For Adam David, it’s hard to top the day last May when he won The Voice. The exception, of course, is the day seven years ago when he got clean. But this April 11 could turn out to be pretty big too.
That’s the day the Fort Lauderdale artist will take the stage for what will be perhaps his biggest live gig to date — and in his hometown, no less — Tortuga Music Festival. The appearance follows his March 27 concert celebrating the anniversary of his recovery from addiction.
David’s back story lends an undertone of gravitas to his music. There is a heft to his bluesy blend of rock and soul that echoes his physique. And at that anniversary concert, the dynamic vocalist/guitarist and his sinewy six-man backing band performed with a heaviness that filled–and exceeded–the 250-seat Gray Box Theater in Wilton Manors. Nowhere was that more palpable than with Savior, a song inspired by his rehab journey and electrified by a scorching guitar solo. Another highlight was his just-released single, Waterline.
David, who was born in Miami and raised in Broward, said he’d written the song when he was in high school, at Cypress Bay in Weston. Now 36, he admitted the lag in releasing it was symptomatic of maybe a different kind of addiction — perfectionism.
“I don’t know if this is an addict thing or just a person thing. But I’m always striving for better, for more. I’ve heard people call the disease of addiction the disease of more. For me, it’s perfectionism. I have to balance being grateful for what I have with what I’m striving for. Like, at the show, I’ll instantly go from ‘all right, man, all these people showed up,’ to like, ‘oh, man, there’s so many empty seats.’ So I feel good, but it’s a choice I have to make.”
Two decisions have defined David’s life trajectory. The first was that one seven years ago when he decided to get clean from his drug and alcohol addictions. He checked in to Recovery Unplugged, the Fort Lauderdale treatment center where he still regularly plays and pays it back. And the other was seven years before that, when he first auditioned for The Voice. After a couple of failed attempts, he auditioned for the show again on a whim in 2023. This time he made it through, setting in motion an excruciating championship run that climaxed with the kind of thrilling, dark-horse victory that was a rarity in the show’s 14 years.
By comparison, David’s Tortuga appearance should be a cakewalk. The festival takes over Fort Lauderdale Beach April 10-12. Since 2013, its eclectic lineups and sand-and-surf setting have drawn millions of fans and put the city on the international musical map. It’s also a festival with a conscience. That’s evident in its interactive Conservation Village and in the $6 million it’s raised to help sustain the world’s oceans through its non-profit co-producer, Rock the Ocean.
This year’s headliners are pop chameleon Post Malone, Nashville newcomer Riley Green and Kenny Chesney, the country superstar with a Florida Keys connection. Festival founder Chris Stacey believes this year’s lineup has a little something for everyone.
“It just feels like it is stacked top-to-bottom probably better than we’ve had in a while,” he told the Sun-Sentinel last month. And that’s where Adam David comes in — on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s a pretty short set, 1 to about 1:30,” David says of the planned full-band performance of three originals: Savior, Waterline and the upcoming release, Rockets.
“We’re going to bring as much energy as we can in that short amount of time. It’s going to be packed.”
***
Up to this point in his career, Adam David’s story can seem like a life lesson in the hard realities of making it in the music biz. It’s coming up on a year since he was crowned champion of the hit singing competition on national TV, the lone survivor of a grueling gauntlet that earned him $100,000 in prize money and a shot at a recording contract. It was expected to be a launching pad. As it’s turned out so far, the pay is a little better and the crowds are a little bigger, but David’s career is not altogether different from when he was coming up as a hell-bent gigging musician scrambling around Himmarshee Village and other downtown spots.
“I’m still doing a lot of the same gigs that I was doing before, which at first after winning The Voice was kind of a hard thing to wrap my head around.”
How did it make him feel?
“Like shit … not great. When I first came home from The Voice, I was still going through the hard patch of figuring out where I am at and how I move forward. My expectations weren’t being matched. I was like, man, am I even supposed to be doing this?”
This coming from someone who began playing the guitar when he was 8.
“Every talent show, every variety show, every family get-together, every open mic I could find, I was always playing something,” he says. “And I thought, well, what else would I do? I don’t know. And, what I made peace with was, well, you got to go to work, man.”
He got to work writing songs, some with “heavy-hitter” co-writers in Nashville and Austin.
“Between November and February, I wrote 40-something songs,” David says. The inspiration came after he called a buddy complaining about a gig.
“I’m like, man, I’m playing these wedding gigs. I just feel like I should be doing more. And he’s like, listen, man, if the goal was to make a living making music — you’ve done it. Congratulations. Sit back, relax, keep doing what you’re doing.”
But David didn’t sit back.
“Something clicked in me. Maybe that was a goal at one point, but the goal now is to be a recording artist. And that conversation kind of set me straight in, like, what am I doing every day that’s in alignment with my goal? For me, that was writing songs. Are you a recording artist if you’re not putting out music? I don’t think so.”
Playing gigs and covers for the last 20 years, David says, made it harder for him to know what he is as an artist.
“Because I’m water. I can fit wherever I’m put. But what’s my shape? You know what I mean? That’s the question that I’m supposed to answer. So I’ve been really putting the effort into figuring it out.”
He’s also been working on putting out a backlog of songs that had fallen prey to that aforementioned perfectionist addiction.
“I have all these records that just needed some finishing touches. They are basically done. I need to put them out so I can move on. I have basically a record coming out every month for the year. It feels good to get them out.”
Among those planned are a couple of the covers he did on the TV show. One, featuring Miami Grammy-winning artist Jon Secada, is Home, a song recorded by David’s coach on The Voice, Michael Bublé.
“I talked to Michael this morning,” David says. “He’s a mentor. He’s giving me feedback and helping me keep my head on straight. He and my team, we’re all trying to figure out how we move forward. And at the end of the day, it’s songs first.”
Despite the vagaries of his musical odyssey, the drive that propelled Adam David to The Voice championship remains.
“I wanna go as far as you can go. I want to be in that one percent of artists. I want to be an award-winning songwriter-artist. I want to travel the world playing my music … playing other people’s music too. And I want to use that to help other people. You know, in another seven years, I’ll still be an addict. I’ll still be someone who came from where I came from, and there will still be people who are struggling. And if I stay grateful and plugged in to the program, I won’t forget. I can help someone new coming in.”
In his song Savior, David sings, “Nobody’s ever gonna come and save ya, but you can save yourself.” When asked if he could’ve saved himself if he didn’t have his music, Adam David answers like it’s a given.
“I don’t know if I would be alive,” he says. “I was lucky to get there when I did. I didn’t have to get to some of the depths that people find themselves in. And I hope I never do, because literally it could happen tomorrow. It could happen today. It’s a choice. So I’m not exempt. You know what I mean? Every day is the commitment to it.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Tortuga Music Festival
WHEN: April 10-12, noon-late
COST: Three-day passes, $365-$1,759 (single-day passes unavailable)
WHERE: 1100 Seabreeze Blvd., Fort Lauderdale
INFORMATION: tortugamusicfestival.com
This story was produced by Broward Arts Journalism Alliance (BAJA), an independent journalism program of the Broward County Cultural Division.
