David Fonseca (, born on 14 June 1973, in
Leiria
Leiria () is a city and municipality in the Central Region, Portugal, Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, after Coimbra, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat o ...
) is a
Portuguese musician, singer-songwriter, and photographer. As a musician, he plays several instruments, including acoustic guitar and organ. He is recognized for his successful music career as a member of
Silence 4 and, since 2003, as a solo artist. He is also responsible for the graphic design of his album covers and the art direction on his video clips. Between 2004 and 2006, he was also part of the
Humanos tribute project.
Beginnings
David Fonseca studied cinema at the
Lisbon Theatre and Film School (Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema) where he attained a bachelor's degree. He also attended Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa between 1992 and 1994. David began his professional life as a photographer, working for various fashion catalogues. He participated in many exhibitions, both group and individual. He also worked in a radio station for a while. David Fonseca has dedicated his life to his love of music choosing to become a pop/rock alternative musician. He has multiple musical influences such as
Sérgio Godinho
Sérgio de Barros Godinho (; born 31 August 1945) is a Portuguese singer-songwriter, composer, actor, poet and author.
Considered one of the most influential popular musicians in Portugal, Godinho started his music career singing folk songs of ...
,
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott Buckley (raised as Scott Moorhead; November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997) was an American musician. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, he attracted a cult following in the early 1990s performing at venues in ...
,
The B-52's
The B-52s, originally presented as the B-52's (with an errant apostrophe; used until 2008), are an American band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. The original lineup consisted of Fred Schneider (vocals, percussion), Kate Pierson (vocals, k ...
,
Pixies Pixies may refer to:
* Plural of Pixie
* Pixies (band)
The Pixies are an American alternative rock band from Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, formed in 1986 by Black Francis (vocals, rhythm guitar, songwriter), Joey Santiago (lead guitar), Kim ...
,
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist known for his distinctive and powerful voice, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. Orbison's most successful periods were ...
,
Aphex Twin
Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), known professionally as Aphex Twin, is a British musician, composer and DJ active in electronic music since 1988. His idiosyncratic work has drawn on many styles, including techno, ambient music, ambi ...
and
Ryan Adams
David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American Rock music, rock and Country music, country singer-songwriter. He has released 30 studio albums and three as a former member of Whiskeytown.
In 2000, Adams left Whiskeytown and released ...
, all of whom had a huge role in his musical creativity and individuality. He also mentioned in an interview with the radio station "Antena 3" that he has an addiction to the group
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an American indie rock band formed in New York City in 2000. The group is composed of vocalist and pianist Karen O (born Karen Lee Orzolek), guitarist and keyboardist Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. They are compleme ...
. David has a son and a daughter from his first marriage. On December 27, 2019, married the model, actress, and presenter
Ana Sofia Martins.
Career
Silence 4
Fonseca's musical career started with a band called
Silence 4, formed by a group of hometown friends. They first released the unpredictable ''
Silence Becomes It'', in June 1998 which was a huge success at the time, selling 250,000 copies (the equivalent to six
platinum record
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music Sound recording and reproduction, recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video ...
s). This was a remarkable achievement in the Portuguese musical scene, where it is usually difficult to sell these many copies. The album has only two songs written in Portuguese. One of them is ''"Sexto Sentido"'', featuring the popular Portuguese singer,
Sérgio Godinho
Sérgio de Barros Godinho (; born 31 August 1945) is a Portuguese singer-songwriter, composer, actor, poet and author.
Considered one of the most influential popular musicians in Portugal, Godinho started his music career singing folk songs of ...
. To complete this great year for the band, which played at most of the Portuguese Summer festivals, they closed the world-famous exhibition
Expo '98 in Lisbon, playing for about 50 thousand people. Later in the same year, in December, Silence 4 was the first national band to sell out at
Pavilhão Atlântico, performing to an astonishing 18,000-strong crowd, only 6 months after the release of their first album. Two years after the "phenomenon" the second album was released, ''
Only Pain Is Real'', in July 2000, selling approximately 100,000 copies to this day. The respective tour ended in a double concert at the legendary stage in the Portuguese capital of
Lisbon
Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
, the
Coliseu dos Recreios
The Coliseu dos Recreios (also known as Coliseu de Lisboa) is a multi-purpose auditorium located in Lisbon, Portugal.
History
The main building was constructed within a metal lattice by Francisco Goulard between 1888 and 1890. While the facade ...
