David Norris was born in Santa Ana California and grew up in several cities throughout the state. From an early age, he had a strong passion for music and a determination to study. It all started when his first grade teacher issued a recorder and a book of sheet music to the class that would last the entire year. With a one-song class assignment set for all the children in the homeroom, David learned the entire book that weekend and “wowed” the teacher that following Monday. She noticed that he had a different drive than the rest of the children in the class and challenged him all year, allowing him to experiment with different instruments and more sophisticated music.

A few years later when elementary band was introduced as a student chosen curriculum, David tried out for the school band. Due to his love for Rock and Roll music, with the likes of the Beatles, Badfinger, and new comers KISS, David thought the only cool thing to take was the drums. He studied for two years with a band that would make your ears bleed and was always helpful in tutoring his friends on their chosen instrument just to try his best to make it sound better.

When junior high came into the picture, David was in his third year of drums, but unfortunately had to move to another state. Growing up in the sticks of Wyoming (twenty miles from town) didn’t allow much of an opportunity to make the mandatory recitals and concerts, so he had to drop band.

Discouraged that he didn’t have a drum set at home, nor could he ever find the room for one (living with three brothers in a small trailer), he finally saw hope when his father broke out an old acoustic guitar he had. For hours he would listen as his father tried to bang out old gospel hymns, patiently waiting for his turn. With this guitar, David learned his basic chords and little by little started excelling. His father noticed the love he had for making music and sat him down one afternoon. He told him “If you can play me three songs that I can recognize, I may just buy you a guitar of your own.”

David entertained his father for hours playing classic Eagles, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac songs. For the next several months he strummed on that old nylon string guitar, nearly forgetting about the promise his father had made to him. But then, one Christmas morning, there it was, a beautiful cherry wood Fender Lead II with an amplifier. This guitar changed his life and to this day, he still holds the same child-like passion.

As years went on, David went on to form several rock bands, playing dances and parties.

He always knew this is what he wanted to do, but once he was old enough to hit the club scene, he thought that something was missing. It was quality sound. There were only a few clubs that actually sounded good, so David bought a studio setup and taught himself the art of sound. Starting off recording himself doing simple productions of old classic tunes and eventually writing and recording his own. He later turned a friend onto his recordings and they asked if he would be interested in doing live sound for them. They had a great PA and actually paid him to go on the road. After about three years of being on tour as a sound technician, he met a man who ran a professional sound company. He liked the way David made bands sound in club settings and offered him a job doing arena gigs. Working for his heroes was a very exciting and educational time for him. Working with such acts as Aerosmith, Yes, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tesla, Def Leppard, and Linda Ronstadt, he realized that there was much more to music than just meets the eye. In between arena gigs, he started producing and engineering acts in professional recording studios throughout California and became very embraced by the local music community as the “go to guy” for quality demos and session work. This became much more of a passion for him than live sound due to the unbridled creativity in the studio. He did this for years on end and would record his own music in between clients all the while learning many different instruments.

After a strong run of dedicating himself to the recording studio, David ventured into composing music for video games. He moved to San Diego to work for a company called Midway (makers of Pac-Man and Bali pinball machines back in the day) writing scores for Sony Playstation, Microsoft X-box, and Nintendo Game Cube ultimately landing the gamer’s choice for most infectious soundtrack of 2003 for his work on Freaky Flyers.

After his three-year stint with Midway, David decided to move to Nashville with his wife of thirteen years and two sons in the fall of 2003 to pursue his life long dream of becoming a successful songwriter. With his diligent work ethic and prolific songwriting, he has already landed over 60 independent cuts, a whole string of mainstream holds, several national radio releases on mainstream & gospel radio and a song on a compilation CD featuring his lifelong heroes James Taylor and Joe Walsh.

Still producing and engineering as his main source of income, he works very hard on his pop country writing efforts as well as many other styles….like his own style of music which he calls “Dross” with a project called “Mouth” that is a hybrid of Rock, Metal, Industrial, Grunge, Techno, & Soul along with other interesting, creative, and original elements.

if you’re ever wondering what dross is…it is defined in the book of Webster as:

dross (dr-ah-s, drôs) n. The scum that forms on molten metal.

 

David continues to work diligently on producing top quality projects in Music City from full blown album projects to songwriters wanting to take their pitch to the next level.

 

Stay tuned for future Norrisong artists including Stacey Blood, Nick Nicholson, & Vickie Raye.