Country Music Joins Psychedelics Research Effort With Daniel Donato's Cosmic Tour

The art world is moving closer to endorsing psychedelics research as witnessed by Nashville-born Daniel Donato’s U.S. concert tour VIP ticket donations.

Whether or not you're familiar with his music, his personal story is truly compelling. As a child and young teen, Donato had ADHD. After many years of medication, he tried psychedelics, which helped him mentally and spiritually. 

Now years later and with a successful music career, Donato is donating one-third of the sale of all VIP concert tickets to benefit the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). 

Now 27, when he was 16 Daniel was one of the most captivating guitar players in Nashville's lower Broadway honky-tonks, regularly playing with Robert’s Western World and the Don Kelley Band while still dealing with hyperactivity.

He was put on SSRIs and prescription medication until his first psychedelic experience which helped him stop the drugs and finally feel like himself. 

A glimpse of this transformation can be heard in his debut album, A Young Man’s Country. Recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium in just two days and produced by guitar-ace Robben Ford, he refers to the record’s singular style as “21st-century cosmic country.”

The message contains the central tenet of Donato's ethos: finding the courage to blaze one’s own path. And the artist extends this philosophy beyond music, into social media channels, where he’s built up a considerable community of followers. 

He is also producing “Daniel Donato’s Lost Highway” podcast, which brings together like-minded creatives to get at the heart of what makes artists tick. Some of the past interviews feature Brothers Osborne, Brent Cobb, Orville Peck, and Garry Talent of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

Where And How It All Started

As he recalls, listening to Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” at age 12 changed his world forever. “It was the first time I ever had a vision for my life. I then took one of my dad’s old guitars… and I literally fell in love with it.” 

After that, Donato lived and breathed music, practicing around the clock and ending up on lower Broadway eight hours a day on weekends for tips.

Regular night sessions with the Don Kelley Band was a formidable education for the young musician, and jamming with Nashville’s most seasoned players -who may have played in Buck Owens’, Dolly Parton’s or Alan Jackson’s bands- expanded his musical vocab while honing his stage presence. At the same time, he learned about the in and outs of the music business.

How To Get The VIP Tickets

The NFT format allows the VIP tickets to be packaged with multiple benefits that otherwise cannot be programmed for traditional tickets. 

Each of these special tickets features animated mushroom art and an immersive mushroom poster from Half Hazard Press, plus other benefits like meet-and-greets with Donato at the show, full airdropped recordings of every show of the tour, and more.

This is Donato's third project with Web3 ticketing and music company YellowHeart, which released the first NFT album and NFT tickets with Kings of Leon in early 2021.

US tour dates can be found here.

Photo courtesy of Ant Braaten.