The conspicuous rock star in a brown leather bomber jacket, Damiano David is paid in a hotel bar in downtown Los Angeles, finds a table near the back and orders an orange juice in his soft Italian accent.
The 26 -year -old singer of Rome broke out in 2021 when his band Måneskin scored a worldwide success with his “Beggin” version of Four Seasons; By then, the quartet had already won the Eurovision song contest with “Zitti E Buoni” and crashed the top 10 of the United Kingdom singles list with “I Wanna Be Your Slave”. (If the latter remembers “I Wanna Be Your Dog” of the Stooges, consider that Iggy Pop joined Måneskin for an alternative version of the song).
However, David is here this April afternoon to talk about “Funny Little Fears”, his debut album as a solo act. Written and produced with a squad of industry professionals, including Jason Evigan, Sarah Hudson and Amy Allen, the LP moves away from Måneskin's glamora rock towards a more synthesized pop sound somewhere between Harry Styles and Benson Boone. Among the most prominent aspects are the fainting “Born with a Broken Heart”, which has more than 100 million currents in Spotify, and “sick of myself”, a dreamy ballad that David wrote about his girlfriend, singer and actor Dove Cameron; “Zombie Lady” presents a vocal turn of Cameron herself, with whom David is in the midst of moving to a new place when we are.
“We are getting furniture and all that bull,” he says, his hair still shower (or hairstyle to look like). David, who is still half of his time in Rome, will travel this summer with stops in Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza before a show in the Wiltern in November. These are edited extracts of our conversation.
You are living in the part time for work?
It is mainly for my partner. But also because for this project, I started everything here, so it made sense to have a life here.
Do you like it?
It's great, sunny and everything. What really matters is people, and I built a very pleasant community.
Companions and producers and the like.
Basically, I chatted to each composer in Los Angeles for two months, then I made my selections based on personal guts and feelings and how much we would click between us. I found my people, and now we are going to dinner and send text messages.
In An interview With Zach Sang, you referred to experiences with a couple of composers who did not work well.
He really didn't.
What happened?
Sometimes it was no anyone's fault, we just didn't click. What happened once was with a great name, a big, big and big one, and basically was never in the room. Then he felt a loss of time. They gave how, “this great name wants to make a session,” and I said: “F— Yes.” Then I went there and we were and his sound engineer.
Just say that with Måneskin you were operating in a rock space, and on your own you are operating in a pop space?
I think it is fair to say if you are strictly talking about genres. But I don't think it's 100% correct because even with the band, what we did, of course, had distortion and everything, but I think it has a pop scheme.
That is a good term for that.
Being the composer in both scenarios, I have a pop soul. I am really in the sound of my generation, instead of an older sound, which is more than [the other members of Måneskin] They are in. I think the connection between these two things made us work. On my own, not having the trio of power, that is basically what we are, the sound will be more pop because it is cleaner.
The New York Times saying Måneskin “Play Rock Music, but operates according to pop logic.”
I was born in 1999, so I began to listen to music with conscience in 2010. I was born and grew up with pop, and that is what always interested me mainly.
What was the first rock band that spoke to you?
My first musical memories in general are Rem, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, because that is what my dad would hear.
I'm trying to think how many years you would have had when Chris Cornell came out The record he made With Timbaland.
Sick. Don't know.
Some people said: “This is crazy,” and some people said: “He is such a good singer that he can do anything.”
For me it would probably be the second. Not everything is done to be extremely successful: some things are really done just for good.
Måneskin attends the 2023 Grammy Awards. From the left are Ethan Torchio, Thomas Raggi, Victoria de Angelis and Damiano David.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The male pop star has sometimes seemed an endangered species in the last decade more or less. Did you feel a vacuum cleaner where you thought you could enter?
I really don't believe that way, I'm not so industrialized, right? But it is true: the girls are taking charge, and it is not necessarily something bad. Honestly, it gives a lot of hope to see that the five greatest people of music at this time are girls between 20 and 30 years old. There are still men, there are Benson, who is making it incredible. And it's really good. It is not something that feels strange and invented. I heard that it is the friendliest and normal guy.
You clearly think about your visual presentation. Does this solo album give you the opportunity to try looks that would not work with the band?
