Eddy Gatoe, whose name you may know from his time in Dyslexic Postcards or The Collektives, or more recently as the inaugural host of Savage Lab’s award-winning open mic, is a Miami-based singer-songwriter, performer and event coordinator whose sound is a mix of punk, rock, comedy and more – a reflection of his upbringing and the world around him.
I’ve been co-hosting the Writers in the Round at Bar Nancy with Eddy Gatoe for almost two years now, and we’ve had plenty of conversations about life, the Miami music scene, songwriting – really everything. But like a cat, Eddy has already lived several lives, different eras that span his unique upbringing, early days in music, up to now, with his recent and upcoming punk-meets-rock-meets-folk releases. Every time we’ve had a conversation I learn a little more about the nostalgic Miami scene of days past, and hopes for its future and I wanted to give you a little insight into the almost-mythic persona that is Eddy Gatoe.
How long have you been playing music? How long have you been in Miami?
Eddy Gatoe: So, I was born in Port Cheste, New York, which is about an hour from the Bronx. I lived in Jackson Heights, you know, we’re Colombian. I’m half Cuban on my dad’s side, half Colombian on my mom’s. My middle name’s Xango (pronounced “Chan-go”). You know, that’s a very cute Afro-Cuban name.
So New York…and when did you make it down in South Florida?
I got to Miami, Florida when I was like 2 or 3 years old. I don’t remember anything about New York. Yeah. My first memories were in Miami or maybe a little bit in Orlando. So, I moved to Miami when I was like 3. I went to preschool in Miami. I’m 100% Miami, through and through, like, I’m bro, bro.
That’s going to be the headline of this article. Eddy Gatoe, the bro, bro.
I’m the bro, bro. Bro, bro Xango. [laughs] So, I grew up in Westchester, Miami. Went to Greenglades for elementary school, and then junior high I went to WR Thomas and then I went to Southwest High School.
And you said you’ve been playing music since you were 13? Like, did you have a band in high school? What was the first instrument you played? Or did you play?
Oh, yeah. My first band was in junior high. The guitar. [I started] maybe when I was like 6. I tried to learn because my dad’s an opera singer. And then, on my mom’s side, my uncle and my grandfather played instruments. My grandfather played accordion, and my uncle played guitar and a little bit of piano, self-taught. But my dad actually studied in conservatory for opera, and you know, did gigs as an opera singer, which is, if you know anything [about opera], you need to know your craft and know your shit to even be taken anywhere seriously. So, I always had good music around. While the family was together, there was definitely a lot of good music of that classical type that I believe instructed my personal taste in melody and composition.
What are some of those bands?
In the early days, the hard rock bands were like Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe…like I’ll never forget, he [my brother] had a Led Zeppelin tape, but the other side was a Beatles tape. He had a Black Sabbath tape and one of the big, big influences was Eddie Murphy’s Delirious album on tape and NWA, Straight Outta Compton. I was like 7. Eddie Murphy, it was his comedy. It was very like, I shouldn’t have been listening to it. So, in a lot of ways, it influenced a little bit of uh comedic timing and I think I believe in some of my music and shit too.
And NWA too, it really got me into hip hop. You know, and my brother probably stopped listening so much to hip hop by the time I got to high school, I started listening more and more because I always liked it at a young age.
Alright, so you had these influences when you were like 5 to 7 years old, listening to your brother’s music. But you said you didn’t really start playing music until you were 13.
Yeah. 13 years old. So, there’s a BC and an AD and you know, there’s also a BK and an AK. And that’s before Kurt and after Kurt [Cobain]. Michael Jackson was a really, really big influence. Then Guns N’ Roses came and was the closest thing—like my, you know, holy shit moment like, oh, my God, these guys are crazy. They’re tight, you know? Their hair isn’t totally teased and they’re not like, they just look like fucking crazy street dudes and it was amazing. And then just a couple years later, we didn’t know that that was the last of the real, you know, old school type of 80s rock band and Nirvana comes with this, didn’t give a fuck about their look, which was their look, you know, all these progressive ideas, this really raw music and big, big, fucking simple hooks. And then, it just brought the whole Seattle wave and it just, it changed rock and roll forever in just so many years. And that was 91. I was 10 years old. And those three years that Kurt and Nirvana ruled and became the biggest rock stars, I had every article. I had the biography even right before he died, you know what I mean? And I had put down the guitar for a while, but I knew that I just wanted to get back into doing it. And then he [committed suicide] in 94 and I was like 13 and I said, that’s it. And I got my mom, my dad to, you know, scrounge up both of their things, even though they were, you know, not together, to get me an electric guitar.
