Q&A With Singer & Songwriter David Young

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen
Photos courtesy of David Young

David Young is a singer, songwriter who wrote three rock operas. An author of four books and two audio-books. He is a painter, a public speaker, and the presenter of over 500 meditation events that became known as “A Portal Between Heaven and Earth” until 2020 when the pandemic started.”When The Truth Comes Out” is his new powerful single and video to go with. He also released the song “Shit Show” and the video came out in March. Go check out his work!

KB: Did you always want to be a singer, songwriter and musician growing up?

Yes, I always wanted to sing. I became proficient at the recorder starting in the 3rd grade and also sang, and eventually stopped singing when my voice started changing as a teenager. I played baroque and renaissance music on the soprano and alto recorder and studied from a famous medieval music guy in NYC named Phil Levin for three years until I heard Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” and within a couple weeks I was done with classical music.

I’d play along with the first 5 Jethro Tull albums for many hours every day and learned the parts of all the instruments and solos on the recorder. The problem was that, although I knew a couple of kids who played musical instruments like drums or keyboards in my neighborhood in Brooklyn where I grew up, but none of them needed a flute player. Additionally, Jethro Tull was much more difficult to play than the basic songs beginner musicians would play.

A couple years later in high school I started to play guitar and convinced Mark Reale, who had started the band RIOT (who eventually put many albums out and toured the world as a hard rock band), to give me lessons. Since my voice was changing I did not sing lead.

When I went away to college in upstate NY, I needed a singer and found a senior in high school named Joey Belladonna who played drums and sang and made him a lead singer. After a couple years of us playing together I joined an ACDC tribute band, playing the part of Angus Young, and Joey eventually became the singer of Anthrax that my friend Carl Canedy was producing.

I moved to LA in 1990, ran out of money and started Celestial Winds in Venice Beach with Lisa Lynne Franco and eventually sold 100,000 CDs together and had the #1 Canadian import and the biggest selling independent album in Canadian History in 1993. I became a famous flute player and traveled to 45 weekend art festivals and spa conventions a year until 2013 when I started presenting meditation events playing the flutes and guiding people in meditation.

I did 500 meditation events that eventually became known as “A Portal Between Heaven and Earth” until 2020 when the pandemic started. I started singing and writing a lot during the pandemic and my focus turned to songwriting with words and painting.

KB: Who were or are your musical heroes?

Ian Anderson, Led Zeppelin, Paul Rodgers, Steve Marriot, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens and James Taylor.

KB: What happened when you were on Venice Beach with your last $100? From that moment on luck was on your side it seems.

I played the flutes at Venice Beach with Lisa Lynn Franco every weekend under the name, Celestial Winds, and we became a thing there for the 50,000 tourists that came there on Saturdays and Sundays for two years.

During that time, the writers of Seinfeld who lived close by in Pacific Palisades, saw me wearing a white puffy pirate shirt numerous times and got the idea for Jerry to wear it in one of their episodes.

KB: “When The Truth Comes Out” is your new powerful single and video to go with: Very political! What truth will come out?

Actually, I didn’t write it about politics.

“When The Truth Comes Out” and “Shit Show” were written and recorded in 2020 during lockdown while I was working on a rock opera with engineer/producer Mike Gladstone in upstate New York. My co-writers and co-producers, working on the rock opera, felt like there wasn’t a real “bad guy” in the screenplay because in a way it was a comical story about my life.

Every Hollywood screenwriter will tell you screenwriting is about conflict. I didn’t have partners in my music business for twenty years so I had been fortunate to not deal with many business conflicts.

I had created my boutique record label, Universe Music, selling 30,000-40,000 CD’s a year into spas, gift shops and yoga studios of my soft, instrumental flute music. I didn’t have partners for twenty years so there was not enough conflict in the storyline.

One of the producers on this screenplay was my best friend who was a well known Hollywood agent (name omitted intentionally).

After I brought him into the project, I realized he had been lying to me and actually stealing from me for six months. On the next zoom with our team of five producers (all involved for a year with me at that point), I called him out on it and all hell broke loose. He yelled some shit and left the zoom.

Then one of the other producers said, “Holy cow, was that ever a shit show!”
I asked, “What did you say??”

She said, “That! THAT was a Shit Show!”

I had never heard that saying before.

I wrote “Shit Show” the next day and the following day I wrote “When The Truth Comes Out”. I wrote his character into the screenplay as the bad guy and then all the critics were happy because the story now had a bad guy.

A couple months ago one of my friends had been listening to those songs and felt like the timing of the songs with what’s happening in the world right now was so incredible because everybody thinks life is like a shit show right now and is waiting for the truth to come out!

The video of “When The Truth Comes Out” was made in December, 2025 and the video for “Shit Show” was done last month in March.

Back to your question about how “When The Truth Comes Out” can be viewed as a political statement…

I think transparency about child abuse is expected in our times. Child abuse has been unaccepted for the past fifty years. I don’t think it’s a positive trend in society for child abuse to be not an important issue so stopping it and exposing it for a positive end to help eradicate it and in the right direction. I don’t think child abuse is a political issue.
“When The Truth Comes Out” is anti-child abuse and “Shit Show”… regardless of your political association: everyone on both sides thinks politics are a shit show now.

KB: You have written three rock operas, four books, two audio-books, you are a painter, a public speaker, and the presenter of over 500 meditation events: A very busy man! Is there something you still want to do but have not tried yet?

I have written, produced and played on 70 albums of music with my voice or my flutes (on instrumental music) were the main melody.

I’m starting to collaborate with other classic rock singers doing duets of some of these songs and that is on the horizon. (No one to name now.)

KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or you wished you had?

Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
Simon Kirke from Bad Company/Free.
Robert Plant
Jimmy Page

KB: I let you make an album with 7 of your most favorite songs (not your own): What would you pick?

“My Sweet Lord” – George Harrison
“Imagine” – John Lennon
“Ready For Love” – Bad Company
“All Right Now” – Free
“It Can Happen” – Yes
“Shower The People” – James Taylor
“In Your Eyes” – Peter Gabriel

KB: What are you currently up to?

I just made a video for “Shit Show”.

For more information about David, check out his website: HERE

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