It is a different aesthetic. With the band, we start very, very young. Do you know how soccer boys are at school, are the basketball boys, are the boys of the art project? We were the boys of the art project. So we did our strength, and we started playing with makeup and nudity and strange clothes because it made us feel special. On this [solo] Scenario, well, first of all, I am no longer 15 years old. With the band, we were children in an adult industry, so we needed this armor or shield. Now I am 26 years old and I don't need it.
There is a bit of classic Hollywood for style with your album.
If I have to imagine how I would look better, I would think it is a good suit with an open neck shirt.
Did you care about clothes even before starting to act?
Always. It is not about brands, just having something that felt staff for me. My parents are very well favored people.
Elegant.
My mom is very elegant. My dad dresses like a man of his age.
In terms of appearance, a difference between Europeans and Americans, in general terms, is that Americans,
You are by comfort.
That is a good way to say it. What is it for walking through an airport in the United States and enjoying the view?
At an airport, I am a fan of garbage. These people in the industry that leave an airplane and meet a complete outfit, such as what is F—? You are in a metal tube with 20 centimeters for your legs. Why do you wear a dress?
Dove Cameron and Damiano David attend Clive Davis's Pre-Formy Annual Gala in Beverly Hilton in 2024.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Where did the idea of ”Zombie ladyIs it coming from?
I am a great admirer of [Tim Burton’s movie] “Corpse Bride”, and I always supported the Zombie lady in some way. I was seeing it with my girlfriend and I thought: What would happen if I was with another girl and she left a grave?
“The first time“It has a great saxon alone.
I think it exceeds a single guitar. We were making a writing camp in Malibu, and we were listening to Bruce Springsteen. We think, “let's do something like him,” basically. I think we nail it. It is very driving in the Rote-66 type of S.
Was Springsteen someone who cared when you were young?
I was never a great admirer, but it definitely imported for my dad. I mean, when it was a complete activity [for Springsteen]I was 2 years old.
Did you go to the concerts when you were a child?
I am not a great concert person.
Even now?
It is hard for me to find someone who I think the whole project is fire. There are always four or five good songs, so the others, I think, “Why?” But I am not a great person of the crowd, she overwhelms me a little.
You told Zach Sang something that I wanted to hear more, which is that you are determined to make a beautiful art, even when art is about something ugly.
I find it hard to find a work of art that talks about a negative issue that remains negative. There are paintings of murders and war, but we consider them masterpieces due to the ability to take something that would only be bad, horrible, painful and somehow would remodel and turn it into something beautiful.
Can ugliness be an artistic virtue? I am thinking of a band like The Sex Pistols, for example.
Going to a Sex Pistols concert was probably the funniest thing you could do in that decade. It was freedom and rules. How can we consider that ugly?
Damiano David: “If I have to imagine how I would look better, I would think he is in a good suit with an open neck shirt.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
You sing in English on this album. What has musician music?
The drama level. I am extremely sensation, up and down, and I manifest it in a very express way. That is very Italian about me. I am very passionate and easy to read, I don't have many masks.
Although I think you have some mystical rock stars on you.
That is because there is a complexity. I am the singer of Måneskin and everything that comes with him, and I am also what I am on this album. I am an extremely positive person, and I am also a person who went through stages of depression. This complexity is something that cannot be expressed completely in even 10 records.
What song from this album would you surprise you five years ago?
“Sick of myself.” I would never have declared so openly that I am in love with this person. She is the main inspiration for this album: what makes me feel. It is a level of frankness that I would never have. Even in interviews, I would have been around the point: “Yeah There is a person … “Now I say:” This song is for my girlfriend, 100%. “
Sometimes you use a mustache, but not today. What form that decision?
How I feel at that time. It is not strategic.
Walking Coachella Last month, I think I saw more boys with mustaches than without him.
Maybe that's why I don't. As everyone began to have a mustache, I stopped.
You said Vogue listen to podcasts in the shower. Which is it?
European football podcasts. Comedy.
What comedians do you like?
I don't think I can say those that I like hard.
Are you interested in marriage and children?
Marriage, yes, I want to marry at a time of my life. I do not see myself in the future with the children, but I am 26 years old, so what is the F? HE?
