Check Out Agustin’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Agustin.

Hi Agustin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started making music when I was 14, using an old guitar a friend had at his house that didn’t even have strings. I borrowed it, bought a new set of strings, and asked my dad to teach me a few basic chords. That’s how it all started.
From there, I began playing and singing in school bands, and when I was 18 I joined my first “real band,” which pushed me to start writing my own songs. At the same time, I studied economics and eventually ended up working at a software company, first in customer service and later in product and marketing, as a way to pay for rehearsals, guitar gear, and everything that came with trying to build a music career.
What started as just a day job slowly began competing more and more with music, to the point where I became Director of Product Marketing at the company, managing a team of more than 50 people. Throughout all those years, I kept making music on the side: releasing albums, touring, winning the Bienal de Arte Joven in Buenos Aires, but always with the feeling that music was somehow living in the margins of my life.
Eventually, those two identities collided and led to an existential crisis that became the heart of my latest album, El Impostor. That process also led me to leave the software world behind and focus fully on music.
I’m originally from Argentina, where I started my career, and I moved to Spain in 2019. There, besides touring and releasing music, I began running weekly songwriter showcases and building a community around live music. In 2023, I started coming to Los Angeles and completely fell in love with the songwriter scene and community there. These days, I’m living between Madrid and LA.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not smooth, haha. I think the biggest struggles for me had to do with managing expectations, both my own and other people’s. There’s a myth about success and about “making it” in the music industry that simply isn’t true. Sure, it happens that way for some people, but for most musicians who actually make a living from this, it’s about the everyday hustle, consistency, and constantly working on your craft. Those are the things that really make a difference.
I got lost several times along the way chasing a certain idea of success: being around certain people, playing certain venues, making a certain kind of music. Especially in Buenos Aires, where the music scene is incredibly rich and competitive, and opportunities can feel very limited. I spent a lot of energy trying to become something else instead of leaning into what made me unique. Eventually, that burned me out, and that’s a big reason why I moved to Madrid in 2019: to start from scratch and fall in love with music and songwriting again.
Working a full-time corporate job with so many responsibilities was also part of that struggle. In Argentina especially, it can be hard for people to consider music a real job because the opportunities to live from it are limited. So a big internal conflict for me was figuring out how much time, money, and energy I should invest into something I loved and believed in completely, but that could also feel abstract and uncertain.
For a long time, I didn’t even allow myself to seriously consider the possibility of living from music. That’s how this whole “software company persona” was created, and for a while it completely drowned the musician in me.
At the same time, I’m grateful for those struggles because they forced me to define very clearly what I wanted to be as an artist, and also what I didn’t want to become.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a songwriter, singer, and musician. I also produce shows in Madrid, Spain, where I run a weekly songwriter showcase and concert series. What I’m most proud of is the fact that I’m still doing this, haha. I’ve moved beyond the “overnight success” story the industry tries to sell us and understood that being an artist is about the long game. I’m proud of having stayed more or less consistent over the past 15 years: making music, releasing records, putting on shows, and traveling with my songs. We receive so many discouraging messages every day that simply keeping going is already 80% of the job.
It’s hard to say exactly what sets me apart from others, but I guess it has to do with my songwriting style. Coming from Argentina, I grew up on a mix of Argentine rock and US and British rock and folk. As a teenager, I fell in love with punk and hardcore music. The Ramones, along with the Buenos Aires hardcore and DIY scene, were the first shows I attended and what made me want to become a musician. Eventually, I discovered the Uruguayan songwriter scene, with incredible artists like Fernando Cabrera, Jorge Drexler, and Eduardo Mateo, and that became the final ingredient in the crazy soup that turned into my style.
I like to think of myself as a songwriter whose lyrics are rooted in the Argentine and Uruguayan tradition, with a strong US and UK musical influence, but with the spirit of a teenage punk.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Keeping things new all the time. Finding ways to make something that can feel repetitive at times still entertaining and challenging for me is a big part of what keeps me excited. I believe people can sense that in the music and in the live shows.
It’s important for me to feel that with every new record, every new set of songs, and every show, I’m moving forward. I’m not saying it has to be “better.” It’s not about being great or being a genius. It’s more about expansion. I want each project to feel like it’s opening up the universe a little more, instead of becoming stale or repeating itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/agustin.donati
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agustin.donati/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@agustindonati?si=D3pqgflRSx2VHWqr
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/31TDi2WfU74Za77lJh0DDD?si=p_VKVuS_Ry-LxA0RkfWoWQ

Image Credits
Ben Bentley
Maria Claudia