David Rice

Born the sole male offspring of a motivational speaker, David Rice spent his childhood outside Katy, Texas, amid three older sisters whose Stevie Wonder and Led Zeppelin albums first ignited his interest in music. Already competent on piano by his early teens, he methodically taught himself guitar and other instruments while cutting homemade demos in his bedroom. Following his 1988 high-school graduation, he shifted to Houston, took a position at a music store, and dabbled in college courses.

His earliest professional opening came when he played guitar-driven covers at a downtown Houston techno club, soon leading to a standing engagement at a gay bar. Over time he began inserting his own material into those sets, and by 1991 he was prepared to book studio time. After gathering money from friends, he finished the album Orange Number Eight; the fledgling Houston indie Justice Records purchased the masters in 1992 and reworked the project for release.

An already strained rapport with Justice frayed further while Rice tracked the 1995 follow-up Released. That same year he signed with Columbia and initially planned to make his debut album at his Austin home, but he soon scrapped the idea and instead traveled to England to work with producer David Bottrill (Tool, King Crimson) at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Only four songs from those sessions survived on the 1998 Columbia release; the balance was recorded after his return to Texas. Scattered throughout the ultra-poetic, sonically complex Green Electric, those tracks capture Rice’s feelings of detachment during his time abroad.