“The concept is very floral-based.”
This is how d4vd (pronounced “DAY-vid”) starts off describing Withered, his long-awaited debut album. You could say plant life is a running theme in the Queens-born, New York-based singer-songwriter’s work. In 2023, he came on the scene with the Petals and Thorns EP, which featured two successful tracks – “Here With Me” and “Romantic Homicide” – that were viral hits on TikTok.
Signed to Darkroom Records (aka Billie Ellish’s label), d4vd has accumulated an international fanbase – 3.1 million users follow him on TikTok – in a brief amount of time by creating achingly romantic numbers that can go from indie-rock to PBR&B to bedroom pop. He can even churn out sweeping numbers that could easily slip into a Broadway theater production. He’s already done collabos with 21 Savage, Kali Uchis, and Icelandic vocalist/musician Laufey and contributed tracks to the animated streaming shows Arcane and Invincible.
With Withered, which debuted in the Billboard Top 20 at number 13, d4vd proudly wears so many things – his heart, his vulnerability, his musical growth – on his sleeve. Rolling Stone called the album “a bleeding heart bombshell” with d4vd gushing out “[p]ent-up emotions, regrets, and bestial longings all burst forth in an expansive baritone whose confident quietism distinguishes him from other wispier alt-centric brooders like Daniel Caesar.” “I view myself as the rose and with petals of thorns,” says d4vd (né David Anthony Burke), 20. “It was kind of like the growth of the rose and the progress of that. This is the closing of the chapter, like the wilting away of that rose.”
At a recent meet-and-greet in Houston, d4vd (who’ll be headlining a world tour starting in August) took a few minutes to answer questions about his musical background, how Fortnite pushed him into creating music, and how you should be a bit unserious if you want to be a serious artist.
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At what age did you start playing music?
Actually, my mom forced me to play piano when I was 7. I was in piano classes for a week and a half, and I quit. I was in middle school band. In sixth grade, I played the flute, and I quit that. And then music wasn’t a part of my life until two years ago when I started making music – you know, becoming an artist. So, it’s been in my life, but it’s never been a passion of mine until very recently.
In just reading up on you, it seems like being a musician wasn’t your initial goal. It’s almost like you stumbled into it.
It just kind of just fell into my lap because I was trying to become a professional Fortnite player. And my videos were getting copyright strikes, and I couldn’t make any money on my channel anymore, so my mom told me to make my own music for those videos. And then after that, my music started doing better than my Fortnite videos.
You’re also known for creating sped-up TikToks where you sound like Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Is it weird that people may recognize you more for the silly stuff you do online than the legit music you’ve been creating?
I mean, I don’t think it’s weird. People think [making music is] too serious. People want to be a star before they even become a star. It’s like you can’t put on this persona that you’re some serious artist with all this music that people are supposed to understand and connect to on a deeper level.
But I feel like when my fan base is anime and gamers and movie lovers, and they all love the same stuff I love. I almost got to treat it like I’m a comedian. Like, you know, I think humor is the best way to promote things. And I’ve been using humor as my go-to thing for as long as I can remember. I’ve never been too serious about my art at all. Yeah, I’ve never been like, oh, this is a sad song, so you gotta be sad. So, I make the saddest song ever, and then I make the funniest video to it on TikTok or something like that.
Your EPs reminded me of the debut mixtapes Frank Ocean (Nostalgia, Ultra) and The Weeknd (House of Balloons) dropped in 2011. Even though you were five when those came out, did their music influence you?
I mean, nowadays, Frank Ocean is a big inspiration of mine. Back in 2022, 2023 – nah, not so much. It was more like Clairo, Dominic Fike, Steve Lacy, Deftones.
Universal Music Group
A lot of your work can be best described as “emo sad-boy music,” full of romantic longing and heartbreak. As a young gent, do you feel like you have enough life experience to make that kind of music?
I don’t have a life experience to be talking about the things I talk about in my songs. But what helped me back then, when I was making the music for Fortnite montages, was that I was taking stories of my friends and online peers and people I would come in contact with on Call of Duty and Fortnite and things like that. And they would tell me things about their life, and I would kind of write about my friends’ lives and I would live vicariously through them and try to tap into the emotions that they were telling me about because I’d never had a girlfriend or experienced any of that myself. So, I would let them tell me what to write about and they would basically just tell me the whole life story. I’d basically write biographies about my friends through music.
You have a fanbase here in the States, but you’ve also been touring and getting recognition overseas, in places like Australia and New Zealand. How has that been?
I love seeing how much South Korea and Indonesia and Singapore and especially Japan connect to the music, too. Because I love anime so much and just different cultures react to the music in different ways. And I kind of listen to songs differently. I think they have a different approach and perspective to music. Australia loves Indian rock and Asia loves the slow emo kind of ballads and, then, America loves the more rock-esque, fast tempo kind of post-punk sound. It’s like there are different markets and areas that love different sounds.
Finally, what do you want people to know the most about d4vd?
I think I call myself the everything artist. So, if you listen to my music or you don’t listen to my music or you are a fan of any genre in the world, I think I might have just one song for you. That’s something that I’m very proud of. I have a song in my discography for everybody.
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