Arts & Entertainment
The David Kitchen Band
Local band will play some catchy tunes at Grist Mill Park on Friday.
Singer-songwriter David Kitchen has come a long way from playing the miniature sousaphone.
“My dad played all these brass horns and he bought me this little thing. I had just gotten my teeth, so I was five or six,” recalls Kitchen with a laugh. “And I always sang, so singing was a big deal, but the first instrument I played was a B-flat miniature sousaphone.”
A self-described “working musician," Kitchen has been a fixture in the Washington music scene for the last 20 years. He has performed at different venues around D.C and Baltimore, including the Sunset Grille in Annandale. In 2009, he won the Washington Area Music Association award for Pop Vocalist.
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Kitchen grew up in Fairfax County and attended Hayfield High School. He currently resides in the Beacon Hill section of Alexandria. He picked up the guitar in middle school and credits music for getting him through adolescence.
“I come from a musical family so it was pretty natural to want to play and perform,” said Kitchen. “I got lessons from my father and learned how to read music when I was really young. We moved a whole lot, and if I had a guitar it seemed to help me get along. I think that’s why a lot of people play music. When you’re young, you don’t know how to fit in and music sort of helped me out.”
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The David Kitchen Band has been performing together for the last five years. The five-piece band includes Kitchen on lead vocals and guitar, Ariel Francis on bass and keyboards, Larry Ferguson on drums and vocals, and Anthony Pirog on lead guitar. He met his band mates through networking with fellow musicians.
“In this town it really helps if you have a few different people you can play with because everyone’s in the same boat looking for work all the time,” said Kitchen. “I was hearing about people through the grapevine, it’s sort of a networking way that musicians meet and that’s the way I met all of these guys and I gotta say, they’re really talented. I’m lucky to play with them.”
Hear The David Kitchen Band at Grist Mill Park this Friday at 7:30 p.m.
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