time.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: Challenges. Oh, my gosh. I think just the biggest challenge is just being confident in what I’m putting out there and being confident in the music that I’m making and releasing because people are jerks. You know, people are mean. They’re going to say mean things and I guess just having the confidence to be like, ‘I know what I’m doing. I know that I love what I’m creating and I know that people out there love what I’m creating.’ And I can’t let that get to me - just the few people that are being rude and the few people that are like, ‘Why are you doing this? You’re never going to be successful with it.’ I think just like getting past that hurdle of trust in myself, you know.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So I wrote the song - I wrote “Talk” with two of my friends in the music industry. Their names are Shayon and Nicci, and they were the first producers, the first people I ever worked with when I started writing. I started writing in high school, but the first thing that I ever created in a studio, anything like that, was with them. And so this session that we did to write the song, I believe was in March of 2021, and the song was inspired by a few different scenarios that I won’t get too into. But yeah, we wrote the song. So the song begins with the voice memo of the very first time we started writing the song. So I thought that was a really cool way to start the song. That was my idea. I was really excited about it.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So yeah, the song is kind of about a betrayal. Somebody very close to me doing me wrong, and the song was just inspired by that and then goes into kind of its own realm of part of it’s made up, part of it’s not made up. But my most intentional part about songwriting is making sure that it’s relatable to multiple different situations. I’m making it as much for me as I’m making it for the people that are going to listen to it. And so I wanted to make sure that it was something that people could relate to, no matter what they’re going through and to have for when they need a song that matches what they’re going through. And so, yeah, the chorus is “We should probably talk about what we’ve been through/Tell you all the things that I need to tell you” and that kind of comes from I feel like it’s so important to share experiences and just have somebody that we can tell what we’re going through to. And I guess it’s just kind of an encouragement to be like, we’re all going through something and to not be scared to share it with other people.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So when I’m writing songs, the inspiration comes from everything. Sometimes it’s from a specific situation that happened to me. Sometimes it’s from a situation that a friend of mine went through. Sometimes it’s from a movie I watched. Like I remember I wrote a song after I watched “La La Land” one time because I was super inspired by the alternate endings. And I was like, I want to kind of incorporate this into a song. And so it comes from all different types of mood swings and feelings and situations. For “Talk” specifically, it’s yeah, somebody very close to me did something that they said they wouldn’t do and it really affected my friendships and relationships that I had with other people. And the overall message of the song was just like, ‘Hey, I’m not mad at you, but what you did here was really uncalled for and we should talk about it.’ And I’m also just like a non-confrontational person in general. I hate creating conflict. I love just getting along with people and having a good time. But I was like, ‘Hey, we need to talk about this. Why did you do this? What were your intentions behind it? I know you care about me. I’m not questioning that, but I’m just like, Why would you do this after everything we’ve been through?’ That’s another lyric in the song. And yeah, that’s what it was inspired by. In the bridge - the end of the bridge is ‘I’d probably forgive you.’
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: I always forgive you because that’s just who I am. I’m going to forgive you, even if you do me terribly wrong. I will probably forgive you.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So when I was writing the chorus of the song, I wanted to show how I was truly feeling at the time. And one of the lines - It’s like the ABCs where I have to start from the beginning - ‘And it’s all my fault/I let you into my life.’ That whole part about putting the blame on me. I feel like that was - I feel like I always tend to put the blame on myself in situations like these. And I guess I wanted to show that in the song. How I feel that’s a very relatable thing. Like, ‘Oh, this is my fault that everything’s happening. It’s my fault that the world’s ending. It’s my fault that this is happening.’ And I guess I felt like that was a very relatable perspective, and I wanted to include that in there.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So this whole song is honestly just about an inner battle. ‘I’m not really ready to have this conversation yet/But we should probably talk.’ Is just me fighting with myself with the idea of, like, I really, really need to confront this head-on and talk about this, but I’m also probably going to let it slide for another week because I don’t want to have to deal with it yet, type of thing. And that’s pretty evident all the way throughout the song. And yeah, it’s really just a memento of like, ‘I am really struggling with this and it’s really tearing me apart and I don’t know how to address it. But I know that I need to,’ And this song is kind of there to be like, ‘All right, get it together, pull through, get what you need to done and move on with your life.’ And yeah, so the ‘Every time I look at you, I’m trying to forget/ The only time I can’t is when I’m breathing.’ That line kind of deals with the whole like,’ I will forgive you, but I’ll never forget’ kind of sentiment because I know I’m going to forgive this person. I know that we’re going to move on and we’re still going to have the close relationship that we had before. But it’s like, ‘I’m never going to forget what you did to me, even though I will forgive you and we will move on, I guess.’ Yeah, it’s like I’m always going to have a little bitterness in my heart, but I am willing to overlook it for you. You know?
