Gabe Hirshfeld grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. At the age of 15, he heard the great banjo player Earl Scruggs in the theme song of NPR’s Car Talk. The sound of the banjo spoke to him in a way that no other sound ever had and it changed his life. After playing and obsessing over the banjo for several years, Gabe attended Berklee College of Music where he cofounded the Lonely Heartstring Band.. He now lives in Brighton, Massachusetts, in a house with an intense number of fiddle players.