About Dave Rooster…

by Nina Eschenröder

“Songs from a soul that’s been cracked open — and stayed soft.”

Dave Rooster is an artist with two currents running through him:
One still. One wild.
One tuned to silence, memory, distance.
The other built for the stage – sharp, alive, sometimes loud, sometimes laughing.

Dave moves between worlds:
Between soul, folk, blues and stripped-down rock.
Between poetic minimalism and gritty resonance.
Between deep listening and unapologetic performance.
Italian by blood, desert by choice.

His sound? Minimal. Melodic. Unapologetically raw.
His story? Etched into every silence between the chords.

He grew up in Piemonte, where music was neither profession nor permission.
His grandfather was a guitar teacher.
Dave was told his hands were too small to ever play.
So he taught himself. Quietly. Rigorously.

At eighteen, he joined a band in Italy. They were on the edge of something — momentum building, doors about to open.
And then the singer left. Just like that, it was over.
Out of necessity, Dave stepped up to the mic. He had never wanted to sing. But he never wanted to be left vulnerable again.
What began as survival became his voice.
From that moment, singing was no longer optional — it was defiance, self-reliance, a refusal to be silenced.
Sometimes the hardest breaks dictate the rhythm, forcing new paths. Dave didn’tjust endure that fracture. He built from it.

In Torino, he found a formative scene — regularly joining the experimental jamsessions at LIMA, directed by Toti Conzoneri. It was there that his fascination withsonic risk, jazz phrasing, and improvisation began to sharpen.
That influence continues today: as Rooster refines his guitar craft still weekly underthe mentorship of jazz guitarist Thomas Figueroa, a deep, evolving love for jazz remains woven into the undercurrents of his sound, not as genre, but asphilosophy: attentive, exploratory, alive in the moment.

Fifteen years ago, he came to Fuerteventura.
Not to disappear, but to listen.
What followed wasn’t a storybook arc, but real life:
A child that almost arrived.
A love that dissolved.
A version of himself he had to bury in order to keep moving.

Now, he writes from the fracture lines.
Not to explain them, but to translate.

And yet there’s another side.
The one that plugs in, cranks it loud, and laughs mid-verse.
The one that knows how to light up a crowd with a broken Strat and a wicked grin.
Call it tension. Call it duality. Call it the discipline of knowing when to go fullvolume, and when to leave space.

But Dave doesn’t just live from music. He lives from sharing.
Sharing is his conviction: that even when you have little, you can give — and thatgiving creates something rare, almost sacred.
He shares his songs. His laughter. His food.
He loves to cook, often joking he must have been an Italian mama in a former life. He embraces that feminine side: caring, attentive, looking after others.
He believes in community, in living together, in mutual support — on stage and at the table.

And always, he lives with the elements.
He is a surfer: patient, waiting for the waves without ego, respecting the rhythm ofthe ocean and the people around him.
He belongs to nature — not to conquer it, but to be shaped by it, to move with it, tobreathe in its vastness.

And through it all, there is continuity.
For years, Dave has played night after night, show after show — not chasingspectacle, but honoring the craft.
That discipline, that persistence, that daily devotion to music: it is the quietbackbone of everything he does.

His guitar is no ornament.
It’s a tool.
A weapon against silence, against numbness, against standing still.

What emerges is a new kind of masculine energy:
Present. Poetic. Grounded.
He doesn’t chase stages.
He builds spaces — intimate, electric, sometimes tender, sometimes loud.
For those who feel deeply.
And for those who finally want to

 

SHORT BIO

Dave Rooster is an Italian-born, Fuerteventura-based musician moving betweensoul, folk, blues, and stripped-down rock. His sound is minimal, melodic, unapologetically raw — shaped by survival and resilience.

Told as a boy that his hands were too small for guitar, he taught himself anyway. At eighteen, when his band’s singer quit on the verge of success, Dave stepped upto the mic out of necessity. What began as survival became his voice: defiant, self-reliant, impossible to silence.

For years he has played night after night, show after show, honoring the craft withquiet persistence. Offstage, he lives by sharing: music, food, laughter, community. A surfer at heart, he moves with the rhythm of the ocean, living with patience, respect, and presence.

What he builds — on stage and off — are spaces that feel: intimate, electric, deeplyhuman.