In a music world always longing for a new voice, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DAVID REED represents the singer-songwriter for the 21st century fan. While predominately keeping with an acoustic base, Reed aggressively incorporates a wide range of influences that paint his songs with an array of beautiful textures and sounds while adopting a subtle atonality and dissonance. At the same time, Reed captures the words that resonate with one's deepest emotions.
Making his recorded debut with Missteps and Miscommunications, this South Carolina-raised pioneer explores an artistic depth that delivers substance as well as a newly refined Indie-Rock style.
Over the past four years David Reed has been touring, writing and performing with his original band CLOSER. Although, he was happy making a living making music he felt unsatisfied with the artistic direction of the band. Ultimately, after feeling a strong disconnect from his musical perspective, David reconnected with producer/writer and confidant Tomas Costanza to talk about new possibilities. The two discussed the situation at hand and immediately saw eye-to-eye regarding the future of Reed’s career. It was concluded that David should pursue as a solo artist and part ways with CLOSER.
Shortly after, Costanza and Reed began cultivating song ideas as well as consciously establishing a musical style. The goal was to attain a sound that was more natural to Reed’s core influences (Jeff Buckley, Damien Rice, Bright Eyes, David Gray). A few months later they wrote, recorded and remixed an entire CD spawning THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DAVID REED. Two weeks later Reed was signed to Chamberlain Records.
On THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DAVID REED’S debut CD the rough edges are still there but not quite obvious. Although Reed avoids obvious melodies and employs a range of moods and sounds in his vocals, he never let his ego get in the way of the songs and Missteps and Miscommunications is mercifully free of the vocal histrionics that plague most naturally talented singers.
There’s an unwritten rule that pop and rock music should deal with the simplistic and ephemeral, should stick to long-established rules of melody, content and structure. This album, on the other hand, is all about love and faith, desperation and loss, and the music wraps around the lyrical content accordingly.
At times frantic and cacophonous, on first listen you could be forgiven for thinking you’d wandered into the world of anti-pop hooks and refrains. Repeated listens reveal the sheer range of the music and it soon becomes obvious why THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DAVID REED has delivered a pretty ambitious debut CD. Rather than stick to the conventions of conventional Commercial Rock music, Reed throws the rulebook out of the window and maps new artistic territory.
Looking ahead, David Reed admits he has finally found his musical calling. “If your vibe outweighs your substance, you're destined to be a novelty. It took me a while to figure it out but ultimately, my artistic goal is to write and perform songs that are one hundred percent real and true to me. Everything else will naturally fall into place”.
