Following the release of David Longoria’s exceptional single “Bitcoin Billionaire,” we conducted an in-depth interview with such the great artist to explore his eidetic experience and what he had to say about his incredible musical career thus far. Read below to learn some interesting details about Longoria.
Congratulations on your latest track “Bitcoin Billionaire”, how do you feel about the newfound success?
It’s always great to see people responding to my work! This is one of those fun songs that make people smile and so many people are dabbling in cryptocurrencies and no one really understands it so it’s easy to dream about it all taking off for you.
What was the inspiration behind the single?
I have so many friends who support different crypto coins and currencies and there’s always a mention of what they’ll do if it takes off. Everyone has a dream of what would change if they won big and this plays with that thought.
Which instrument is your favorite to play and why?
My trumpet is the one that i really connect with. I do play piano and guitar but I don’t express myself nearly as well with them. For some reason, my horn is able to tell my story better.
What kind of concepts do you tend to write about as an artist? Shine some light on that.
Usually, I am looking to say something that evokes some sort of emotion from the listener. Often it’s anise I want to support or thought I want to express. I wrote Now Or Never to shine a light on the terrible problem of poachers killing the endangered Rhinos in Africa. Make The World A Better Place is about doing all we can individually to make things better for the world, the planet and for other people who need some love.
I wrote Deeper Love for dance diva Cece Peniston to sig with me and express that yearning for something more, something deeper that ouches the soul and really is just love but on a powerful level. This time, with Bitcoin Billionaire, I wanted to play, to have fun. So many people relate to the dream of a better life, either financially, romantically or just an easier time in general. It seems when we fantasize about it, that if we won the lottery or bitcoin takes off, we will be rich and everyone will like us more, we become more attractive to others, our jokes are funnier and we can sure dress better. But inside we know we will still be the same person but with more toys. And the dream of more toys is always fun too!
Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?
I learned to write songs for the great Gospel songwriter and artist Andrae Crouch. I learned about jazz from trumpet jazz innovator Dizzy Gillespie. I love the trumpet greats including Al Hirt, Miles Davis, Freddy Hubbard, Louis Armstrong and others. The great jazz Masters Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett paved the way to sing with a sense of style for me. Elvis, Michael Jackson and other legends showed what can be done with their special talents. I really love all styles of music for rock to dance and classical. Anything that moves me with passion.
Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative.
I was performing on an awards show a few years ago and the makeup ladies made me look amazing. (ok it was good lighting too). But when I went to play my trumpet on camera, the makeup made my horn slide all over and i had to quickly wipe the makeup off my lips. It was a few seconds of panic but it all worked out ok. Another time I was stuck in terrible traffic on my way to perform the National Anthem in San Diego for the hockey game. They are on tv and on the clock so you coat be late. I was almost out of time so I drove on the sidewalk, pulled up to the stadium fire zone, left it running and ran inside as I heard them introduce me on the microphone. Everyone was standing, ready for me to perform so I ran to center court. I pulled my trumpet out of its case and played the Anthem even out of breath from running inside. As soon as it finished, a cheerleader hugged me and I was very surprised. She said “thank you thank you thank you! If you hadn’t make it in time, they told me I’d have to sing it.”
Wow! Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live?
I always love performing my song Mi Corazon. It’s a true story about meeting an amazing girl in a faraway town that changed everything for me. She was beautiful and I knew instantly she was different for anyone I’d met before and I get a chance to take the audience with me through that experience. The actual town of Montebello is in Southern California and there are a lot of Spanish speaking folks there. To make it more fun and exotic, I set the story in the song in a little town in Spain so I can sing the chorus in Spanish. It’s fun! Every guy dreams of meeting someone amazing like that and every girl likes to think she’s special and someone will one day meet her and hold her up for all of her special qualities.
What makes that song special?
Every time I sing Mi Corazon in concerts and festivals, people come up to me and speak to me in Spanish because I sing the Chorus in Spanish. My Spanish is terrible. I understand it but Im so slow at responding as I construct sentences in my head before speaking them. But they seems to get to get the message and the story of the song even through my American Spanish accent.
As for recording, I had an idea to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s iconic song We Are The World. To make a difference in the lives of children in Africa, about 60 artists got together and sang. I thought I would write a song that brings up as people together in unity. I wrote We Are One to do that. I invited a dozen other artists to sing with me and I didn’t have high expectations to gate as many as We Are The World did, because that was Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones and many others in the 1980s. I recorded a dozen artists in a New York recording studio and flew back to Los Angeles to mix the record. When I got there, a fe other friends said they loved the song and wanted to sing on it too and add their voices. Soon I had more than a hundred artists singing with me on this song of unity.
I didn’t even have time to try to mix it before record labels and managers started calling me to get their artists on my song too. I did recording sessions in Las Vegas with classic artists The Coaster, Drifters, Platters, and back to Los Angeles to produce The Pointer Sisters, Gap Band, Dazz Band, and literally hundreds more. It was out of control so I went to studios in Seattle, Portland, Houston, Miami, Phoenix across the USA and artists from China, Taiwan, Singapore, Italy, France, England and many other places sent their voices to join in. With more than 750 Artists all on one song, We Are One officially became the “biggest song in the history of pop music”. We were invited to perform it with a 1000 singers choir on The Lawn Of The White House, where we performed it with many traveling across the country to join us. That might be my biggest effort so far.
For our final question, is there anything else you would like to add?
I am having so much fun performing Bitcoin Billionaire! It brings a smile to faces and many people tell me their bitcoin stories and ask my financial advice. Unfortunately, I don’t have much advice to give. Just a fun song about it.
Follow David Longoria on:
