GØKHA
SPB: The entire new record is solo. How did you decide to self record and self release?
GØKHA: I’ve been writing music since I was 16. I’m 36 now, so that’s 20 years of dealing with the same problem: finding people to play with. And not just any musicians, but people you connect with on a deeper level. People who feel the music the way you do.
Over the years, I wrote a lot of music that never made it out of my room. It was never a waste of time, though. Writing music has always been my kind of therapy.
Then the war in Ukraine started, and for the first year, I couldn’t write anything. A year later, I realized there was a real chance I could die without ever doing the one thing I’d wanted to do my entire life.
So I stopped waiting.
I turned a garage into a small studio and started recording guitars and vocals, slowly figuring out how to do everything else myself. I watched countless audio engineering videos, talked to friends who were engineers, experimented, made mistakes, and learned as I went.
It wasn’t some grand artistic vision. I just wanted to make a record, and I didn’t want to wait another 20 years for the right people or the right circumstances.
Eventually, I realized I could do it all myself: write, record, produce, mix, and release the whole thing.
So I did.
The record is basically 20 years of stuff I never got out of my system, finally finding its way out.
I’m not saying everyone should do everything alone. But for me, doing it myself was the only way to stop waiting and finally make it happen.
