Daniel Donato on ‘cosmic country,’ his upcoming shows in Alabama and what has inspired him more than the Grateful Dead

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WIAT ) — Just as much as the band onstage, the audience in front of them can influence the music being created.

At least that’s how Daniel Donato looks at it.

“If you believe in a song, you’re allowing it to stay here and have a life,” the 28-year-old musician Rolling Stone once dubbed “ Nashville’s new guitar hero ” said. “In a more obvious, direct way, if you’re coming to a show and you’re bringing energy and positivity, that has more opportunity to bring something that is more transcendent.”

Donato has spent over a decade honing a style that balances a push-pull between simple melody and more complicated harmonic explorations. It’s a sound he calls “cosmic country,” something he’s shared alongside musicians like Billy Strings, Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh and Widespread Panic.

“I’m just trying to stay connected to what is inspiring,” he said.

On Friday, Donato will be bringing his “cosmic country” sensibility to Druid City Music Hall in Tuscaloosa. On April 7, the rising guitarist will return to Alabama to play Saturn in Birmingham.

Having been on the road for several months promoting his new album, “Reflector,” Donato said he’s made interesting musical discoveries on this particular tour.

“I’m trying to do less when I’m onstage, listen more and get out of my own way,” he said. “It’s keeping a part of yourself open to being receptive to inspiration in the moment.”

Learning how to play guitar early in his teens, Donato had never considered a career in music. For him, it was about finding his purpose.

“From the first moment I played onstage, I locked into a place knowing that’s what I would be doing the rest of my life,” Donato said about the first time he played guitar onstage at Legends Corner in Nashville when he was 14 years old. “It was what it was.”

Growing up, he would often busk the streets of Nashville, playing for whatever money he could get. That would lead to playing with the Don Kelley Band four nights a week, four hours at a time. Those countless hours would lead to his own discovery online. Eventually, he would head up his own band and hit the road.

Now, Donato feels he’s at a point in his career where the lines between music and normal life are often blurred.

“Everything I would do in life informed the music, in one way or the other,” he said. “There’s no distinct separation between anything in my life and music, which is a confusing way to live.”

For Donato, he takes as much inspiration from the work of psychologist Carl Jung or Japanese philosophy as he does Hank Williams or guitarist Robben Ford. However, Donato gets really excited when he talks about “The Urantia Book,” an anonymously written, 2,000-page meditation on everything from Jesus, the universe, the meaning of life and music.

“That book has been the single greatest influence on me, even more than the Grateful Dead,” he said.

Among the book’s many subjects, Donato particularly connected with the way music can have a life of its own.

“Part of it is about if music is played truthfully, it can be heard throughout the entire cosmos,” he said.

In a sense, having songs echo through the universe is something Donato hopes he can contribute to the world as part of his own legacy.

“The older I get, I want to make a great living, but as far as I’m concerned, I just want to channel as much truth into music that I can, for myself and for others to enjoy,” he said.

Donato hopes to continue having shared experiences with his band and audience through his music, finding kindred spirits along the way.

“If someone is coming to cosmic country, they can expect to see something that has not happened before or will ever happen again,” he said. “It will only happen that night.”

Tickets to Donato’s upcoming shows can be found here .

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