David James Martinez

With a guitar slung around his shoulders and a pad of lyrics on his side, David James hums out a slow and melodic tune. Working on his new song, he meticulously moves his fingers up and down the fret board to find the right chord. He changes the chords from a Eb to Bb to C and back to Bb again. Viola! There stood his brand spanking new song called “Second Chance”. His fingers begin to throb. No wonder they are broken in with calluses. Practice makes perfect right?

Armed with a slew of new experiences, and a voice most fans compare to Damian Rice, the twenty one year old Mississauga native has been making some serious heads turn lately. But music wasn’t the only thing that David was interested in.

Let’s rewind back to where it all began…

James began playing music when he was seven years old. He played the piano throughout his adolescent years, eventually becoming a young music instructor. During his high school years, he picked up the guitar and melted the classical background onto his first song called “On My Way.” The song received a warm welcome from teachers and peers alike as he performed it in talent cafes and university bars.

Despite his new found love of the guitar, there was still something brewing within. Simmering was his lust for the culinary arts. It was so strong that he decided to pursue it as a career. He travelled to Ottawa to visit the very prestigious culinary arts school Cordon Bleu. It was there that he realized that his heart belongs to music.

“To be honest, those people at Cordon Bleu intimidated me,” he says. “It was the drive back where I thought to myself ‘What have you been doing all your life that you can do something with?’ I recognized my talent and I wanted to pursue it [music].”

With a dream in mind, he packed up his Yamaha acoustic, some socks and headed to Sudbury’s Laurentian University. There, he studied music for two years and performed at renowned campus cafes and bars before deciding to drop out to make it in t