We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Jarvis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In 2015, I started conceptualizing my first big production solo album after being in full bands for so long. The execution took three years, from birth to release, working diligently with Chuck at Boltneck Studio in Ft. Worth. In that time I discovered how to use the studio to unlock the crazy things inside my head. There were creatures living within that needed to breathe. And so, beginning in 2020, I began producing. I began experimenting with every style of music I hadn’t been able to explore with previous outfits. Everything from jazz to trap, from synth pop to industrial metal, all the while adjusting, reconfiguring, reevaluating every step, every nook and cranny, greasing the wheels, trying to find a different approach, a different means, a different way to whatever it is I’m searching for. With this new year I celebrate my fourth year of this creation that is X610chil. Each new day brings a new chance, and I’ll follow it to the ends of time and space.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Changing styles when everyone knows you in a certain light is no easy task, to be sure. Some artists have been unable to make the transition. Some have felt trapped by their previous incarnation. Some just lost interest and walked away. I’ve run into all of these situations.

From sold out shows across the country to epic, wild after parties, people knew me as the singer for Grain, an intense punk/metal band from Arlington, dubbed “Baby Pantera”. Over the course of 7 years, I lived that image and lifestyle to the best of my ability. I did it so well, in fact, that I began to suffocate under the weight of this image.

Luckily, or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), all things must pass, and so too did the band. Over the subsequent 8 years afterward, I felt the urge to follow a different path than what I had been expected to take. My desire for diversity took over, and I began to journey, releasing two solo acoustic album, two alt. rock EP’s, numerous soundtrack work for various animated projects, and became the lead guitarist for alternative country band DANK in the process. Just looking for something. What it was? I didn’t know.

Then, as I looked out over a soundboard in Ft. Worth, there came a revelation. In that moment I realized I had spent almost twenty years in recording studios and barely knew anything about them. Right there I made the conscious decision to learn to produce. It was also then that I decided I wanted to take North Texas on the journey with me.

I immediately went to work, visiting every studio in DFW, learning the programs, learning techniques, incorporating my experiences and fusing them with my other musical wants. I drew inspiration from bands like The Gorillaz and Daft Punk, and I started ingratiating myself with other styles, letting the music and the visuals do the talking for me. Using my connections over the years, through X610chil I have been able to realize and collaborate on songs with such diverse vocalists as Steve Page from Rivethead, Kadie Lynn, The Freethinkers, RCX, Metal Mike, and Within Chaos, as well as supplementing the catalogue with esoteric instrumentals perfect for exploration. The sound is an electric haze through smoky neon billboards in the sky and deep sea dives into the watery abyss on the threads of tattered tethers. The visuals also take special care to burn their way into the deepest parts of the cerebellum, brought to life by video creator Mike Lambert.

All this combined has created the voyage into the unknown that draws me back, every time.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

It’s difficult to grasp that grey area where parents and children go from nuturer/nurturee to something resembling contemporaries. With the new crop of parents who see themselves on a par with their children from very early on, this grey state cannot dissipate soon enough. My mother and I did not have this sort of relationship.

From very early on, I realized my mother was not a healthy person. There would be days of love, warmth, and deep insight into the world that I would one day step into with my adult shoes and my adult wallet with a chain attached. But then other days, she would spend the entire day in bed with a headache, emerging from her room sporadically in a Gollum-esque state, searching for M&M’s and Diet Doctor Pepper.

I would always sympathize for her. I didn’t know what she was going through, but I loved her more than anything in the world. When she would get depressed, I would cheer her up. When she would fly off the handle in a fit of rage, I would talk her back down to Earth. When she would cry, I would give her long hugs and we would cry together. At first these episodes would come every now and then, with enough time in between to gear up for the next one.

I firmly believe that my parents thought moving from the drug and sex slum pit of southern California to the wholesome, family-oriented suburbs of North Texas would cure these ails. Later she would tell me my dad was going to get us set up in Texas and then leave us to back to California. I still don’t know if that is true, but I later found out we moved because she had bankrupted us.

