David Baker (singer)
David Baker is an American musician best known as a founding member and the former lead singer of the indie rock band Mercury Rev, formed in Buffalo, New York in the late 1980s, and after as vocalist for Variety Lights.
After leaving Mercury Rev in 1994, he released the critically acclaimed album World under the alias Shady which featured contributions from members of a variety of leading British and Irish alternative acts, including Rollerskate Skinny, Th' Faith Healers, The Boo Radleys and Swervedriver. Later, he formed the band Variety Lights, a collaboration with Will MacLean.
Career
Mercury Rev
He is prevalent on Mercury Rev's first two albums Yerself Is Steam and Boces and all of the concurrent singles and Peel Sessions. When the band became popular in the UK after the success of Yerself Is Steam, Baker became their main spokesman when dealing with both British music journalists and record labels. According to fellow band founder Jonathan Donahue, "it was David Baker who really helped us navigate the press, we hadn't done interviews before...David was really the one who helped us understand what actually was happening in '91".Unhappy with the band's more melodic and conventional musical direction after Boces, Baker left Mercury Rev sometime before 1994. Mercury Rev's sound changed considerably after the departure of Baker, whose deep voice and unconventional style was replaced by Donahue's much higher-pitched vocals. Although there were tensions with Donahue at the time, they remained on good terms, and Donahue continues to speak highly of him. In a 2013 interview with The Quietus, Baker said that he "had been wanting to leave, to be happier. So it wasn’t like some big fall out. It’s a hard one to talk about, but we’re fine, we’re not making records together."