Veikko's Blur Page - Dave Rowntree biography

Dave Rowntree
Drums & percussion

Born: May 8th 1964, in Colchester, England
Family: Parents, sister Sarah, wife Paula
Height: 5' 10" (approx. 178 cm)

David Alexander De Horne Rowntree is the oldest member of Blur. His musical ear comes from both his dad, who had commuted for 40 years to his job as a BBC sound engineer, and his mother, who had played in the London Orchestra. The parents made him play bagpipes, but he fell in love with the drum kit at school.

The young Dave had been taught to play drums the hard way - by a gargantuan Scotsman who taped a sixpence to the drum skin and smacked the pupil across the back of the head if his stick ever missed the target. By a coincidence, Dave had also attended some of the Saturday morning jazz classes run by Graham Coxon's father. Before he joined the other lads he worked as a computer engineer, after studying for a HND in Computer Science at Thames Polytechnic.

Dave had also played with Graham in various shabby groups in Colchester, the most worthy of which was Idle Vice. Other bands that he played in were The Curious Band and Hazel Dean And The Carp Enters From Hell. Just like Graham, he became a protest vegetarian for a while but he failed because of malnutrition. For three months he also lived in London as a squat punk with a mohawk and played at various squat gigs, after which he moved wholesale to France and made a meagre living busking and playing in small-time clubs.

In autumn 1988, Dave was asked by Damon Albarn to join Circus. Later, when Graham and Alex James had joined the band, they changed their name to Seymour.

Little is known about Dave's private life, but he is known to live alone in London. Apparently, he has divorced with his Canadian wife Paula. In his sparetime he flies around in his aeroplane and plays with computers. Thanks to Dave and his pal Ant Cauchi, Blur were one of the first bands in the world to have a website as early as 1995.

Besides Blur

The Ailerons (2005-)

Dave is the drummer in the band called The Ailerons. The band was formed in 2005 and features a long-time Blur concert musician Mike Smith, among other.

Animation

Dave is really into making computer animations. He has an own animation company Nanomation (founded in 1999), where he has done, for example, an animation for Beagle 2 project. He has also done some works for MTV, The South Bank Show and The 11 O'Clock Show.

The world's first interactive animation series Empire Sq is directed by Dave. The BAFTA nominated series made their TV debut in 2005 and has been released on DVD afterwards.

Miscellaneous

Dave stood as the Labour Party candidate in 2007 and 2008.

He is one of the founders of the digital development label Transistor Project.

Played drums for Fat Les and on a Gary Numan tribute album on a track called "We Have A Technical". He also played drums in Graham's band in the summer of 2000.