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►►ᴛᴡɪɴ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀs ᴛᴜʀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏss ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴍᴜsɪᴄ. ᴛʜᴇʏ ғɪɴᴅ ғʀɪᴇɴᴅs, ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴs...ᴀɴᴅ ᴇɴᴅ ᴜᴘ sᴛᴜᴍʙʟɪɴɢ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴀ ʀᴀʙʙɪᴛ-ʜᴏʟᴇ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʟᴜᴛᴄʜᴇs ᴏғ ɴᴀʀᴄɪssɪsᴛɪᴄ ᴍᴀɴɪᴘᴜʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛᴇɴs ᴛᴏ ᴛᴇᴀʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪғᴇ ᴛʜᴇʏ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴜɪʟᴛ ᴀᴘᴀʀᴛ.◄◄
One of Nightshrike's two twin co-founders, Gabe is by far and away the more outspoken and headstrong of the two. He takes his role as a brother very seriously and is highly protective of Gracian, as well as being exceedingly loyal to his "band family."
Gabriel and Gracian grew up in a fairly happy family until their mother passed away when they were both 13. Their dad didn’t cope well with grief and alternated between anger / yelling and episodes of being very, very depressed, during which his sons would almost have to parent him. Just before the twins turned 14 years old, Gracian attempted suicide in order to be with his mom, but Gabe found him swallowing pills, intervened, and got him to a hospital.
They'd both started learning instruments from a youngish age, and since their mom had encouraged their musical inclinations as kids, they kept it up after her passing...almost as a way in which to honor her. In mid/late high school they started actually working together to make their own music, and began their journey as genre-ambiguous indie duo "Nightshrike".
In school, Gracian’s shyness and pronounced stutter made him the target of a decent amount of bullying, something Gabe also experienced due to his style of dress. Gabe wasn’t nearly as affected by it as his brother, but knowing it deeply wounded Ian, Gabe jumped consistently to his brother's defense in high school—to the point of getting into fights, which didn’t endear him to his teachers: He already caught flak from them for his ADHD + tendency to doodle in class. While Gabe didn't suffer from self injury or suicidal thoughts like his brother did, he still wound up pretty salty with the world and all its visible injustices.
Despite their struggles, Gabe and Gracian got a pretty good following as Nightshrike online through high school, then after graduating they managed to get to doing a few live shows as opening acts at Astra’s club, Eocene. Their frequent presence got her talking to them, and they bonded with her, as well as her friends: Bryluen, Audrianna, and Coahoma. Just for fun they tried releasing a few one-offs with their friends as ‘guest artists’ on their soundcloud, where Audri or Bryluen would sing and/or Astra would do the synthwork and/or Coah would rap a few bars. The online response was really good and “casual collaboration” became a much more involved thing for them and the people they dubbed “the Nightshrike Crew.”
INFO
(he/him/his)
(Brooklyn, NYC)
QUOTES
"Maybe I’ve just got empathy and it’s society that needs the shrink, not me. [...] I got suspended once ‘cause I flashed a knife at a dude who’d been pushing my brother around. If people had been doing the shit they did to you, to Ian…? I’d have been thinking pretty damn hard about murder, too."
—Gabe to Kohao in They Go Together Like Butcherbirds And Barbed Wire | 2014"'What would we be without you'? 'Nightshrike'! WE'D BE NIGHTSHRIKE!"
—Gabe to Bryluen in their final confrontation | 2018- Honest.
- Team Player.
- Practical.
- Funny.
- Loyal.
- Insular/Cliquey.
- Unsuspicious.
- Easily provoked.
- Restless or inattentive when understimulated.
- Often doesn't think critically.
Though a loyal friend and a total team-player for those in his circle, Gabe generally comes off on the asocial-antisocial spectrum, and doesn't display a great deal of warmth to people he hasn't formed an opinion of yet. He can seem cold, unfriendly, or even hostile to "outsiders," but gregarious and like the life of the party to his in-group.
While many people ascribe to a mindset along the lines of, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," Gabe is much more of a "do unto others the bare minimum until they prove themselves worthy of more of an energy investment." Not because he's truly selfish or hateful, but because his experiences of betrayal have made him a real cynic: His unpredictable father, swinging between explosive anger and total despondence, in conjunction with Gracian being bullied, and the entire group's experience with ex-Nightshrike-member Bryluen Price, has made Gabe particulary wary, though therapy is helping him have a less bleak view of society at large than he previously held.
