Born at Fort Hamilton Hospital, David spent his entire childhood in Hamilton, graduating from Hamilton High and briefly attending Miami University before eventually ending up at Ohio State. Originally, he majored in business management with an emphasis in construction, and a minor in music.
“I didn’t really have a plan, I was a bit of a feather in the wind,” he said. “I felt like the longer I stayed in school, the longer I didn’t have to get real.”
He spent many years in school before he decided it was time to move on and get started with his career. There wasn’t much debate on what he was going to do because music had always had a special place with David, even as a young child.
“I tried out for the Mickey Mouse Club when I was six,” he remembered. “I didn’t make it but it was a neat experience.”
He grew up with parents who sang in the church choir and he taught himself how to play the guitar at 12 years old.
“I always knew I wanted to do something in entertainment,” David said. “I always felt that kind of pull.”
In 2007, David decided to relocate to New Orleans with the hope of starting a band.
“I was playing on my front porch and Zack was riding his bike by,” he said. “I stopped playing, and said it was cool and that he stopped for a reason.”
During that conversation, David learned that Zack Feinberg had incredible skill with the guitar and the two became fast friends. They started playing gigs together, one even lasting from 10:00 pm to 8:00 am the following morning. Over the next few months, the band formed and the only thing missing was a name.
“Zack was like, what do you think about The Revivalists, and we all just said, yeah cool,” David laughed. “It was probably the easiest things we’ve ever done as a band, agreeing on the name.”
The Revivalists have spent much of the last decade touring, with much of their growth happening in small increments. Then, in 2015, the band’s popularity exploded with the release of ‘Wish I Knew You’. Since then, they’ve begun to double and triple their audience. They’ve shared a stage with Willie Nelson and ‘Wish I Knew You’ went all the way to #1 on the Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart.
While the band was excited at the realization that all their hard work was finally paying off, that level of success didn’t come without challenges. Often, sudden success can be overwhelming if a band is unprepared for it, and the pressure of what to do next can be too much.
“It’s not easy to go on stage night after night, do the same thing, and crush it,” David explained, “but we’re in the business of crushing it.”
The Revivalists do in fact crush it, and Hamilton gets to see it first-hand every year. That attitude and enthusiasm is exactly what The Revivalists bring with them every year when they play at the RiversEdge Concert Series. In fact, The Revivalists have been playing there since the very beginning in 2012.
“The first concert series, we played on the back of a trailer in the underpass,” David recalled. “Now we’ve got this amazing amphitheater, and a lot more people know about it and come out.”
David felt that maintaining his connection with Hamilton was important, and in 2015, he solidified his involvement with RiversEdge by adding David Shaw’s Big River Getdown. The one-day festival features multiple bands leading up to The Revivalists themselves.
“Since I’m from Hamilton, I wanted to create a relationship with my hometown that went a little further than coming back every year for a concert,” David said. “I’d seen what music could do in small cities, and you have to plant seeds and water them to see what comes out.”
*Archived article from The Hamiltonian Magazine August 2019*
David and the rest of The Revivalists will be back at RiversEdge on Saturday, August 3rd, doors open at 2:30 pm, for the 2024 Big River Getdown.
