We were lucky to catch up with David Ingraham recently and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

After being a sideman my entire career, playing drums on what has mostly been other people’s music, I’m currently working on my first-ever solo record. (And at fifty nine years old! Better late than never, right?) During Covid lockdown, when my band (Young Dubliners) was in limbo due to the entire music business shutting down, I became very creatively antsy, eager to make music some way, somehow. That’s when the lightbulb turned on and I invested in a mini home-recording setup and slowly but surely started chiseling away at my own music while learning the basics of recording, EQ, compression, etc. It’s been quite the journey but I’m finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, with ten songs under my belt, almost mixed and ready to go. I’m hoping to have the record released before the year is up. To finally be able to get all this music out that’s been cooped up inside of me for decades, and make all the creative judgement calls myself with zero compromise has been incredibly creatively liberating.

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a professional drummer, spending about 2/3rds of any given year on the road with the Irish Rock band “Young Dubliners”. I’ve been playing professionally for about 30 years or so. I moved out to LA in my mid 20s to go to music school and I’ve been here ever since. I’m also a photographer specializing mostly in fine-art street photography, as showcased in my 2018 publication “Lonesome City”. And as I previously mentioned, when I’m not on the road or on the streets photographing, I’m at home working on my own music.

Although I realize that these days it’s all about someone’s “brand”, I never really thought in these terms. (I guess I’m old school…or just getting old!) Even though I did study music/percussion and have taken a photography course here, a workshop there, I’ve mostly been self taught and have always just pursued things I was passionate about and/or thought I had a natural propensity towards. I’ve always been envious of people who had a natural business sense and who were more savvy in the money-making department, as these things have never come naturally for me. Whether with music or photography, I’ve always just pursued something out of a passion for it, tried to do the best work I could, and then eventually doors of opportunity would open. (Like the line from the movie Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come.”) I’ve never pursued something with money being the main focus, it’s always been more a case of “Hey, I”m passionate about this, and I think I could get good at it; let’s dive in and see how far I can take it.” The rest has sort of taken care of itself. So between being a touring musician, and supplementing the income on the side via my photography, it’s all largely stemmed from a passion for the arts combined with a desperate desire to avoid a conventional 9 to 5 at all costs!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

With the onset of digital revolution, both the music industry as well as the photography industry have undergone major seismic shifts, and in a very analogous way. The music business used to be all about record sales. An artist would spend a few years working on a record and then hit the road to promote it, selling more records and hopefully recouping with their record company and earning a living in the process. Then along came streaming and the entire model got turned on its head. Now all musicians, no matter what level of success they may have previously achieved, have to be out there on the road. There are no more record sales, so an artist now puts out a record as a way of promoting their upcoming tour! Touring and merchandising, that’s where the money is now. With streaming platforms like Spotify, etc., the artist makes pennies off of their music. A similar thing happened with photography: along came the smartphone and social media and now everyone fancies themselves a photographer, and in the process, photography and professional photographers have been devalued. Photojournalists, stock photographers, etc., they just don’t make anywhere near what they used to because companies/publications can just scour the internet for photos by anyone/everyone and then offer them pennies in return. So where do I fit in? I was doing what I’m doing pre digital revolution, and I’m still here now, somehow still making ends meet. Not sure if that’s resilience or just my survival instinct in action, but there you have it!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

To live the creative life. To do something creatively fulfilling for a living while hopefully not having to compromise my integrity. Sometimes a musician has to be willing to play music that isn’t necessarily what they like to listen to themselves, but I’ve never played music that I thought was truly terrible, and I hope I never do. I’ve been able to do something for a living that fits my personality and the way I’m wired and I feel very blessed to be able to say that. I’m just not wired for the corporate life, so I just keep doing what I’m passionate about and somehow the bills keep getting paid. If I can somehow continue to pull that off for the next twenty years or so, I’ll feel like it was a life well lived.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://davidingraham.com
• Instagram: @dayzdandconfuzd
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008294585197
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daingraham/
• Other: https://youngdubliners.com

Image Credits

Andi Wolfe (Portrait shot)