Mike Sabath has carved a path as one of the most in-demand songwriters and producers today, working with superstars including RAYE, Shawn Mendes, Lizzo, Jonas Brothers, Camila Cabello, Sabrina Carpenter, Meghan Trainor, and more. He’s also creating a buzz as a solo artist, traversing the country in an RV doing pop-up shows, performing songs from his upcoming solo album, “ATTENTION MAXIMUM.” Mike’s latest singles, “DO YOU MIND” and “HIGH” came out July 9th.
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Our American Songwriter Membership caught up with Mike Sabath to discuss his career, his songwriting process, and the inspiration and story behind his new album.
American Songwriter: Let’s talk about your artist journey now. Tell us about the new record.
Mike Sabath: I mean, to be honest, it really is a great story to go off of trusting the process. So i started this album, literally, in 2019. It was just exploding at me.
It was just like nothing I could do to stop it. It was just like going and going and going.
And i was like so energized , and so inspired. All this was happening.It was so much energy just building and building and building and building. And I signed to Warner.
I was like “Alright, here we go!”
And then [pandemic]. And it was so humbling, and so confusing, and so frustrating, honestly.
The album made no sense for 5 years. I literally didn’t understand it because I just wasn’t meant to. And it was so weird but i just had to trust.
And it got scarier and scarier, to be honest. It was like “Oh my god, these songs are getting older and older.”
But what was happening is i was just like learning. And like, I was growing into myself, ultimately. I was 21 and now i’m 27.
And then I got the most incredible training ever. I got to work with superstars and be next to them while they were doing all this crazy sh-t.
And like learning how to craft a sound. And have a vision for what it could look like. And then do it. And then go from like idea, to experimenting, to making it, to then (putting) it in the world, and engaging.
I did not understand that whatsoever. I didn’t know anything in 2019, honestly. I didn’t know anything. And the music was so much further ahead because I was so much more
advanced in making music than anything else in my life, basically because i spent my whole life working on the craft of making music & basically nothing else.
And my whole identity was wrapped up in that. So it was complicated. And these past 6 years have been filling in so many gaps of just like my understanding of myself and my relationship to presenting art, and making music, and making a record, and presenting it in a real, authentic way.
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Featured Image provided to American Songwriter by Mike Sabath
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