- Music.
- The color green.
- Video games.
- Tattoos & piercings.
- Loggerhead shrikes.
- Manipulation/deception.
- Cancer.
- Lack of accountability.
- Bullying/bigotry.
- Slow walkers.
- Street art & drawing.
- Bird-watching.
- Console gaming.
- Loyalty.
- Justice.
- Individuality.
Birder Avid bird-watcher with a quasi-encyclopedic knowledge of local avifauna. Can identify a fair few birds by song/call alone, and many more by sight.
Musician Skilled guitarist with capabilities in both acoustic and electric instruments. Additionally very able to navigate and put to use various music programs a la Garageband.
Artist Less a painter, more a doodler, but still. Gabe enjoys street art and graphic design, and does a decent amount of the work on merch design and album art for the band.
- The band name was based on the twins' mom’s love of birds, which they’ve carried on: Gracian is partial to nightingales; Gabe to loggerhead shrikes. They combined the two into "Nightshrike."
- Gabe has a signature graffiti tag involving a simple bird head with x-ed out eyes, of which he has a tattoo.
- Gabe used to smoke, having started in a twisted teenage rebellion against cancer...albeit being akin to rebelling against freight trains by playing chicken on the tracks. He has now switched to e-cigarettes in an effort to be healthier.
- Though a loyal friend, Gabe is very romanitically noncomittal and has had very few, if any, long term relationships. He did have a crush on Athena, but never pursued it because he assumed she was strictly lesbian.
- Gabe suffered immensely due to the situation with Bryluen, and felt at such odds with his own perception due to her gaslighting that he became suicidal and checked himself into a hospital. He was the one who put his foot down and severed ties with her once and for all after learning how long and how frequently she had been lying to them all.
Gabe and Gracian are extremely close. Gabe's been Ian's advocate and protector since birth, and that isn't changing just because they're growing up.
In return, Ian balances out Gabe's impulsivity and hot-headed nature. The two of them are the image for "You never saw one without the other, did you?" despite all the work Bryluen put in to divide them...which she only did because the pair truly are at their strongest when united. They're staying there.
Long term friends, Gabe got a tattoo on his wrist in part just for the quasi-brotherhood he shared with Kohao. The pair went together like butcherbirds and barbed-wire, and Gabe was frequently a mediator when Kohao had split on Athena; able to talk reason without getting tangled in the fray himself.
Bryluen's long-term destruction of their friendship and the critical wound she put into it in 2017 unfortunately has not, as yet, completely healed. Gabe's trying to repair it, though, knowing that apology, accountability and change are the only remedies he can offer, and still they may never be able to heal the impact had by absence.
As with Kohao, Gabe and Athena are long term friends, his mediation mentioned above only a small portion of thr truly deep and encouraging bond they shared from high school forward.
Bryluen's handiwork, again, has not yet healed here either...Though it is being worked on. Athena's further along on total forgiveness than Kohao is some days; further back than him on others. Generally the tragectory is good, though: Athena knows all too well how easy it is for narcissists to root themselves inside your head and strat to rot you there.
Astra is many things to Gabe: A friend, an idol, an employer, a mentor. She took a chance on him and Ian when they were young, repeated opening-acts, and she didn't dismiss them as a naiive and burnout-bound garage band. She took the time to get to know them, to befriend them, to take them under her wing and cut them deals. Her guidance and offer of found family is irreplaceable to all involved.
Bryluen was friends with Astra and Audrianna prior to meeting Gabe, but when she felt at risk of “losing” Astra + crew to Nightshrike after G² showed up on the scene, she manipulated her way up to the head of that social circle and became a fairly mainstay “guest” vocalist for Nightshrike. She used her facade of "goodness" and impressive financial generousity to gain Gabe's trust (among others) and engineered a situation where he and Ian felt obligated to her.
Once Gabe was alerted to the ways that she had specifically been pulling the strings on Ian—with lies, unkindnesses, and implications that Gabe's own opinions reflected such, Gabe was the one who lost it and cut all ties with her. He's still hurt to the point of rage, and wrote a huge amount of the lyrical work for Nightshrike's 2019 album, DEAD BIRDS EVERYWHERE, as venomous as he could be without getting into legal trouble.
