Quality Over Quantity: Gabriel
A beautiful afternoon in San Cristobal de las Casas, I shared tea in Gaby’s garden and received deeper insight into why he is the person he is today — a simple, loving, kindhearted man with top tier taste in music and reverence for community/nature that comes through naturally via every meal he creates. I spent most of my time in Mexico with Gaby, so it is with great respect and adoration that I note: the details and impact of his story go far beyond our lovely conversation. To Gaby, thank you for holding my hand during one of the hardest periods of my life.
G: So my name is Gabriel Rock. I was born in Paris. At the age of 15 I went to the Balearic Islands in Spain. It was a big change for me, a guy from Paris living on the Island. My mom sent me to boarding school after two years, but they sent me to the Alps just near a ski station where we would ski every afternoon. I learned nothing in school but I learned how to live with people, how to live in community, how to share, how to give, how to receive, and this has helped me grow. So I switched from being a crazy teenager to a little adult. Before, I wouldn’t help my family for holidays. I wouldn’t help to cook. I wouldn’t help to set the table. After this year of boarding school I learned how to appreciate and respect order and my family.
D: Oh so boarding school worked?
G: Yea, not in the scholarship way obviously, but in the family yes.
D: Where did you go after boarding school?
G: So all my friends from Majorca would go study in Madrid or Barcelona. For holidays, I used to go with other Spanish guys, before I finished boarding school, to go see them in Barcelona. So obviously I fell in love with Barcelona, and I said I don’t care which school I go to in Barcelona, but I want to live in Barcelona. So the second year of boarding school, they kicked me out.
D: Why?
G: They thought I was dealing weed, but they couldn’t catch me. So they were finding other excuses up until the point I had to leave. So I went back to Paris to live with my grandparents. They didn’t have a room for me but they had like a little roof with stairs…
D: An attic?
G: Yeaaa but super small. I enjoyed a lot living with my grandparents. Thanks to my grandmother, she’s a lawyer, I would go after school everyday to her office and do my homework. I think thanks to her and her motivation, I passed the exam and I went to Barcelona to study Sociology. I ended up studying sociology at night. I would DJ, meet people and ended up studying sociology and cultural/night life in Barcelona for two years. I had a beautiful time. I used to listen to music all day & all night, buy vinyls, go to record shops and dig for music. The school was not interesting except for a few teachers that I liked. But after two years I realized that I didn’t need to get the diploma. I learned what I wanted. So I started to travel for a year. I went to the U.S and then I went back to the Island for 6 months. After the U.S it was really crazy, so I needed peace and to relax and go back to my roots.
D: Where in the U.S where you?
G: California, New York and Hawaii at the end. Then after those 6 months on the Island, I decided that I wanted to go live in Paris. I started to work in the antique market with a friend of my mother. I would help her to fix furniture, make jewelry, sell clothes, go all around France to exhibitions. I did this for a year, then I quit. I learned a lot from her. There was one time a guy was shopping and looking inside of the clothes to see how it’s made and he told me, “it’s in the inside that we can appreciate the beauty”, and I always remember this sentence.
Then I met a guy who had an apartment agency. So I started doing check-ins and check-outs. I had the keys to 300 apartments, so whenever they were empty I would call my friends and say let’s do a little party. It was an incredible apartment in front of the Eiffel Tower with a view, swimming pool, jacuzzi and I would have intimate parties with friends. I did this for two years. It was a lot of fun. I met really nice people from all over the world. Then I started my own company. On the side I would always DJ.
D: How old were you around this time?
G: I was 24.
G: I moved back to Majorca where my parents lived because they bought a big house with a lot of trees and I thought, “Ok it’s nice to grow food on a little balcony in Paris, but I can go to the next level”, so I moved.
D: How long were you back home?
G: 3 years.
D: Did you still have your apartment business when you moved back home?
G: I sold it. I went to the Island and started to DJ a lot. Weddings, bars, private parties in front of the sea. Always vinyl. I had a friend that was really connected and he liked my music, so he would invite me everywhere. I played everywhere on the Island and I really enjoyed it. No night clubs, only beautiful outdoor spaces, private parties, some bars.
D: How did you get into DJ’ing?
G: My dad had a radio back in the 80’s. When the government changed and the socialist came back they allowed people to have their radios. So he started this radio in 81. He invited a lot of people to join him. It lasted until 85. So he always had a lot of vinyls. He was connected to a lot of musicians. My dad started to produce bands and groups. He had studios and he would take me with him. I have a lot of memories of that time. So I was surrounded by music all my childhood. It came naturally. At the age of 15 my dad offered me his turntables and I started to buy vinyls.
