Photo of Daniel Donato by Jason Stoltzfus
01.30.26, 8:00pm | The Sovereign, 3306 Washington Blvd. | All ages | $27.50
On Friday, Nashville native Daniel Donato will bring his Cosmic energy to St. Louis’ newest live music venue, The Sovereign. We caught up with Donato for a quick Q&A to talk about the origins of his Cosmic Country sound, his new album (Horizons, his third studio full-length, released last August), and how he handles nerves onstage.
How did Cosmic Country come about?
Well, I wanna just to give an honest answer. I think, as much as I’m conscious about how it came about, I don’t think what I’m conscious of is probably [the full] answer, you know?
But at least consciously, it first started as a feeling that I had when I was very young, when I was about 12. I would feel this feeling all the time: it was when I would be playing music and it just felt like this…like a receiving and transmitting. I was playing and it felt like I was able to express something outside of language that was still functionally like language. So it was like communicating this feeling that I was also feeling in music. And that place started when I was 12 and then when I kept refining it, that “cosmic country” feeling kept coming.
Tell me about your most recent album, Horizons, andwhat experience could be had for a first time listener?
Horizons has that vibe for you in a very real way. If you like music that brings you back to improvisational American music, like the Allman Brothers or the Grateful Dead or Phish or any of those fantastic bands, there’s also elements of that.
What’s your relation to Don Kelly?
Don was this personality that everyone that worked and lived in Nashville for any significant period of time knew about and then became to have such notoriety that people would move to town to try to work for him and learn from him. He comes from a time of America where the accountability and sovereignty of an individual was really necessary. So he took that urgency and that discipline and applied it to everyone that he worked with and he did it with music. He’s just one of the best band leaders that has probably ever walked this planet.
Don Kelly played at Robert’s [Western World in downtown Nashville] from 1996 to 2020, and basically took two weeks off that entire time, and somehow managed to keep the house [full of people]. I did that gig with him for 464 shows at four hours a night. So I took a lot from him. Like, he’s ingrained in the way that I conduct myself on stage.
How do you handle the nerves of the stage as a musician?
The degree in which you focus on yourself on stage is the degree in which you’ll be nerve-wracked. [But if] you focus on the objective perspective of the music, which is everyone who’s playing on stage and everyone [who’s] in the room, there’s a ton of other perspectives for you to focus on just aside from your own subjective perspective.
So the more you focus on the objective, the less nerve-wracking it is, and the more you focus on the subjective, the more nerve-wracking it is. And that’s what I really love is looking at music as a form of service.
Have you had a crazy performance story?
Someone was showing me chili that they had, from the pit mid-show. And I’m playing a song, I’m like, there’s nothing I can do about your chili right now, you know? And then somebody starts throwing chili at me on stage. And then now all of a sudden, you know, there’s, like, a chili fight breaking out in the caves.
What is Cosmic Country and how can it be described?
Cosmic Country is based off the moment. People call it live music and live really is just a prefix for living. What we do is live in music. And so the room is living, the music is living, and everybody that’s alive in the room is contributing to that living spirit that is that moment. I can just be of service to that [spirit], and what a blessing that is.
Any plans for your festival Camp Cosmic for its third iteration?
This’ll be our third year doing it and it will be held on May 8th-9th, 2026, right before Mother’s Day. We do it down at the Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee, which is a really beautiful spot that is curated by a fantastic team. It’s such an amazing job, Everyone that works there is so passionate about that event space and they curate so many beautiful events and the safety team is really friendly. Everybody that comes on site as a community member to come and join in on the music, nobody has any complaints about how anything’s handled and how anybody’s treated or if an emergency goes down, everyone’s taken care of right away. And so I say all of that, what I just said could basically boil down into a statement that would sound something like, Cosmic Camp & The Caverns are a very high frequency space and Camp Cosmic is a very high frequency event.
It’s safe to bring the family and kids can come and it’s something that people make an annual trip out of and all that.
Who are some of your influences?
Well, I try to be a very humble student to the life and teachings of Jesus. That was something that occurred to me when I was about 25. So I’m coming at it from a place that has no institutional history. I never went to church as a child. My parents never said you got to do this, [but] spiritually or religion-wise, my parents always did a fantastic job about sourcing and answering questions from a very true and authentic place. I really love the life and teachings of Jesus…I try to have that be my biggest influence in my life.
And really, to be honest, every influence that I had prior to that, whether it be Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson or Hank Williams musically or whether it whether it be like [British philosopher] Alan Watts or [yoga guru] Ram Dass or [Grateful Dead lyricist] Robert Hunter, and everything before I discovered the life and teachings [of Jesus], it was just fragments of all of these truths that I was following, this kind of cosmic bread trail, and it all led into the apex of who that person is.
When was the last “turning point” in your career?
I remember we were playing in Richmond, Virginia, back around march 2020 at the Richmond pour house or the Richmond ale house. We had like 30 tickets held to the show. Right down the road was Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson, who were scheduled to play a show at like the Hampton Coliseum or someplace. And they canceled the show. So a ton of those people came to our show that night. And that night was one of the most visceral experiences on stage that I’ve ever had ’cause it truly was everybody in the room.
I don’t think it’s ever one moment, really. So I see two things happening as I go through time, as I see evolution happening. But then sometimes I do feel there is a revelatory aspect that happens. So I feel like there’s an evolution and then there’s something like revelation that also happens at times. And I think that revelation sense happens to everybody completely form-fitted to who they are.
So to me, it really hasn’t been a like a single moment really but it’s just been a ton of evolution, like everything has been a turning point. Busking on the street for the first time, that was a turning point. Seeing the Don Kelly band the first time to the first tour with Cosmic Country. The first time we got to open for Widespread Panic and when I got to play with Phil Lesh and Bob Weir.
So as a musician myself, how do you handle creative burnout on or off tour?
It’s a couple of things that are in my mind, One is kind of a framework of how [I look at things] when I start to feel burned out. Cause I’m giving a ton and I’m also giving in different ways dynamically. The way I give to my crew is different than the way I give to my band, which is different than the way I give to the audience.
So yeah, I was like, in order for me to ever have had anything to give, I have already received something. And so I try to trace it back to who gave me all this for me to receive and that can help me make sense out of how to give more.
There’s another concept of, if you truly humble yourself, you’ll be exalted. And so if you want to humble yourself, you have to try harder to not humble yourself in this life than you have to.
And then I pray a lot—not in like a traditional sense, like I’m not saying anything that’s memorized. It’s just completely my words, but it’s the feeling of prayer.
What is some advice you’d give to your younger self or advice for musicians and life in general?
Belief precedes action, not the other way around. You can’t really do things to make yourself believe anything. You have to believe it before you do it. Which means that you have to believe more than you know. It’s accepting being comfortable with fear but still doing the thing like that? It’s like Martin Luther King Jr. said, “it’s taking the first step and not seeing the entire staircase..” Yeah, you gotta take that leap and go faithfully into the darkness. | Vertrell Yates
Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country performs January 30th at The Sovereign. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit oldrockhouse.com/thesovereign/.
