Gavin McCarthy grew up in Baltimore, Md. His musical training consits of a number of years studying classical piano as child, switching to drums at the age of 13 which he's been playing ever since. Gavin earned his Bachelor's Degree at Berklee College of Music where, in addition to his studies, he worked as an accompanist for a jazz piano trio and played in numerous ensembles.

Gavin was a founding member of the band Karate, which was active from 1993-2005. Karate recorded 7 full-length CD's and one EP for Southern Records, live records for the Italian label Fooltribe and the Dutch label Konkurrent as well as 7-inch vinyl singles on the Self-Starter Foundation, Art Monk Construction, and Lonesome Pine record labels.
Karate completed numerous tours of the US, Europe and Japan performing well over 600 shows. The exact number of performances is a hotly debated topic among members of the Karate entourage. For a mostly complete list of performances, try this.

Gavin also appears on the debut from Rosa Chance Well on Kimchee Records, the debut from Nedelle and Thom, entitled 'Summerland', on the Kill Rock Stars label, as well as Shimamoto-14, a wholly improvised recording with an improvised assemblage of musicians. He has also worked as touring drummer for The Swirlies and Ted Leo.

More recently, Gavin has worked with Beat Circus, which has consistently played in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia and other East Coast cities. He has also worked with Cul de Sac, which completed a tour of Europe in 2007 and 2008, and Glorytellers, which also toured Europe and the US in 2008.

In addition to live performance and recording, Gavin teaches private drum lessons from home, has worked as a music theory teacher in a local high-school and was director of an intensive music camp for high-school aged kids from 2006-2008.