Adjusting to life in the South took quite a few years, and in that time, the demons that lived with Mom in Orange County had travelled east. Three days before Thanksgiving, when I was eleven, the house exploded with hysterical screaming over being able to afford Thanksgiving dinner. Dad always tried to keep a level head, but Mom didn’t let things go. Ever.

That episode began a two year civil war in my house, where my dad would go to work, pay the bills, take me and my brother to places like Six Flags and Wet n’ Wild, and my mom would try to burn all of that to the ground. We didn’t know how to take the gigantic swollen bruise on her toe when she dropped the marble cutting board on it. We started getting scared when that very same cutting board created a similar swollen bruise on her forehead. Dad was reduced to tears when she spent a large amount of their savings on phone psychics.

That all ended one day in June when both of them sat us down and told us that Dad was gay. In Texas, at that time, gay slurs were the insult du jeur. Not only was it the worst thing you could call someone, but it was actually the worst thing you could be. You might as well kill yourself, in their opinion. My brother and I didn’t have much time to process this before Mom moved out and Ken moved in.

We didn’t see much of Mom over the next two years. She eventually hooked up with a lady named Lori. Whether she thought she was getting him back at Dad for “turning gay” is anyone’s guess.

She seemed to turn things around for herself after that, becoming a very successful and inspirational hairstylist and teacher over the next ten years. As long as she had me, my brother, Lori, and her parents, she managed to hide her addictions and quell her mental illness. But over the course of four years, all of that came crashing down.

Both of her parents passed away in subsequent years, her relationship with Lori deteriorated, and she ended up moving in with me and my brother. Over the following three years, we saw firsthand just how bad things were. There were late night class sessions with children that weren’t there. There was all night rummaging through the house. She would crawl around naked after having overflowed the toilet trying to flush her pants. She would borrow my brother’s car to go up to the store, leave the car running in the parking lot, and then hitchhike home. When we drove back to get the car, it was still running.

In the span of one Thanksgiving into the next, she managed to break both of her arms, racked up a DWI, ran a school bus stop light, and solicited several of our friends for drugs over social media. Every night was a swan dive into boxes of wine and sheets of Benadryl, usually on an empty stomach. Days of isolation would turn into weeks spent in her room, with intermittent four-legged journeys to the toilet. I hadn’t seen her in three weeks when she encountered me in the driveway and started yelling at me because she couldn’t find me. I was too exhausted to fight, so I just walked away.

A couple days later, it was Christmas Eve. I came home to give everyone their presents. Mom was in the bathroom with the light on, the door locked, and the sink running. We tried to get her to come out, but it just didn’t register with her. I left afterwards to spend the night at a friend’s house. When I came home the next day around 8am, I refused to go in. Instead, I called another friend and hung out with him into the afternoon. Then my brother called saying Mom was blue and not breathing.

I drove as fast as I could back home to find a cadre of police, fire, and ambulance in my driveway. My brother and his wife were crying in shock, talking to the authorities. When one of the police said, “We have some bad news…”, I collapsed on the ground. My mind went blank. It was filled with everything and nothing. My brother, his wife, and I all banded together. We cried together when they wheeled the body out. We cleaned together when everyone left. And we drank together that night at the bar until close.

The loss of a loved one is a pain that never goes away, no matter what kind of relationship you had. I still have dreams about her. Sometimes I wake up scared to death, praying she’s not in the house. Other times I wake up on a tear-soaked pillow and almost hyperventilating. I’d like to think she’d be proud of the man I’ve become. This thought has brought me more than a few tears. I just try to remember the good times, because that’s all you’re left with when they’re gone.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I approach music like a mental condition, an insatiable urge, extraterrestrial and introspective. I want to open the minds of the viewers to a different perspective. Everybody thinks too globally, and not inter-dimensionally. I want to change that. I want you to know that you are not alone. That there is someone out there that understands. In fact, there’s an entire army that understands. When we are all able to be enraptured in the spirit of X610chil, there are no limits to what we can achieve. We are all one.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/x610chil
• Facebook: facebook.com/X610chil
• Twitter: twitter.comx610chil
• Youtube: youtube.com/x610chil2
• Other: Check out X610chil on SoundCloud https://on.soundcloud.com/hF9c5

Image Credits
Beach picture taken by Paul Jarvis