A FORMER Forest School student is realising his dream of being a professional musician – after moving to the USA and joining a band.
Dave Amott, who pursued his love of drumming by studying music at the Winnersh school and later at college, saw his life turn upside down when he left the UK to live with his new wife, Lindsey, in Kentucky in 2013. Expecting a fresh start, he never imagined that his hobby of drumming would become a full-time career.
Dave, who goes under the stage name DJ, said: “I left Forest in 1999 and did study music, but was always a bit of a rebel… everyone else had pianos, violins and more “upper class” instruments, where I just wanted to hit drums!
“My best friend and I would play throughout most lunch breaks and entertain the crowds outside, taking requests and doing our best to cover popular rock songs at the time, namely, Basket Case by Green Day. I was already 10-12 years into being a drummer, but never really studied the instrument and just focused on enjoying what I was playing. It wasn’t until I was about 15 that I started taking lessons and reading music.”
After discovering his fit behind the drumkit, Dave started playing with various bands back home in the UK, moonlighting as a drum teacher and session drummer as well as holding down a full-time job.
He continued: “I spent time in a number of bands, starting out really in punk and progressing to pop music, eventually settling on rock in-between. A couple of these bands had some good success and I ended up sharing the stage with chart topping acts around the UK.
“I also went to college to study Music Production and Performance and made a lot of good connections through this, which helped me get into some recording session and studio work.
“Most of my work in the UK was then around teaching, session drumming and playing in whichever band I was in at the time. I met some incredible people along the way, including being in a band with Black Orchid Empire’s vocalist, Paul Visser. I also worked solidly with Joe Barbosa, one of the greatest rock producers in the world and one of the most incredible drummers I’ve ever known, who then led me into a professional drummer “inner circle” where I got to meet and become friends with some of my idols and perform at some incredible drumming events.
“I actually moved to Kentucky in 2013, but it wasn’t the most easily accessible place so as much as I’d like to tell some cool rock and roll story about moving to Colorado, it was really born out of my necessity to be able to travel between LA and London in one flight [for work].”
But it was in Colorado that Dave would find his feet and return to his original love of music, and began scouting out like-minded musicians to work with.
“As soon as I got to Denver, I went around every studio in the state and introduced myself and my portfolio trying to get into the recording scene out here,” he explained. “While doing all of this it actually led me to an audition for a previous top charting artist that relocated from LA to Denver. While that wasn’t meant to be, I stayed in contact with the guitarist (Scott Walker) in that band and after grabbing a beer one day with him, we decided to kick off a new project together. Scott and I then started writing a tonne of material and it just kept flowing, so we decided to reach out to a singer he knew, who was an instant fit to the band (Todd Pasternak).”
The new band was almost complete, and with the final addition of bassist Tyler William Morse almost a year later, The Color Canvas was born.
“The band name was such a tricky subject,” Dave continued. “We wanted something that didn’t only reflect our music, but also our creative mindset and style of the band as a whole. We had previously settled on one name (which I can’t mention!) and ramped up the release of our album under this name, however we were told at the last minute by our lawyer that we couldn’t proceed with that name. So, we had a release date set, product recorded, mixed and mastered and no name! I think we went through about 1000+ but then came up with The Color Canvas (and I’m aware it’s spelled the American way!).
“This left the name open to interpretation by anyone that heard it, but ultimately highlighted how we feel when we are creating our music and how we started with a blank canvas but have progressively added more to it.”
Having released their first single Love Your Life over the summer, the band cracked their way into the Top 40 ‘up and coming’ charts in the US, before rocketing up the airplay charts through plenty of radio time.
Dave sid: “We had the privilege of working with some incredible people in recording the album – namely Jason Livermore and Bill Stevenson at The Blasting Room studios [who has worked with Rise Against, All, The Descendents and Black Flag], and we are currently lining up a US and European tour to promote the album in 2017.
“We released Love Your Life into the charts on August 29, so the focus right now is promoting the single and album in order to get a good chart position. There is also a tour being planned for 2017 and we would love nothing more than to come back to the UK and play – perhaps Reading/Leeds Festival would be good!
“We are also currently writing material for the next album and additionally have a couple more singles being released from our current album soon, before releasing the whole thing. Watch this space!”
Love Your Life by The Color Canvas is out now through iTunes. For more information visit www.thecolorcanvas.com or www.facebook.com/thecolorcanvasband.
