Phillip Hong
29 October, 2006

Some people believe that music sets a mood within a room. With music on a audible volume being pumped out from track to track, an artist not only creates sound waves but can bring a lot to the unseen. An artist can bring joy, sadness, happiness, even anger.

David Pavia holds an interesting flavour when it comes to producing music. As an indie artist, David has painted the canvas in quite a contrasting manner. Emotions are without shortage as he mixes elements that normally aren't supposed to mend together.

David has brought interesting flavours together, mending what usually cannot be mended. Try the gentle feeling of kindness, with the less tactful method of slaughter. "Killing Them With Kindness" brings a very interesting view towards something that is normally quite harmless.

We at Centre Street love his music so much, we used one of his songs as our theme. So it brings me great pleasure to interview David Pavia.

PHIL: So, David, what inspired you to become a musician?

DAVID: The simple answer to that is music itself inspired me to become a musician. Just growing up, always listening to records, always just being fascinated by the power of music, just to enjoy life by and also to heal.

So, eventually, I think when you love music that deeply, it comes into your mind that you want to be creating that. You want to be in other people's lives in that way. So I think that this is definitely always been and probably will always be my inspiration and why I started to create music.

PHIL: How does it feel to produce music that has a lighter genre, compared to the usual indie stereotype of hard rock?

DAVID: I've always loved Rock and Roll, first and foremost. My music is probably a little bit less loud than what's kind of contemporary and what a lot of people are listening to at the moment.

Historically, I think it kind of fits right into the context of the kind of musicians that I grew up loving like Bruce Springsteen, or the Beatles, or any of the great bands. To me, they were never really just about being loud, they were always about transmitting something, transmitting meaning.

Whether music is harder or softer is really kind of unimportant. It's just kind of inspires you, what comes through you.

Working on a new record now, it's definitely going to rock more, but it's also going to have a lot of quieter moments because I think great music is all about variance. I just don't want to give people one thing, one look, one style. I want to be as broad, certainly within the sounds that I like; I want to give people something different.

I think independent music should always be about doing something different. The minute that you start doing things that are just for the sake of being like everyone else, you're really no longer independent.

PHIL: Has the internet helped you in promoting you as an artist?

DAVID: I think the music industry is learning a lot from the internet in the sense that, it's kind of proven that people are willing to buy music. They're willing to pay and they're not necessarily interested in just stealing music. I think they're willing to pay for things that they value.

So it's up to the industry, it's up to the songwriters to make music that people will value, especially in the long term.

I think that's what interests me is not just creating things that people listen to and like and forget about, but kind of creating the music that lastes for years and years and decades because that, I think, is the goal for me as an artist.

I think the internet is kind of, helping artists who value that to emerge, and it's helping them to connect with their audience more directly, more quickly. I think it's going to definitely have a long term and positive effects on the industry. It's about simplicity and directness, most importantly.

I certainly use the internet to buy music and I think it's a fair deal. It's really going to revolutionise the business side of the art.

PHIL: What is your passion in relations to music itself?

DAVID: I think my passion when it comes to music is creating art that helps.

The best way I can describe that is just listening to a song and then recognising something deeper about the meaning of your own life. It's what excites me about music, so it gets me fired up about creating it because to me, so many amazing ideas have been translated through music. So much wisdom, and insight, and passion and love, and soul-awakening experiences.

Music, I think above all art forms that I appreciate, even though all art forms can be so deepening and so enriching, music for me was always the most immediate, the most direct. I can understand things through music so quickly, and you know, learning from others and teaching others and growing is what inspires me so much about music.

That indescribable connection to why it sounds great to hear Jimmy Page play guitar or to hear Bruce Springsteen sing, any of these things. These things are just indescribable.

I don't know if I could explain why I'm so passionate about that. I don't know, I don't know why I love music so much, makes so much sense to me. But there's something about it that connects to that spirit.

And that's what I'm interested in doing, it's connecting with people's spirit, and also connecting, first and foremost, with my own spirit. So that's what definitely my passion in music is all about.

PHIL: Has your life benefitted from the enrichment of music?

I can only say that, music is such a vital part of my everyday experience. It's always around for me. It's not the only part of my life, but it's certainly something I can't pull away from everything else.

I learn about all kinds of things through music, and writing music also teaches me. So, I think it enriches everything.

That's, in my opinion, is the point of art is to make life richer, make life more vivid, more experience in life, more real, more connected to yourself. Music does that for me and always has.

Phillip Hong is a co-host and reporter on Centre Street, our current affairs programme featuring alternative stories and interviews.