Gabriel Conte Opens Up About Depression on ‘Belong’

Content creator Gabriel Conte says he is excited to “speak the language of music,” with his debut album Belong.  

Videos by American Songwriter

The 10-track record, released under Capitol CMG, is Conte’s personal chronology of his most prominent life battles from the past five years. Songs such as “Wrong With Me,” and the title track “Belong,” speak to his struggle with depression and how he and his wife Jess faced life together with brutal honesty, and a heavy reliance on their anchor of faith in God. 

The emerging songwriter already crafted a strong connection with prospective listeners through his long-standing career as a video content creator and blogger, both personally and in partnership with his wife. The couple previously released three collections of acoustic covers titled Under The Covers, and currently produce multiple types of lifestyle content on social media channels. 

But for Conte, Belong, marks a new kind of storytelling. Originally starting as simple poetry in 2018, writing through what Conte says was one of his lowest points, the words acted as a catharsis to express his experiences. Conte explains the whole process through video on his YouTube channel, saying he picked up a guitar and started tentatively putting melodies to his poems. One song led to a few singles, to an EP, and now to a full length album. 

“I found myself starting to take what I was writing and try to make songs out of them, and that came due to the spot I was in and worked as a therapy for me. Through that process I realized ‘oh, I can actually do something with this,” Conte told American Songwriter

His faith in God gives an anchor to stand on, and a community to rely on, Conte continues, a perspective that is seen through the tracks on the record in both lyric and emotion. “You can lose yourself so quickly…having my faith really kept me anchored in the sense of, if I was ever drifting toward one thing or another that wasn’t truly me, or what I stood for, I was able to check myself.” 

Inspired sonically by artists such as Lauv, LANY and The Band CAMINO, Conte notes the excitement creative discovery can bring when he spent so much of his time in the avenue of videography. 

“I really love the process of creating and that’s truly what brings me the most joy and fulfillment,” Conte notes. “I don’t want to get too caught up in the results of it all, rather than being focused on the process. If I’m too focused on the results – streaming numbers, sales, that sort of stuff – it’s really easy to be disappointed, it can get you down.”

Conte says his approach to all creativity is to find what he truly enjoys, and press into those avenues as deeply as possible. Songwriting and releasing music opened up a new form of creating that Conte says he truly loves. 

Although he works within multiple “buckets,” including videography, entrepreneurial, and a current project – building a board game, as music becomes a bigger part of that life schedule, Conte says he hopes to participate more within that space. 

“I just know I’m made to create things, and so that’s what I see myself doing,” Conte says. “I would love to develop myself even more as a musician. I just want to make sure, as someone who has dealt with depression and gone through that low point, that I just take things step by step.”

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