, which sold out completely and was released later on in CD and DVD format. Throughout 2000, Silence 4 went on their last tour. In 2001, the band entered an undetermined hiatus, that still remains.
Solo career
Fonseca's solo career kicked off the 21st century with a different sound from
Silence 4. In his first solo work ''
Sing Me Something New'', recorded in 2003,
Fonseca sang and played nearly all the instruments, exploring a totally new environment of sounds on his own. The album was recorded in the studios of producer
Mário Barreiros, and later in the
Sterling Sound Studios
George Marino (April 15, 1947June 4, 2012) was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s.
Biography
Marino was born on April 15, 1947, in the New York City borough The Bronx. He attended ...
in New York City, by the well-known sound engineer,
George Marino
George Marino (April 15, 1947June 4, 2012) was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s.
Biography
Marino was born on April 15, 1947, in the New York City borough The Bronx. He attended ...
, who participated in some of the recordings of
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer and percussionist Will Champion, and manager Phil Harvey (band m ...
, the
Rollins Band
Rollins Band was an American rock band formed in Van Nuys, California. The band was active from 1987 to 2006 and was led by former Black Flag (band), Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins. They are best known for the songs "Low Self Opinion" and "L ...
,
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols are an American psychedelic rock, psychedelic/ band, formed in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, in 1994 by singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor and guitarist Peter Holmström. They were later joined by keyboardist Zia Mc ...
, and
Sepultura
Sepultura (, "grave")Barcinski & Gomes 1999, page 17. is a Brazilian heavy metal band formed in Belo Horizonte in 1984 by brothers Max and Igor Cavalera.Barcinski & Gomes 1999, page 16. They were a major force in the groove metal, thrash met ...
, among many others. The first single was ''Someone That Cannot Love'' which debuted on about 150 Portuguese radio stations in a coordinated release: they were all played on 10 March at midnight. It soon reached #2 on the National Sales Chart and was certified Gold. The tour supporting this first record was extensive; it included many big music venues and large festivals across Portugal.
''
Our Hearts Will Beat As One'', his second solo album, is said by Fonseca himself to be "scarily personal" and was only released in the fall of 2005 because of the other projects that Fonseca was involved in between his two albums. The first single was ''Who Are U?'', described by Fonseca as "the song I always wanted to write". It reached No. 3 on the Portuguese charts. ''Our Hearts Will Beat As One'' was critically acclaimed by the media and was considered a pop album of the year in Portugal, even before the end of the year. The album went straight to No. 1 on the National Sales Chart and reached Gold status in its first week of sales.
In October 2007, his third original album, ''
Dreams in Colour'', was released and the first single was ''Superstars II'', a song that obtained substantial airplay due to a cellphone campaign that adopted the single.
In July 2009, the first single ("A Cry 4 Love") was finally released to the public. The new album, ''Between Waves'', was out on 2 November 2009. On the same day, Fonseca's online community, ''Amazing Cats Club'' started working.
Fonseca's fourth album entitled ''Seasons:Rising'' was released on 21 March 2012. The first single ''What Life Is For'' came up on 4 February 2012.
Humanos
In 2004, David joined a new project called
Humanos. The idea behind it was to record some unpublished songs by a famous Portuguese artist, a singer-songwriter, from the 1980s,
António Variações
António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro, (3 December 1944 – 13 June 1984) was a Portugal, Portuguese singer and songwriter. Despite his short-lived career due to his premature death at the age of thirty-nine, using the stage name of António Var ...
. David Fonseca,
Manuela Azevedo (the lead singer of another Portuguese music group,
Clã),
Camané
Carlos Manuel Moutinho Paiva dos Santos Duarte (born 20 December 1966), known professionally as Camané, is a Portuguese fado singer.
Career
He started gaining recognition in Portugal in 1979 after winning the 'Grande Noite do Fado' (Great F ...
(one of the most famous Portuguese "
fadistas"),
Sérgio Nascimento (a member of
Sérgio Godinho
Sérgio de Barros Godinho (; born 31 August 1945) is a Portuguese singer-songwriter, composer, actor, poet and author.
Considered one of the most influential popular musicians in Portugal, Godinho started his music career singing folk songs of ...
’s band),
Hélder Gonçalves (also from
Clã),
Nuno Rafael and
João Cardoso are the seven members of a group that would become a huge success, something unseen in the Portuguese music scene. The eponymous album scored an impressive quintuple platinum, staying for weeks at No. 1. "Muda de Vida", "Maria Albertina" and "Rugas" are just some of the group's hits.
