We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gabe Whitney a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Gabe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
More than anything else, I hope Noisemakers will be remembered for being a place where kids and adults could come to have fun while playing music. I feel like I have laughed and shared a lot of happy moments with the other teachers, as well as the students and their families. It gets said a lot, but our business really does feel like a family. I hope that some of the optimism and joy I feel spreads into the everyday lives of those around me. Music unites us. It brings people together from all different cultures and walks of life. Good music makes you feel something, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be well-played. I have just as much fun playing music with my students who are just starting out as I do with accomplished musicians. It’s that love of music that I hope to leave behind.
That being said, we also do a lot of concerts at Noisemakers, and I hope that we are remembered as a venue that provided great music to the public, gave up-and-comers a chance to get on stage, and threw some of the best shows in town.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I run a music school and venue in St. Petersburg, FL called Noisemakers. We have been a music school for a long time, and just recently built a stage and started hosting shows.
I started playing the drums in the fourth grade. It feels like I have always been a drummer. For me, instruments are like dominoes. Drums led to guitar which led to bass, piano, ukulele, violin, cello, etc… Music for me was always a good time, but it was my hobby. I was really big into soccer and swimming, and various other activities. In the late 90s and early 2000s I started playing out regularly as a singer-songwriter. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Jimmy Buffett and John Prine. Fast forward a few years, I took my son (who was 4 years old at the time) to see Tom Petty. After the show he wanted to play guitar too and told me I should open up a school that rocks. And, two weeks later, that’s exactly what I did. Noisemakers was born in November of 2008. The name came from the John Prine song, Dear Abby.
For the first few years it was just me teaching all the instruments, running camps, and doing the business side of things. Long hours and the continued stress of whether or not I would have enough students to pay the bills. Something seemed to be working though because we didn’t really lose students. A lot of the kids that started with me when they were 6 or 7 wound up growing up at Noisemakers. When they were old enough they became my co-teachers. They knew my philosophy and how to play everything. It has been a pleasure to teach so many kids in the St. Petersburg area, and then get the chance to watch them turn into successful adults. I am super proud of so many people.
We have had several different buildings over the years, but they were always close to each other on Central Avenue in St. Pete. After 14 years, we were finally priced-out of the area and moved to the warehouse district. I was hesitant at first, but one of my dreams was always to not only have a music school, but to have a music venue where our students could play and open for national acts traveling through. In our new location, that dream came true. My son (the one who started it all) built some rooms and a stage in the warehouse, we bought some great sound equipment, and now we have local and touring musicians playing every weekend. Our students get to meet and play with some very talented people.
I guess when I think about Noisemakers, I think about good times. Not only do we have private music lessons, but we have specialty rock band classes for kids and adults, ukulele ladies night, concerts, celebrations, and more. The teachers today are great local musicians who embody the spirit of Noisemakers. They love music and they share that love with every interaction.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Unfortunately there is a lot of judgment in the music world. I hear musicians talk trash all the time about someone playing. Usually they’re just jealous it’s not them. And there are the fans who love you, hate you, or have no interest either way. I love the ones that love you. They’re amazing! Mostly, though, I try not think about what others are saying and do my own thing. As a songwriter there are two ways of approaching the songs coming out of you. You could write a song for the masses, following all the rules and traditions, and try to make it “popular.” Or you can write it as medicine for yourself. I prefer the latter. I think that being true to yourself and what you believe shines through. I don’t know for sure, but I think people see what I’ve done at Noisemakers and like that we sometimes do our own thing.
I remember one of my first guitar lessons. I was a teenager and my teacher was dressed in black and covered with tattoos. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I was completely intimidated. I wanted to learn how to fingerpick and play songs like, Mr. Bojangles. I told him that, but he just proceeded to show me how fast he could shred up and down the neck. He was a great musician, but a horrible teacher. When I opened Noisemakers I promised that I, and any teachers we hired, would never intimate someone out of wanting to play music. I would prefer a teacher who can explain something well and bonds with the student rather than an amazing musician who doesn’t know how to communicate.
I believe Noisemakers foundation is that our teachers are down-to-earth and very welcoming and accepting of everyone. Our reputation continues to flourish within the community because we teach a love of music, not just notes on a page.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I majored in English at the University of Hawaii. I was always writing songs and poems, or jotting down ideas for novels. I had that cliche dream of writing the great American novel and then running off to the woods to live the rest of my life in solitude. At the time I was listening to a lot of Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Prine, John Denver, Todd Snider, Jesse Winchester… I loved listening to songs that told a story. I loved writing them too. In my life I have been very shy, but when there’s a guitar involved I somehow come out of my shell. I’d sing my songs for friends. Their encouragement led to me singing at various bars. I loved it, but never thought of it as a job. It was just a gig, and what greater thing in the world could there be?
After college I moved to Florida with my wife. I continued to play out singing originals and covers anywhere that would have me. A few years later my son was born and I was faced with the reality that staying out until the wee hours of the morning weren’t conducive to life with a newborn. I cutback on how much I was playing and found myself falling into the routine of an office life. During that time I wrote a novel, Wild Man. It did fine, but didn’t save me from having to continue to work. Shortly after that is when I took my son to the Tom Petty concert and everything changed.
Noisemakers has allowed me to continue to play my music, but at much more reasonable hours. It honestly wasn’t something I ever saw myself doing. My son and daughter are both at the age where they are being asked what they want to do with their lives. It’s funny because it wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I found something that I love to do everyday. Running a business is by no means easy, but it kind of feels like we’re surfing now. We’ve been in business 15 years. We’ve caught the wave and we’re just riding it as far as it will take us.
Music can be really hard, or honestly you can play a song in hardly any time at all. After teaching songs for so many years, we came up with the idea for a One Night Band. In this class you and a few friends, family members, or co-workers can get together and play a song or two. People use it as a night out or for team building. The class is two and a half hours long and you don’t need any experience. This class has been a blast because there’s always someone who doubts they can do it, but in the end they are playing music and having fun. There’s no judgment, just smiles.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.noise-makers.org
- Instagram: noisemakersmusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noisemakersmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NoisemakersRecords
Image Credits
Gabe Whitney