Today we’d like to introduce you to David Pollock.
David, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born into a musical family. My grandpa was a conductor and music teacher at a community college in Columbus. My dad’s first career was a touring vocalist for a band. It was in the DNA.
There were four of us brothers grown up and three us of were musicians for most of my childhood. One drifted off, but my other brother, Jon Joseph ended up making it his career. Even if I don’t make it in music, one out of four ain’t a bad ratio. Ted Pollock should be proud. My brothers and I all played in a jazz band when we were younger.
Started off on woodwinds and brass then slowly moved our way towards other instruments. Spent most of junior high and high school playing and singing in church. Was convinced at the time I was going to make a career out of being a session guitar player. Had a small room we built in the garage that functioned as a studio. When my brother Jon wasn’t using it, I would sneak in a mess around recording things.
That’s when I first started playing with songwriting. Tried getting into the engineering game for a quick minute, but didn’t really stick it through. Takes a different kinda human to be able to sit in a room for hours on end toiling over music that isn’t theirs. I did manage to squeeze out a record on my own in early high school. Didn’t take it too seriously.
Played like half a show with the material once. I was pretty invested in church life around that same time. Was thinking about quitting music to pursue being a preacher or a theologian or something romantic like that. It was my brother Jon that actually convinced me to record a legit record with him and stick it out a little longer.
I was sixteen at the time and couldn’t drive. So he would drive from Glendale to Costa Mesa like twice a month to pick me up. He paid for my meals, got me musicians, everything. Guy’s a stud. There wouldn’t be a d.c.R. Pollock without him. Absolutely fell in love with songwriting through the process.
After high school, I toured with a band for little. I left the band in late 2017. Realized that if I was going to do music, it was going to be my own music. I had been working on my second full-length record since about 2015. When I left the band, I got a manager and refocused on the d.c.R stuff. It was a harsh truth, but I knew the only way I could be happy doing music was if it’s my own music.
So three years later, my second full-length record is dropping in early November this year.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I don’t think anyone who does honest work of any kind could look you in the eyes and say it’s been a smooth road. Especially in entertainment. I always want to quit. There’s this constant weight on you that you’re not going to make it. That you’ve wasted all that time.
You don’t want to call it quits too early, cause you always hear about people like Cohen or Charles Bradley that don’t make it till they’re in their late 30’s or older. You think there’s always a chance. But you also don’t want to hold out too long. There’s that Cursive lyric that always gets to me, “I spent the best years of my life waiting on the best years of my life.”
I don’t want to wake up one day, forty years old in my Rush shirt, opening for a group of twenty-something at the local dive. I’m over there bothering them while they try to tare down, raving about how much easier they have it. That’s the worst-case scenario for me. Music would be so much nicer if you just knew when you didn’t make it.
It’s like having a job interview that’s never concluded, but you still hang around the workplace all day. It would nice if someone just told you that you didn’t get the job so you can go apply somewhere else. There’s no real confidence in where you stand in all of it. I have some friends who, by my standards, are making it. But when you ask em if they feel like they’ve made it they’re still in that same sense of insecurity about all of it.
Entertainment is just a constant sense of moving towards this thing called “Making it,” but no ones have given you a definition of what “making it” is. Everyone’s kinda looking for you just to tell em “I’ve made it. This is what it looks like, and it feels awesome.” I don’t know. I often struggle with wondering if I really want that to be my life. That tension that you’ve wasted your time.
I understand the mindset that “It’s not a waste of time. It’s the journey. You’ve learned so many valuable things…” etc. I get that. But I’d be happy doing something other than music. I mentioned before that I’ve quit music before. I keep getting talked back into it. I have some friends that would be content chasing music and living with that insecurity the rest of they’re lives. They genuinely wouldn’t be happy if they weren’t doing music. I’m just not that way.
