”My name is David Rovics and I’m a singer/songwriter from these days’ Portland, Oregon and that’s about it” is what the “I’m a better anarchist than you”-singer, David Rovics, says when asked to interduce himself.
We caught him right after a successful gig at SFUs congress at Høje Taastrup gymnasium Friday the 6th of October. David is, except for being the songwriter to several songs in our songbook, also a great inspiration and a rare American – a leftie. We asked him about his inspiration, thoughts on the political situation in his homeland America and what made him start writing.
We start out were we’re supposed to – from the start. The first question we ask David is when he started writing?
“My parents told me that I was singing and composing songs from when I was three, but I don’t remember that obviously.” David starts. “But I remember when I, as a teenager, started writing really bad songs, hitting people over the head with politics and later I got better at it by the times I was in my twenties” he tells us with a smile.
So David started very early and kept learning, but what made him start writing? That’s our next question.
David think briefly and then answers; “Hmm I mean what really got me thinking about politics was leaving the small town, that I lived in and going just about anywhere else. Just to the nearest city where most people are not white and they’ve mostly very poor. And I thought “Wow, this is not the America that I’ve been hearing about in school and in the textbooks. And I thought this is fucked up”
So his inspiration came from experiencing the big social and echonomical differences in the states, but where the theme always political?
“When I was a teenager, I mean, I’ve always been a fan of all kinds of music and gotten into all kinds of stuff that isn’t particuly political, but as a songwriter I always wanted to talk about politics and what’s happening in the world and history and such things” David tells us.
Lastly we ask him what his thoughts are on the political situation in America today? Will there ever be room for a leftwing, as we know it, in the states?
David thinks for a while and then answers; “No matter how bleak things can look right now, there’s always the possibility that everything can change very quickly when people get mobilized and when there’s a lot of people who realize that something is wrong, and they realize that not only that something is wrong but how they want it to be different and what strategies they want to use to get there. When they believe that those strategies can work to actually achieve what they want to achieve, then massive things can happen”
We hope that you think David is as cool, as we think he is. To find more information about up-coming gigs go to; www.davidrovicsmusic.com.
