We recently connected with David Young and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Let me introduce you to a project I’m currently working on. I formed a band in high school with my brother, Deven Young, and one of our best friends, Seth Martin. The Interstate Kings was born from a humble place. In our tiny Maine town of Raymond, life is quiet. Through the long winter months, the world exists in pallid shades of gray and white. We used music to bring color to that world. We painted with sounds and words, blues and emotions, build-up and release. Eventually The Interstate Kings partnered with manager Dave Biron and we took our music to venues across Maine and New Hampshire. It was American magic, the stuff you thought was gone forever.

In 2019 I moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Music City was calling me and I heard it loud and clear. Deven and Seth stayed in Maine, and for the next few years The Interstate Kings took the back road. But despite all the incredible talent and passion in Nashville, there’s something f*cking untouchable about a three-piece band of brothers. In late ’22 we booked a studio residency at Nashville’s Hidden Creek Music and cut our first full-length record.

Ten days. Ten songs. We went in with the bones of the songs sketched out and wrote the rest of the music right there with the tape rolling. Every song on this album was recorded live in that studio. After three years apart, we stepped up to the mics, gave a nod, and hit it. The magic that came out of those sessions is something that will stay with me forever. We ddin’t think about it, we just let the Muse take over. There are things we did on these songs that came from a place none of us had felt before and might not feel again. We made this record for ourselves. It’s raw and loud, it’s intimate and vulnerable, it’s tongue-in-cheek and unique as hell. It’s three small town guys with nothing to lose making rock n’ roll in the big city for the sake of passion and brotherhood. And it’s by far the most meaningful piece of art I’ve had the honor of creating.

We’ll be releasing singles from the album all through ’23.

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?

Creativity and adventure have been the themes of my life as long as I can remember. I grew up in a tiny rural town, where the sprawling Northern woods ran from my back porch into forever. I spent my formative years outside building forts; climbing trees to their crowns; biking over trails until my vision was a blurry mess of green; and weaving down steep, snowy, forested hills on plastic sleds. It’s a miracle I made it out alive. In second grade, I was dead-set on being an author. I wanted to write books and bring the fantastic worlds in my head to life. In fifth grade, I took to drawing and art in any capacity I could find. Soon after that, I discovered music. That’s when it all clicked.

My father used to sing old country songs to us kids before bed. It’s one of the shining memories of my life. My grandfather is an accomplished songwriter from Ontario, Canada. He’s been a major inspiration throughout my life. Around age 14, I discovered Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Guns N’ Roses. Then came Tom Petty, Aerosmith, and scores of Canadian artists like Gordon Lightfoot and The Tragically Hip. It was like somebody turned the faucet on full blast, and all of a sudden my life was filled with endless melodies, beats, and poetry. I picked up guitar, formed a band with my brother and high school friend, and began to create music. I fell in love with writing songs and traveling around to perform. I found boundless inspiration in the adventure and uncertainty of artistry. My passion blossomed in the most beautiful way, and I’m thankful every day for the opportunity to wake up and chase it.

I’m currently based in Nashville, Tennessee as a full-time musician and artist. My style pulls from the Americana tradition: 1930s Piedmont Blues collides with Heartland Rock. Northern folk balladry meets ’70s rock n’ roll like Johnny Cash singing “Sweet Emotion”. Nothing’s off limits. It’s the Great American sound. To me, the best music has got something to say and delivers it without the listener having to think too much.

Throughout my adult life, the only moments I’ve felt truly unhappy have been the times where music was not my main course. In those times, I felt like a bird with a broken wing. Music allows me share a feeling with people that transcends the surface, the small talk, the politics, and cuts right to the heart. I do it for God, for myself, and for every single person who has listened to a song of mine and heard something that brings a little light to their day.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

When I was growing up in the American public school system, creativity was the last to be included in the student schedule and the first to be cut. Art was considered an elective. Entering my senior year of high school, I was gifted in the sciences, but I hated the classes. I decided to drop my advanced physics class and instead signed up for Music Theory and Piano. My science teacher stood in front of the entire class when he heard the news and told me, “if you pursue music and not science, you will be wasting your life”.

Wow. I was speechless. That was the day I decided to pursue music even more. I added a guitar course as well as a private-study music block to my schedule. My senior year ended up being awesome and full of music and passion. Our society and particularly the public school system pushes its young minds to be rigid, scholarly, competitive, and constantly under pressure to perform. It leads to depression, anxiety, and feelings of inadequacy for millions of young people.

The best thing our society can do to support artists and creatives is to allow creativity to be explored in an open, safe, and free environment. Place painting, sculpting, philosophy, music, and other expressive courses on equal ground to the STEM courses. Without an appreciation or relationship with artistic expression in children, humanity loses out.

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

There is an underlying mission that has materialized and become more apparent to me as I continue my path of creativity. I am an empathetic person; I feel emotion in a very intense way, to my delight and chagrin. In our Western society, so many people lose their connection with emotion. Men in particular are taught to bottle it up and shut it down. Trauma can make certain emotions painful to experience for some. In Western society we’re pushed hard and taught to ignore, cover up, discredit emotion. Emotional expression is so often seen as weakness.

As a songwriter and musical artist, my job is to observe and experience emotion—be it mine or somebody else’s—and use my words and melody to paint it from the inside out. In a society where emotional expression is so often crushed, sometimes all a person needs is to feel heard and validated. To know somebody else has felt the way you do and felt it so deeply they put it into a song? That’s a powerful thing. And the more I write, the more I strive to bring expression forward. Let’s bring introspection, vulnerability, and connection to the forefront of the human experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.davidyoungtunes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidyoungtunes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidyoungtunes
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjGAL6zm22uj9uyGdFcPPA
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4IYCH1UXciWPJN2VcpQt9K?si=VWN188KnSii_X-w8FlRo8A Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/david-young/1603689027

Image Credits
Main photo, live bent-over with guitar and harmonica around neck – Hannah McKellips Photo in shed – Austin Dellamano Arm up photo – Hannah McKellips Group photo couch – Marcus Pongratz Can-Am album photo – Austin Dellamano Sitting On amp w/ guitar – Austin Dellamano Smelling flower – Austin Dellamano Hair flying, smiling on stage photo – me (David Young)