Meet Colby Keating | Artist, Musician, Photographer, Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Colby Keating and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Colby, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I feel like I was born with a passion for creativity. From the age of 12, I was writing and directing movies with my friends shot on an old Mini DV camera. After studying music production in high school, I focused on honing these skills in the Sacramento community.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m most proud of the connections I make with other artists. There’s nothing more inspiring than coming together with like minded people and being able to align creatively. My latest project GEMINI II is a perfect example of that. During the making of that, I felt like all of our artistic sensibilities were evenly matched. Originally GEMINI was a beat tape I was working on when I was introduced to Gerald Banks (G.Banks) and his team at Lift Your Hitz Entertainment, ran by Patrick Bullard (Patty aka 006). With each track I finished I would show them and they’d immediately start writing lyrics. It was incredible to see people so eager to create. And as tracks started to pile up, it was decided that the beat tape should be made into collaborative album with lyrics. And GEMINI II was born.

I can’t say getting things were easy. I don’t think anything is easy. I raised by a single mom, jumping different apartments every other year. My mother was one of my biggest cheerleaders growing up, but due to serious mental illness, my relationship with her grew contentious. During this time, I spent a lot of time in my room learning and reading about film and music production. Spent a lot of time listening to music and feeding the subconscious. My biggest musical influences are DJ Shadow, Madlib, J Dilla, Flying Lotus, and Aphex Twin.

In my twenties, my friends and I started a production team, calling ourselves RadDad Films, mainly focusing on comedy skits and practicing our camera work. We produced 17 videos, one of which was submitted to the 2020 Sacramento International Film festival. A short neo-noir called Pale Morning, which was apart of the festival’s “Hard Ass Cinema” segment.

My mother passed in 2014, when I was 22. It was devastating to say the least, but it pushed me to stay driven and not give up on my passions.

From models to musicians, I have worked with so many talented people and I’m grateful for every one of them.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
In Sacramento, Milka Coffee Roasters is a great place to get coffee. Bacon and Butter and Cafe Dantorels are great breakfast/brunch spots. And Willies or In-N-Out if I want a great burger.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Jesse Bartels He’s been my friend for 20 years and I owe a lot of my love for film and music to him. He was the first to show me how films were made. He was the first to let me use his Garageband, where I fell in love with making music and the idea of turning them into albums.

Arron Cobbett
He was one of the first musicians who found me and distributed my music on his record label Viral-Records. We’ve been friends for 15 years and he is the nicest man in the world. He would give me the shirt off my back if I asked. I introduced him to my friend Jesse Bartels and they were married in 2013.

Ryan Williams
A professional wedding photographer who I met through family friends. He gave me Final Draft screenwriting software to help me with my goals of being a screenwriter. He also has given me multiple opportunities in the photography and web design fields.

Thor Bartos, Scott MacDonald, and everyone apart of my film partners at RadDad Films.

Claire Brown
A local model I teamed up with in 2016. They helped hone my craft of photography and brought me into the bigger part of the Sacramento artist community.

I met a local Sacramento rapper, Gerald Banks and he introduced me to his crew- Patrick Bullard, Matteo Faluso, Dylan Maharaj, Asa Pickett and Eli Preston. For the last year and a half they have been working with me and pushing me to put out my own album, GEMINI II. I produced the beats and my guys lent their voices to the project.

Website: https://open.spotify.com/album/4njSREutsmydvNHmKDE04V?si=eS0ghq29SSq6VyWUztMeeQ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colbkeats/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColbKeats

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdAhnA53Z69ogo5_P7vdjA

Other: https://soundcloud.com/colbkeats