I currently work in a warehouse. I clock in for eight or more hours, clock out, come home, read a book, spend time with my family and girlfriend, then go to bed. I love it. I also love songwriting and playing music. I love recording. I love the music scene I’m in. I love traveling. I’d be happy doing music. It’s just that constant insecurity of ‘making it/not making it’ gets to me sometimes. That’s my biggest struggle.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I’m a songwriter. Everything I do musically is there for the sake of complimenting what I write. Writing is the most enjoyable part of music for me. I’m obsessed with words. Language, grammar, writing.
All of it, words have power. I mean that in every sense of it. We become what we read. We become what we write. It’s remarkable. Every great civilization understood this. The power of words. The ancient Egyptians claimed the scribe gods were some of the most powerful in their pantheon. The Celtic and Norse cultures held the bard as a pillar of society.
The classical philosophers taught that ethics and physics were useless without logic and rhetoric, the ability to convey them. The ability to make someone laugh, cry, get angry, etc. all without doing anything but using words. Hemingway wrote that his goal as a writer was to write so truthfully and honestly that you believed what he wrote actually happened to you and that you were just remembering it. That’s work a psychic would struggle doing.
There’s an old saying that a witch could turn you into a frog and even kill you. But that curse is done once your dead. A comedian could put you in a comedy and curse your name long after you’ve died. I come from a Christian community. Prayer, hymns, and verbal confessions are essential to any gathering. God is found in them. All that to say, I’m a songwriter. I like words.
I understand my strengths and focus on that. When I get into the studio, I let the musicians I bring in have their way with the arrangements. As long as my lyrics, melody and chord changes stay the same, I don’t care what they do to it. That often times leaves a unique taste on the tracks. Leaves my music kind of genre-ambiguous, it’s 2018. Cultures, aesthetic and sounds are all bleeding together.
Were globalized and investing in each other. I listen to a lot of older Americana/Country music. I take a lot of writing techniques from them. The way they make you feel invested in them as a person. They just tackle heartbreak, longing, and love in such a distinct way. So I just say I’m a country artist. Before I take it to the studio, the songs honestly could be country. I did study Jazz through a cal state later in highs cool. So that’ll slip in there occasionally.
What were you like growing up?
I started music pretty young. So that took up most of my time growing up. The only thing that really competed with my time then was legos. Did a lot of drawing as well. Was really into computer strategy games for a while. Music was really the only consistent interest I had. As I got into high school, I took a good interest in academics. I like learning stuff. Ironically I was awful in school. Graduated with something like a 1.6.
My own personal reading and learning would conflict with my actual schooling. I don’t regret it. Academics in their own way conflicted with music during that time. Work and relationships take time from my music nowadays. I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t call it conflicting anymore. I’m not torn between them. I understand what role they play in my life. That might change with time, but as of right now, it’s not a conflict.
I’ve always been a bit more outgoing. I go through phases. Took myself pretty damn seriously for a couple of years. Probably still do. So it goes. I had three brothers growing up. We were all Spitfires. My dads a wild guy. Just over the top. A character. That definitely played into it. Always had a rich appreciation for humor. That translates as I was annoying as hell in grade school. Wouldn’t shut up kinda kid. I was well-liked enough in high school. Kind of a prick though. I went to a private Christian school and would try to debate the teachers.
I thought I was edgy for it. Had to have a sit down with a board of pastors for causing a ruckus one year. Was never really edgy though. Got suspended once for flipping desks in a classroom after the school was closed. No other real situation like that happened. Was never really in the partying scene. We didn’t really have one. At least one that I knew of. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything though.
I never really spent time with kids from a school outside of class for most of the high school. I was invested in the music scene here in Costa Mesa pretty early on. Ended up spending most my time with the people there. I had a recording set up in my garage and spent a lot of time there with people from that scene. I’m just rambling at this point. You get the vibe.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.DCRPollock.com
- Instagram: @dcrpollock
- Facebook: @dcrpollock
- Twitter: @dcrpollock
Image Credit: Sullivan Smith
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