Meet David Chung

We were lucky to catch up with David Chung recently and have shared our conversation below.

David, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

Creativity is one of those things that can allude us. Despite my focus and passion for music, the most fulfilling technique for finding creativity has always been outside of music itself. It seems odd at first, but when reading about the songs we love the one thing that is evident is that music is about other things, we don’t write music about music as much as we write music about the world around us.
That led me to other creative mediums. Growing up in Buffalo, New York, I would visit the Albright Knox Art Gallery frequently (now known as the AKG). The diversity of work there always astounds me, and in those collections there is bound to be one painting that makes me wonder “what’s the story behind this?” You can read about the painting’s context or artist’s life, but at the end of the day I’d still wonder “what does this SOUND like?” That’s where the exploration begins, to create something based off of a work of a different medium. One doesn’t need to understand the technique of various brushstrokes to comprehend the tone each stroke conveys, the challenge is converting it to your own medium and finding the parallels.
As much as I love paintings, it was writing and poetry that has become my most contributing creative source. There’s something fascinating to me in the fact that with just words, normal accessible language, millions of stories have been told in several variations and forms and have all impacted someone at some point in history. If I feel as though I’m lacking imagination during my improvisations, I simply find something to read, or write something myself. I have a list of random plot lines that I’ve yet to shell out, but they’re ways of forcing me to think critically about story. At the end of the day, we’re here to tell a story, and the only way to learn how to effectively tell one is to read them and write them.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a New York City based singer/songwriter, pianist, and improviser. I write music that spans across several genres but am heavily focused on jazz, pop, and free improvisation. Back in April 2024, I released “In A Moment,” my debut album which encompasses young adult life, mental health, and acceptance. To accompany its release, I held a concert at The DiMenna Center which comprised of myself, a large chamber ensemble, original poetry, and projections of music videos for each song. I’m currently working on a release for “WHEN THEY COME OUT AT NIGHT” a multi-movement single to be released in November of 2024.
Throughout my time making music, I’ve developed a sense for abstract realism. I search for stories of modern life, perspectives that could be found in my own or in the people I live with. From there I adapt them to my soundscape, stretching the emotions and narratives across genres to form a unique sound to a widely felt experience. In a way, it is a radical form of Gen Z creation. Given our upbringings with the internet, we had access to such a wide net of information that has now formed our collective perspective and creativity. Doing this, creating the work I love and expressing the stories that millions share, I aim to serve as a dynamic beacon. Unyielding in expression, always chasing for freedom, all the while digging deeper into the emotion and narrative of it all.
In terms of my influences, I have always had an admiration for the improvisations and compositions of Kamasi Washington and Pharoah Sanders, while also loving the songwriting of Ethel Cain and vocals of Chino Moreno (Deftones).

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Diversity: If you approach it with enough discipline, you can learn something from anything. Not only has this made me more versatile as a musician and a writer, to be able to play a variety of gigs, but also as a person. Learning more about the world and music, it opens the door for you to create bonds with people on a deeper level. It’s those connections through music or art or books, that I deeply value. The more I have explored these avenues and perspectives, the more I learn about the vastness of the world, and how with one small piece of information I can help change someone’s life.

Willingness to take risk: My music explores the world of free-improvisation, a style of playing that aims to produce a unique sound for every player of its world. Playing that music, and incorporating that into my own taught me a lot about risk. You can be comfortable playing what you’re good at, but if you want to excel and explore further into yourself you have to take the risk of failure. When it came to start recording, releasing, and branding myself, the same principle applied. No matter what I do, I have to risk something: my time, money, esteem. That is what’s needed to excel and become closer to the artist you want to be.

Attention to politics: Although this is heavily rooted in my previous point of diversity, I still find it important enough to make it its separate point. Much of art and music is rooted in the political state of a place, and any given artist’s expression can be traced as a reaction to something that occurred in a political office. I find it to be crucial to pay attention to as much of the news as possible, as it not only provides me with inspiration, but also understanding in the world around me. There’s great value in learning about the interconnectedness of the world, and at some point you eventually start to see parallels with that inside your own music. How a band is structured, how a song plays out, how a song can feel like a presidential debate.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

Getting heard. It is truly an understatement when people say the music industry is oversaturated. Although the barriers of entry have been diminished, there are now so many people flowing into the scene, with not enough attention and assets around to supply to everyone.

As a way to combat this, I’ve been thinking heavily on my branding and marketing. As crucial as social media is for branding today, I don’t believe it is wise to only rely on that to create a following. I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from the rollout of Brat by Charli XCX as well as real-world ARGs and have incorporated them into my marketing. Now that the world has created a heightened dependence on online marketing, it’s almost shocking once someone takes something into the real world, which is exactly what I aim to do. Build a world within the one we live in, make it interactive for the audience, and keep them guessing what the next turn is.

For my upcoming releases I’m planning on expanding this concept, and having narrative that flow throughout the city. The only way to discover the full story and be a part of it is to do the opposite of what you’d expect: look up and away from the phone.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Anna Lin (b&w piano picture)
Natalia Kempthorne-Curiel (all other pictures)

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Portraits of Resilience

Sometimes just seeing resilience can change out mindset and unlock our own resilience. That’s our

Productivity
Perspectives on Staying Creative

We’re beyond fortunate to have built a community of some of the most creative artists,

Confidence
Kicking Imposter Syndrome to the Curb

This is the year to kick the pesky imposter syndrome to the curb and move