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: I think one of the biggest reasons I love songwriting in general and music in general is cause a lot of times I just feel so disconnected and discombobulated and it can be hard to really identify how I’m feeling in a specific moment. And when I’m writing these lyrics down or I’m creating this music, it lets me actually analyze, ‘Okay, how am I feeling? What do I think about this situation or what do I think about this?’ And it lets me clearly play out my thoughts so that I’m able to share that. I think even with songwriting in general, for me, that’s my way of expressing emotion. I wouldn’t say that I’m the most emotional person in the world. I wouldn’t say I’m super depressed or anything like that. But that’s just my way of dealing with those emotions. You know, that’s my outlet for it. So I think that’s also like a lot of people ask me, ‘Why do you say that you do sad pop music,’ or ‘Why do you always write the sad songs?’ And I’m like, ‘That’s just the avenue I choose to deal with those emotions.’ I guess I could talk about them a lot or like, that could be my avenue, but my avenue is music. For me, I do like creating happier music too, and stuff like that, but I also express my happiness in other ways through conversations and things like that. But music is my one dedicated form of expressing sadder emotions. So that’s why I yeah, that’s why I create sad music. Yeah no, I love being able to create these emotional songs that people are able to relate to because it really is a really helpful way to cope with things. And music is just such a universal form of media that everybody consumes. And I think it’s just as meaningful to me to be able to create this music as it is for people to be able to listen to it.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: So I do sessions weekly - music sessions. Basically, usually every Friday, every Saturday, sometimes Thursday evenings I go and I just create music with producers that I work with. And I think for me, that works really well because I have so many just emotions and things and random things that I went through that week. Whether it’s something I learned in class or a situation that happened to me, I’m able to just go in and get that off my chest right away and create music. And so that’s kind of my creation side of things is just putting myself in the studio as much as possible and creating as much as possible, so that I have the few songs that get to be released eventually that show themselves better than the other stuff that I make, I guess. So that’s my creative side is just throwing myself into the situation every week. For the business side of things, I’m lucky to have a team behind me that really knows what they’re doing and can do it really well and they make sure that the business side of things are kind of put together and that the song release is going well and that it’s going to be uploaded okay. And that’s super helpful, especially being in school, being a full-time student, taking 18 units and trying to stay on top of my content that I’m creating and stay on top of my grades and then just all the music stuff. It’s super helpful to have people that are helping me along the way.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: Yeah, so all week, I literally anytime something pops in my head, I’ll just pull out my phone and use a voice memo and record. There’s so many mumbly little voice memos that I just create and most of them, nothing ever happens to them. But sometimes I’ll take it into the session and be like, ‘Hey, I came up with this idea. What do you think? Or maybe this is something we could work off of.’ I have a lot of voice memos that are just like at 2 a.m. in the morning, and I’m mumbling them into my phone because my roommate’s asleep and I’m like, ‘I don’t wanna wake them.’ And I wake up the next morning, I’m like, ‘Wow, this is terrible. I can’t believe I ever actually thought that this could have been an idea that was a waste of two minutes of my life.’ Yeah, I’m just — I’m very scattered, but I put them on my voice memos and just take them in and see what inspiration I can gather from.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: I’ve done one music video so far and that was a whole experience of itself. Yeah, a whole camera crew, everything. I felt like a superstar for a day. It was really cool. And I think that being in that scene and understanding everything that has to come together for something like a music video to exist: the money, the people, just everybody that comes together to make it happen. Every single aspect of it is so important because in the video, all you see is me and the few other people in the band that are playing for the song. But there were over like 25 people there helping me create it and everybody had such a specific role. And yeah, it’s just crazy how much work goes into one piece of art.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: I think the moment like that I’m most looking forward to and really hope that the day comes is just like — I don’t even know because the music industry is such a weird place right now with like, ‘How do I know if I’ll make it?’ I could have a song do really well and still not have a future in music because it’s a one-hit-wonder or something like that. So I think what I’m most looking forward to is just seeing what happens, which I know is so cliche to say. But I don’t know. I think not having any expectations of like, ‘Oh, this is where I’ve made it’ will help me handle everything better, I guess. But I definitely would love to win a Grammy someday. Yeah.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
Douglas: The most fulfilling part for me is just seeing where something started as an idea and seeing the final product after. Because everything starts from somewhere and ends up somewhere and it’s just crazy the amount of time and effort that everybody puts in. The amount of hours that my producer puts in, the amount of time I put in writing and singing and how many people I work with for just one thing to come together. Both of these songs that I’ve released so far took so long to release because of every single aspect that comes together. So it’s just so fulfilling to release something and know just how much effort and love and passion was put into it by so many different people. Because it’s not just my song. It’s my producer’s song. It’s the other people who wrote on the song. It’s the people who are listening to its song. It means something different to everybody and everybody has such a special part about it. Yeah.
[Musical Interlude: “Talk” by Gabe Douglas]
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