David Goodman: “There’s always an opportunity to sing a new song”

The end of 2024 marked the solo debut of David Goodman, a voice known in the indie-pop scene as the former vocalist of My Dear Flotsam and Lava Fizz. Now he is opening a new stage and moving towards electronic music.

“Cuando todo se haya acabado, canta una nueva canción” (When everything is over, sing a new song) is the first song of an EP that will introduce followers to a newtrack every month until April 2025.

In his first launch, Goodman refers to the end of the year, addresses the freedom of redemption and incidentally seeks to be an encouragement for the thousands who are re-starting their lives and businesses after the Valencia floods.

The Mallorca-based artist reinvents himself, playing with digital tools and opting for Spanish instead of English as in the past, in songs that arise from personal experiences of frustration, anger and hope.

Goodman wants to remove layers, produce honest music, seeking a more direct connection with his audience.

The second song, released in January 2025, mixes a traditional Spanish children’s song with Psalm 23, and ends up stating:

“Open the narrow door for me

Show me the Son

In this dead end street

I’m OK, you’re with me”

Question. This is the first time we’ve seen you take on a solo musical project. How did it come about?

Answer. I’ve always been a band musician. I really like working and composing with other people, a band creates community. On the other hand, I’m a very classical musician, I pick up the guitar and sing and look for someone to accompany me. But there are different stages in life, and now the most natural thing for me was to go solo.

Something that helped me was talking to friends, who saw me playing solo sometimes. I, to play and sing without much else, acoustic, in a raw format. So, I started to think, to pray, and also to investigate, to listen to more music, other styles... I got a little bit closer to electronic music, to the world of midi controllers, the pads. All of that forced me out of my comfort zone, and I discovered a world in which I felt like a child with new toys. I found a creative freedom that I hadn’t explored before. It was a lot of fun, and didactic.

There have been people like Piglet Spacey (Fernando Zapata) with whom I’ve been working, or Andrés Pérez (Praxiz) who have helped me a lot, to get to grips with new instruments, programmes.

At the same time, I have continued to play the guitar, and from this new mixture these songs have emerged, which have been built up over a period of about two years.

[photo_footer] Cover for the first song of David Goodman's EP. / Israel de Lago. [/photo_footer] 

Q. In other projects in which you participated, the main language was English, but now you have opted for Spanish.

A. Yes, English was the language of the music I have always listened to. But also, if I’m honest, I’ll say that I had shielded myself in the language to avoid facing the truths I wanted to talk about. I was hiding in a way.

So, to sing in Spanish is also to take off layers, to expose myself. It was one of the first decisions I made. I want to connect with people, and I want people to be able to connect with me.

Q. ‘Singing a new song’, do end of cycles also mean a new beginning?

A. Sometimes things die without you being able to do something about it. Other times it is you who decides to end them in order to start others. So, it expresses life transition in many ways.

First of all, I was coming from the grief of ending Lava Fizz and I had to face my insecurity in the face of the lack of certainties, which was joined to many issues also on a personal level, which had to die in some way as well. That’s why I chose this as the first song, because it marks a change of stage on a musical level.

Q. Little by little we will get to know more songs, but what is the general inspiration for this EP?

A. If I had to choose a concept, it would be ‘Niebla’ (fog). One tends to compose from the place where one is, the ground one walks on, and that has been my reality, of not quite knowing where I’m going, but with the certainty of knowing who’s walking with me.

All the songs are sprinkled with some kind of uncertainty, with unanswered questions, valleys, deserts. For me they are Psalms, opportunities to express frustration, but they are always bathed in a hope that covers all that frustration.

The idea I want to express is that in the midst of a sometimes harsh, sometimes sad reality, there is always our hope in God that something better awaits us. There is always an opportunity to be able to sing a new song, no matter how dark our world is.

As an artist, I value sincerity, you have to be honest. It’s something that has always captivated me about indie music, that rawness that you’re not always used to hearing.

Q. Are you already thinking of presenting these new songs live?

A. Yes, my idea would be to do it as soon as these first five songs that make up the first EP are released, and I’m already working on a second EP with another 5 songs. With those ten songs I already have something to tour with.

But my initial idea is even to play in small venues, to connect with people. As a musician I’ve seen what it’s like to invest in doing a concert, renting the venue, and then arriving, playing, and barely covering the costs... That’s why I want to start with something very, very small. I’d like to be able to play at people’s homes, maybe for ten people, invite your friends and we can hang out and have conversations. I’m looking forward to bridging the gap.

[photo_footer] Cover for the second song of David Goodman's EP. / Israel de Lago. [/photo_footer] 

Q. In what ways is faith present in your music?

A. It comes naturally, because my faith is part of me. God is in my day to day life, in my valleys, my mountains... Jesus is very real and very present. That permeates everything, the lyrics, the melodies. In fact, this is something that has also surprised me, because I see it as a gift from God for me.

I went through a period of very dense fog, and it was in the process of moving to another part of the Mallorca island as well. There is a very beautiful countryside nearby, and a lot of these songs came from walking around and having times when God spoke directly to me.

That’s why in these songs, there are some very angry songs, others more peaceful, others more hopeful. No one is exempt from pain, right? So, my faith is explicit in the sense that I share my life through these songs.

Music helps me connect with the cracks that other people have, their pain. It’s not that I’ve been a person who has suffered a lot, but I’ve been a very frustrated guy. And then God comes around and you’re overwhelmed by what God has done for you.

Maybe I express it in a way that is natural to me, maybe different from how others would express it. But just one of my burdens is to connect to a world that, while rejecting God, is longing to know him and looking for him in perhaps the wrong places. So, I see an opportunity to bring others closer to God, to share this hope.

You can follow David Goodman's updates on Instagram, Spotify and YouTube.

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[title]One more year[/title]

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