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The nonprofit based in St. George Island raises money for children’s charities through music events — such as the Rock By the Sea Music Festival — silent auctions and golf tournaments.

“We bring together people in the music community,” Gosnell said. “They travel all around the country for music, so we thought, ‘Why not do what they love for charity?’”

Rock by the Sea has produced nine volumes of a Christmas record, a project that’s starting to gain traction financially, Gosnell said.

“The artists donate a song, maybe an original they’ve written or their take on a traditional,” Gosnell said. “I thought, ‘If we’re doing this much money with Christmas music, why don’t we do some regular music?’”

“Write By the Sea, Vol. 1,” a multi-genre collaborative album, became the organization’s next fundraiser. Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., agreed to match Rock by the Sea’s album proceeds up to $50,000 for a donation to the University of Florida’s brain tumor immunotherapy program.

Nine musicians donated their time to write and record 12 tracks in less than a week. Gosnell loves listening to the record in the car, she said.

“This experience was the coolest thing,” Gosnell said. “Watching them create it — when I hear certain lyrics, I’m like, ‘Oh, we were on the dock when it wasn’t raining.’”

Nick Fradiani, the 2015 winner of “American Idol,” was one of the musicians who shuttled in a few cars from Destin to Alabama to record. When he found out the proceeds would benefit brain cancer research, he was excited to help.

“It’s a really devastating thing,” Fradiani said. “I’ve seen two people relatively close to me go through it, and it’s really horrible. … This was one really easy way for me to take a week out of my life, do something I love that could also help something so important. It was just pretty awesome.”

‘A little bit different’

Fradiani remembers watching the weather that day thinking, “This doesn’t look good.”

Even though they were squished in a car between guitars and recording equipment, he was relieved they evacuated.

“I feel like when you go through that, it makes it easier to sit down and write a song in a weird way,” Fradiani said. “That first 24 hours brought everyone together, so we were more comfortable to sit down and write a bunch of songs.”

Hurricane Michael did change the tune of the album, he said.

“I don’t know exactly how, but I believe if the songs were done in Florida without the storm, the songs would’ve been different,” Fradiani said. “The change of scenery … I think that internally makes you write a little differently and think of different things. The chords you write may be a little different.”

The first song on the album was called just that, “A Little Bit Different.” The Americana track was born when David Borné and Eric Donnelly walked to the end of the pier and got to talking, Borné said. The storm drove the creative process, he added.

“The feeling was that this storm was big, storms are getting bigger — a heightened sense of division in society,” Borné said. “We put all those things into the songs in metaphors about a fisherman who lived on the water and felt like this storm was the one he was not going to ride out.”

Borné and Donnelly finished the song as the rest of the musicians were waking up. The time constraint inspired Borné to craft the songs as well as he could, he said.

“It was the first song that was written of the week,” Borné said. “We felt like it really set the tone … Thirty minutes later, the other group comes out with another great song. That kept happening. It was really special.

“I hope (the album) gets listened to by a lot of people.”

The first day, Fradiani co-wrote “The Way It Is,” and the second day, he co-wrote “The Unknown” with Todd Wright and Donnelly.

“I really love the song,” Fradiani said. “I love the words in it. I forgot who wrote, ‘Sometimes wrong turns take you home,’ but I always really liked that line.”

The speed of the songwriters impressed Fradiani, he said.

“There were so many great lyricists there,” Fradiani said. “Everybody complemented each other. We really figured out how to work together — you have to in that situation.”

The record isn’t perfect, but that’s how they wanted it.

“We wanted it to be raw and exactly how it was done,” Fradiani said. “The drums were recorded in a kitchen. The vocals were recorded in a little bedroom. The rawness — you really don’t get to hear that that often in music. There’s no Auto-Tune, no tricks going on.”

Fradiani hasn’t performed any of the songs live yet. He looks forward to reuniting with fellow songwriters at the Rock by the Sea Music Festival.

“What’s cool about it is you get so many different types of music, different genres, on one album,” Fradiani said. “At the same time, all of us were working on almost every song. There’s something that bonds it all together somehow.”

Read More: https://www.nwfdailynews.com/entertainmentlife/20190408/rock-by-sea-hurricane-michael-inspires-album?fbclid=IwAR09fdKlWpVeEeoGusnwEtXwUMJa-EdwCH6VsFI7rvVxWgX53VW_ya5YrFA