Wow! Before Kurt and After Kurt. So you convince your parents to get you a guitar. What did you learn first?
I immediately taught myself tablature. I just bought a Guitar World that had “Heart-Shaped Box” and then I taught it to myself, and then I immediately used the same chords and wrote my own first song. It was called Imodium. Imodium, like Imodium AD. Oh, my gosh. I was that obsessed with Kurt Cobain that I knew that Breed on Nevermind was first called Imodium. So, Kurt, there’s Kurt. All right. And then a lot of big influence came after where it’s like, you know, Kurt got me into progressive thinking…breaking down a lot of old school ways of thinking that I would still hear around me, you know what I mean? From feminist ideas to, you know, [the origins] of homophobia and racism. Like, [Kurt Cobain] was very vocal at a time that it wasn’t the hip thing to do for the biggest rock star in the world to be so like, “hey, if you come to my concert and you’re this, this, this, get the fuck out.” He really was like an anti-star, you know? And then, the fact that he killed himself and left his art, it left a huge impression on a young kid like me.
If you were to pick a Nirvana song that wasn’t “popular,” but was like a song that you loved, which one comes to mind the most?
There’s one that that’s off a split single with the Jesus Lizard, and it’s called “Oh, the Guilt.” I have no idea what it’s about, but the way that the drums are recorded, and it was like after Nevermind, and right before or during In Utero sessions. It’s so raw and dirty, and it has a really cool, like staccato verses. It’s like, “dum dum dum-dah! Dum dum dum-dah!” And he’s just like, he keeps on singing, “She, she, she” you know, and knowing that he’s feminist, you could only wonder he might just be talking about either his sister, which he’s talking a lot about, uh not in a negative way, but maybe Courtney. Sometimes it just was like reading from a newspaper with how direct he could be with some lines. I like that – I tend to be like that, you know. Yeah. I’ve become a lot less avant-garde with the lyrics, but a little bit more poetic. Right. I think that comes naturally with age, of trying so many different styles of songwriting.
Speaking of your songwriting, you sent me a song that’s about to come out. Well, I wanted to ask you. The song, “The Path” that you sent me. Can you tell me what it’s about?
The inevitable is something that I’ve been learning to embrace. And I just felt like I knew whatever was going to come my way, a positive or negative life, would be based on the actions that I was taking because there’s so little that we can control in this world. But the things that we can’t control [reflect] a little bit of the direction that we go when the wind comes our way. So, that’s the path…the path you earn in life. And you’re going to end up at your destination, what path are you going to take is going to be what determines whether you have a life that you could reflect on and you actually learn something or you just, you know, wasted your time here without ever appreciating the gift of life. I don’t know if that makes sense.
I think it does. The path you take, the one you do or don’t have control over –whatever that path is, that’s your life. I want to know more about your songwriting process. Did creating, “The Path,” start with the lyrics first or did you have the melody figured out?
It started with the chords. I was playing a very basic, you know, 90s [progression]…and I knew if I just kicked the distortion on it and didn’t really deviate from the four chords, it would still sound really good, like Smells like Teen Spirit or many songs that, you know, basically use the same chords throughout the verse and the choruses. And then, I just made sure to add a little bridge to give it a little bit more depth and make sure the dynamics were really good. So, I basically wrote the music first, but the chorus, I would say, is the first thing I wrote.
I love that. So the lyrics of the chorus are what you wrote first after the progression…what were they?
It says, “you’re on, you’re on your way…to get a piece of what’s deserved. It is the only way. You take the path that you have earned.” And, I was just feeling in that moment, as soon as I reflected on what it was, it’s, you know, wherever you are in your life, you’ve earned it. Where if the seeds that you planted are now, you know, churning negativity, well, that’s the path that you earned. Or you’ve burnt your bridges, you know? I did a lot of that, so I was reflecting on that, but I’m also in a very good place right now and I feel it’s because of a lot of positive seeds I’ve planted. I’m really big on [the whole] like life being a lesson thing, you know what I mean?
So the lyrics essentially get at life being a lesson?
You could either be the lesson, or you become the lesson, or you learn the lesson, or some people learn the lesson, or some people actually become the lesson long enough that they finally learn the lesson. Yeah. So, that’s kind of where I’m always at with my head. It’s like, I don’t want to be just the lesson. I want to learn the fucking lesson. I don’t want to be, before it’s all over, looking up and saying, well, what could I have done differently and really regret everything, you know? I think there’s always time for change. And I think that’s really it. It’s a positive song, it’s an affirmation song.