D: Where did your love of old music come from?
G: From my dad. He would listen to mostly the 60’s, 70’s sound. Which is considered the best quality sound by the time. He was a lot into this. But when I was 15 I was into electronic music. He was like “aggh”. Then when I moved back to Paris almost 10 years later, I got back into 70’s and 80’s music.
D: What do you like about it?
G: The sound. It’s warm. It’s not so electronic. I love the real drums. But I think I’m really influenced also by the sound of the 80’s. When you are a kid, video games, all those crazy synthesizer sounds affected me a lot. Kind of trippy, psychedelic, but not too dark. So yea when I came to back to Paris, I started digging into 60’s rock, 70’s soul, 70’s reggae, and I got into a lot of underground groups that would sound amazing. It could be pop from Thailand, rock from Russia, all this kind of non-commercial music.
D: What’s your timeline from then until now? How did you end up here?
G: My dad passed. So in 2018 I decided I have to go. It was too difficult to stay on the Island. I started to travel. I went to Amsterdam for a few months. Peru for a year. Then I went to Africa to visit my best friend to start a business with him. We bought a truck to help communities and move rice and necessities from Senegal to Mali. Then I spent a month in Morocco. Then I went to Greece for three months — alone on a tiny island. I didn’t talk to anyone. I was living like a freak.
D: Why?
G: I was still lost and felt a lot of pain. I was not feeling great. Then I said I have to go back to Mexico. It was just before the Pandemic.
D: Why Mexico?
G: Because I’d been there a few times and I love the energy. I had played music there in 2014 on a New Years trip in Tulum, and I had the best audience of my life. It was a beautiful night, all kind of old people, young people dancing in front of me hands up, and I was like this is the best audience. So I wanted to feel that again. Just before the pandemic, I said ok I’m leaving Greece and I took a flight straight to Mexico.
D: Did you come straight to San Cris?
G: No, I first came to Tulum Caribbean side, but I didn’t go out not once at night. I didn’t play. I didn’t feel it. I had a bicycle. I was going to the beach every day. I was living in a little pueblo with the Mexicans and I didn’t really like the vibe anymore. It had changed a lot since I was there. But I met Rodrigo. We started to hang out with other friends. We had a good time until we said ok we have to leave Tulum. I’ve been in San Cris ever since.
D: What have you been doing here since?
G: I’ve been cooking a lot. We started to meet people, connect. We liked the cultural life. Concerts again. Cultural centers. The people inspired me and I started to play again.
D: Throughout this entire timeline, you haven’t mentioned cooking. Where did your love of cooking come from?
G: Ah, my aunt was the youngest woman to get the gastronomic Michelin star back in the 80’s. My grandfather had a restaurant. My uncle also was a chef in the U.S and he taught me a lot. My family always loved cooking simple things, but they would spend hours talking about food after lunch, before lunch, during lunch. So when I was 17 I would start making cookies, I would start making crepes. When I lived in Barcelona on my own, I had to reproduce on my own what I knew. Then my sister launched a restaurant too and I would help her sometimes. The big change was after my trip to Peru.. I was depressed because Peru was incredible for food, fruits, plants and I wanted to go live there. I was walking in the street depressed and I met a Brazilian girl that was working at a vegan restaurant. She told me, “Hey come in”. She gave me a cacao infusion, and I started to hang out with this community. It was a vegan restaurant specialized in super foods. I saw them mixing the super foods into the meals, and it tasted amazing. So I started to work with them. I became friends with the main chef of the restaurant also and she had all this knowledge. Cook with her, learn from her, exchange what I know. That’s where I got really into food. Then when I moved to the land my parents bought, I began experimenting a lot. I started to learn and read a lot about permaculture and other beautiful associations that exist in nature.
D: Aside from DJ’ing and cooking, what else would you like to be doing here?
G: Growing.
D: You said you felt lost in Greece. Do you still feel that?
G: No.
D: What changed?
G: My surroundings, the place I’m in now that inspires me. That was the big change — what makes me happy.
D: So given all of your travels, experiences, the people you’ve met and the things you’ve come into contact with, what would you say are the most important things for you to have in your life now?
G: To find happiness in simplicity, to feel connected with nature and with people in an honest and pure way. Quality over quantity. Simplicity and feeling that you are in constant evolution. In cooking, in music, in the relationship I can have, evolution is what excites me.
D: Complete these for me
The importance of life is…
G: evolution
D: Love is…
G: respect
D: Cooking is..
G: magic. medicine! Cooking is medicine, music is medicine, love is medicine.
D: I am..
G: I am a passenger