All this culminated in three sold-out concerts, two of them in "
Coliseu dos Recreios
The Coliseu dos Recreios (also known as Coliseu de Lisboa) is a multi-purpose auditorium located in Lisbon, Portugal.
History
The main building was constructed within a metal lattice by Francisco Goulard between 1888 and 1890. While the facade ...
" (Lisbon) and the other in
Porto
Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...
. There was also another memorable performance, in front of a crowd of 40,000 people, at the "Sudoeste" Portuguese Festival, in the year 2005. The Humanos were always intended to be a short project because there were few unpublished
António Variações
António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro, (3 December 1944 – 13 June 1984) was a Portugal, Portuguese singer and songwriter. Despite his short-lived career due to his premature death at the age of thirty-nine, using the stage name of António Var ...
’ songs. Thus, the CD and DVD with the recorded Coliseums’ live concerts, which were released in November 2006, marked the end of the
Humanos project.
Live concerts
David Fonseca is known for his powerful dancing on stage, equipped with his pair of
Chuck Taylor All-Stars
Chuck Taylor All-Stars or Converse All Stars (also referred to as "Converse", "Chuck Taylors", "Chucks", "Cons", "All Stars", and "Chucky Ts") are sneakers manufactured by American fashion brand Converse (a subsidiary of Nike, Inc. since 2003) ...
. He plays different instruments during the show and he is accompanied by his band, which includes:
Sérgio Nascimento (drummer),
Ricardo Fiel (guitarist),
Rita Redshoes (ex-
Atomic Bees in the piano and also voices; the second record single ''"Hold Still"'' is a David and Rita duet),
Nuno Simões (bass player) and Paulo Pereira (Hammond). David does not just play his solo career hits but also lesser-known tracks. He also plays (in most of his live concerts) ''"Angel Song"'', the first music he wrote, and composed when he was only 18 and which was included in Silence 4's first album. This theme is perhaps the one most loved among fans, of the group or and David. In the middle of the show, he usually leaves the stage to return wearing a white suit, to announce that "dancing time" has begun and that the "moonwalk" move is near.
Discography
Studio albums
;as part of Silence 4
*1998: ''
Silence Becomes It''
*2000: ''
Only Pain Is Real''
;as part of Humanos
*2004: ''Humanos''
;Solo
;Others
;Christmas CDs
Live albums
;as part of Silence 4
*2004: ''Ao Vivo - Coliseu dos Recreios''
*2014: ''SongBook Live 2014''
;as part of Humanos
*2006: ''Humanos Ao Vivo''
;solo
Compilation albums
DVDs
*2008: ''Dreams in Colour'' Live
*2009: ''Streets of Lisbon'' - Acoustic Live Sessions
(Bonus-DVD with ''Between Waves'' CD)
*2011: ''Christmas 2011'' DVD
etween Waves Tour @ Coliseu do Porto
Singles
Collaborations
David Fonseca has also collaborated with many other artists, such as
Trovante and
Sérgio Godinho
Sérgio de Barros Godinho (; born 31 August 1945) is a Portuguese singer-songwriter, composer, actor, poet and author.
Considered one of the most influential popular musicians in Portugal, Godinho started his music career singing folk songs of ...
.
In 1999 he travelled to England to work with producer
Darren Allison
Darren Allison (born May 1968, Ashington, Northumberland, England) is an English record producer, musician, and audio engineer, best known for his production work with artists such as Spiritualized,Kempster, Chris "Studio secrets of the sta ...
on the Phase song "City" from their album ''52 Minutes of Your Time''.
Fonseca took part alongside many other Portuguese artists in the music video of "Encosta-te a mim" by
Jorge Palma.
Books published
*2012: ''Right Here, Right Now''
Filmography
*1996: ''Gel Fatal'' (director of photography)
*2002: ''Esquece Tudo O Que Te Disse: David/Jovem no Karaoke'' (cameo appearance)
*2005: ''Lastro'' (Composer)
*2008: ''Os Contemporâneos: Ele Próprio'' (sketch: Videoclip for "Salvem os Ricos")
*2010: ''Gru – O Maldisposto'' as Vector (voice actor)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fonseca, David
1973 births
Living people
People from Leiria
Portuguese pop singers
21st-century Portuguese male singers
Silence 4 members
Portuguese male singer-songwriters
Portuguese singer-songwriters
English-language singers from Portugal
20th-century Portuguese male singers
Lisbon Theatre and Film School alumni