A song that is meant to give you hope?
Yeah. It’s not a negative song. But, the peaks and valleys…when you’re at your lowest, the peaks seem so far away, but also when you’re up you have to realize that at any moment, the bottom can fall out in certain ways, that so many things are uncontrollable. But, you don’t want to sit back there and be like, okay, I had great luck, but I fucked it all up because I made poor choices. Right. So, I’m really big on that. Because I’ve had very good influences in my life and very bad influences in my life.
Who would you say currently is your best influence?
Like top of head. My mother. My mother, my uncle, and then, uh, you know, the community of musicians. I’m talking about a tight circle within a larger circle within a larger circle. It’s a microcosm of the Miami music scene. Uh, we’re all friends and we’re all family and we’re all positive people that don’t want to bring each other down. We’re not here to critique and we’re here to lift each other’s creative spirits up for the sake that it just benefits all of us. A symbiotic relationship.
A little bit of a subject change, but really, I gotta know, is Gatoe really your last name?
No, my name is Edward Xango Diaz De La Torre. Ooh, it’s long. Yeah, it’s a mouthful.
You know I’m gonna ask the next question. What do you think the next question is?
Uh, why do they call you Gatoe?
Exactly. Of course! Like, were you hanging out with cats? Like, cool cats? All the cool gatos?
In junior high, my mom would call me “Gato” ’cause my eyes – ’cause I have dark uh hair or whatnot and I guess it’s just, you know, nobody else in the family had these eyes. And so she would call me Gatito sometimes, and then people overheard it, and then they started calling me Gato. And then it stuck, and then I just started calling myself Eddie Gatoe, and then I would write graffiti, and that was my tag. Gato with an ‘e’ at the end, so it’s like phonetic.
I love that your mom is not just a good influence in your life, but also informed the name that you use in the music scene in Miami.
Oh yeah, no that woman has informed everything I’ve done ever. It’s funny, right?
It’s really nice to hear, honestly. So I wanted to ask you more about your starts in music. What was the name of your first band, and when, when was that?
That was like in ’95. [I was] 14. I started a band immediately. We were first called Nameless, made a little tape. Then we were called Grunk, and Grunk went all the way through ’99, 2000. Okay. Um, so with Grunk, you know, fast forward from junior high to high school, and 1996 is my freshman year of high school. Okay. And we’re just, you know, a hardcore punk band with tendencies for alternative rock, but we were very influenced by like Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag, and Exploited, and I was really into that at that point. Plus, Nirvana and Mudhoney and the Melvins and L7, Hole – all that shit. Well I dropped out of high school. I played in Grunk, but after…So, yeah, in ’96, the first show that we played uh ’cause we got a little clout, was at Cheers, which was like an underground punk club, near the Roads. Um, so, my friend Adam, his mom, who was eventually the manager for Dyslexic Postcards [another band], she was part of the ownership and management of that place, and they started doing punk shows, all-ages shows. Triple A would play there, the Crumbs would play there. All these fucking people would play there, and then Marilyn Manson at the time was producing a band from Fort Lauderdale called Jack Off Jill. And they were performing. So, Adam’s mom and somebody else from like the hardcore scene altogether got us the opportunity to open up for Jack Off Jill, which was cosigned by Marilyn Manson. That was my first official gig ever, and at the time it got packed, like to capacity.
We were the opening band, 16-year-old with braces on, singing a Black Flag song, a Dead Kennedys song, and then a set list of eight original hardcore Eddy Gatoe and Tony and Ulysses Grunk songs.
But then, when they separated, it was just me and my brother and my mom. My brother’s like 10 years older than me, and he, you know, it was the 80s. So, when in 85, I was 5 or 4, he was listening to dope-ass shit as a 15 year old…So, all his [musical] tastes and he basically raised me, really influenced me…
So, did Grunk become Dyslexic Postcards?
No, Dyslexic Postcards was around before us. It was Adam’s older brother. So, they were a direct influence on anything that we were doing. Yeah. So, but because we were young kids hanging around these guys, we got to meet a lot of people from the scene. So, we made 300 bucks, which for many, many, many, many, many years, was the most I’d ever made in any show, and it was packed, but I got a taste for it, and I knew that I could rock a crowd, like, and without shaking in my boots at all, and it felt very, very comfortable – more comfortable than I’ve ever been.
If you had to pick, right? Out of the three – recording, playing or writing? I mean, which is your favorite?
I mean, if you could write a song and never record it, I mean, that kind of sucks. Recording is my favorite, but I can’t take writing out of it. I like recording myself. Yeah. Even though I do like recording on other people’s stuff, and the stuff that I did with Dyslexic, you know, I didn’t write those songs, but I’m very proud, just as proud as anything else I’ve done, or, you know, co-writing something with like The Collektives, also very proud of that, or anything that I’m featured on, I’m very proud of. So, yeah, I guess, I’d say I feel very, I feel very excited in a studio. I feel at home on stage.
If you weren’t doing music, so say, that was actually a thing that you had to worry about, um, what other things would you like to do? Like, what would your career have been if you weren’t doing music?
I’d definitely be a restaurant owner of an already respected and established place, and I would integrate music into it somehow…having cool nights where we play good music and people can come and not necessarily be a live venue, but that would be ideal.
What are your favorite Miami venues that have stood – that are still here, or newer that you really, really admire?
Obviously we’re sad about the closings of the various venues that have been in some ways, glorified in their demise. I can’t name every single place that for sure is awesome for what they’re doing, but the ones that have my heart are Bar Nancy, Magic 13, Savage Labs. Um, Kill Your Idol. These are the places that I personally, you know, have a connection with, but then also you have places like Gramps, Shirley’s that I’ve never performed there, but I’m very grateful that they put on hella good shows. And then you have also in Broward, you have Propaganda, Revolution. Oh, yeah. You know, these places are great. The Bridge, the Bridge is amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. Even out west, you got Eddie’s Place. Well, all these places are you know, they’re doing God’s work.
This has been such a great conversation, Eddy! So I have a couple of final questions. This one is a biggie. If you had to define the music scene in Miami, I mean, like, really, what is it to you? Like, do you think it could be better? Do you think it’s growing? Do you think it’s complicated? Like, what are your feelings about the Miami music scene?
People always ask about it. There’s so many different things you could say. I think there’s a larger scene of musicians, and then you have smaller pockets, but I think a lot of those smaller, tighter pockets are intersecting, and within that, there’s gonna be some kind of nucleus of something, or a group of us that will get the mainstream to shine a light on this original, live, incorporated, varied type of music from Miami, specifically about people who are, you know, playing instruments, or recording, not just your general, generic music that you hear on the radio – something different, something with integrity. I think these core musicians will shine the light for all of the various independent artists that are coming out in Miami. Like Nirvana did with Seattle.
I feel with a certain group of people in Miami that have been doing it in the underground for so long, we’re so seasoned, and the times have changed so much that we could build a niche as seasoned songwriters, and now the rest of the country gets to see us and be like, “These guys should’ve been on the radio a long fucking time ago.” And we come with a perspective and wisdom and a little bit more finesse. I feel it’s important, and I also feel there’s a huge, huge, huge opportunity, and it’s been taken especially with people like you for the women of Miami to be heard, and I think they are probably, this group that I’m talking about is probably gonna be primarily from that love and area that is happening right now on the scene because it’s strong. And it’s solidarity and unity and it’s a positive message that’s being spread.
OK, this is it! What do you think that the music scene could do better? Like, what areas do you think they could strengthen?
Well, as much as we are doing, you know, a lot for the female community, I still think a lot more can be done, and we could do a lot more, you know, breaking down the walls and stereotypes and preconceived notions, and have people, women, and mostly men look at themselves a little bit more and realize there’s a lot we got to unlearn and understand. As a community.
I [also] think there’s area for big bands that have a high level, high-energy shows, that are also at a technical prowess that’s admirable, like Carlos & the Experience. [The you have] JUKE, led by Uncle Scotchy, and then, you know, when you come to straight rock and roll, you’ve got bands like Las Nubes, and The Lab, and they’re just doing God’s work and are the future and the now of real rock music, or power rock, or power pop, or whatever floats your boat. Yeah. And then I also see the singer-songwriter game off the chain, you know what I mean? Alexa, and you with your band, you know, it’s, it’s a songwriter driven thing. You got Chris Luv, you got Carlos Escanilla, you got Ainara. Just so many, Quiana [Major], so many amazing songwriters out there, Frankie Midnight. Another great band is NGY, fucking amazing. Ryan Bauta and his band, you know. Lot of people are coming up. What I do is, you know, I’m Eddy Gatoe, I write songs and and I put ’em out there.
And Eddy Gatoe does put them out there! His next release, “The Path” is coming out later this year so stay tuned! Looking to listen to Eddy Gatoe’s music? Check him out here.
