Musically inclined

Isle-born singer-songwriter Dave Derby finds success on dual fronts

Many years ago, singer-songwriter Dave Derby overheard a music writer working on advertising jingles in a recording studio in Kakaako. He didn't realize it at the time, but those muffled musical snippets were the sound of his future.

"I remember being with my old band, the Exactones, in the Rendezvous recording facility when it was on Piikoi, and hearing through the walls ... some guy banging out jingles at all crazy hours. I thought that might be a cool job to do."

Flash forward. Today, Derby finds himself in the same field as that anonymous writer from years past -- and then some. Living in New York City with his wife and child, the 41-year-old does commercial, television and film music production work with his business partner Michael Kotch.

But he keeps his hand in his own music as well. Back for his annual visit to the Aina Haina family home, Derby says he's pleased with his latest solo effort, "Dave Derby and the Norfolk Downs," released in the United States this week.

It's filled with quiet, reflective songs collected over the past two years. "The record is very personal to me. I feel like it's an important signpost for me, a transition."

A transition that is one of several throughout his musical career, starting with his being young and hungry in Hawaii in the late 1980s.

"Honolulu had a memorable music scene back then," Derby recalls of the Exactones' time. "(Work) seemed so sporadic, happening in six-month periods, and dependent on whatever venues were open at the time. ... It was 3D in Waikiki, and some Goth and punk festival we did at the Puerto Rican Association Hall in Kalihi. There was also the Back Door out by the airport, before the police shut it down."

Derby left Hawaii in 1988 to live in Osaka, Japan, for six months. He was deciding "to either go into music full time or become a travel writer." Band mate Eric Masunaga had moved to Boston and was finishing a record. "He asked me to join him there."

Derby did, and thus was born the Dambuilders. Through the mid-'90s, when "alternative music" was getting a national push from major labels, the band enjoyed some brief success.

Years later he's even more committed to making music on a full-time basis, including taking time to follow his muse. Although he still dutifully writes tunes for others, Derby is taking steps to reintroduce his own music to the world.

Whether it's writing a brief radio station identification jingle or a song haunted with complex emotions, it's all good to Dave Derby, so long as it's music.

The local-born singer-songwriter feels he's getting his second wind in promoting his own material, as opposed to the work-related business he shares with partner Michael Kotch.

His latest album, "Dave Derby and the Norfolk Downs," was released in the United States on Tuesday, although Derby says it's been out for nine months in the United Kingdom on the small Reveal Records label. Like his 2003 solo debut, "Even Further Behind," "Norfolk Down" maintains a low-key presence on the national indie scene, with his profile a little larger in Britain.

More than 10 years ago, Derby found some measure of success on the national alternative music scene as a member of the Boston-based Dambuilders, which included another Hawaii-born musician, Eric Masunaga. The band distinguished itself with a driven and immediate sound, fueled by the guitars of Derby and Masunaga, violinist Joan Wasser and drummer Kevin March. Their 15 minutes of fame came with the single "Shrine," from the 1994 album "Encendedor," which resulted in a one-off appearance on Conan O'Brien's late-night talk show.

Speaking one recent afternoon in Kaimuki's Coffee Talk during a visit home, Derby said the former Dambuilders still loom large in his life. Masunaga is mixing film scores and running a mastering studio in Boston. Wasser is Derby's label mate, making a name for herself under the curious moniker Joan as Policewoman. March played on a couple of tracks on Derby's latest album and will be behind the drum kit when Derby tours with his Norfolk Downs band. (Norfolk Downs is actually a street on the Lower East Side of New York, the bustling metropolis where Derby, wife Katty and 2-year-old daughter Dora reside.)

It was Joan, Derby said, who helped him put out an album truer to himself than his debut had been. "Before the new album was mastered, I sent it to Joan, who passed it on to the head of Reveal, and he liked it enough to want to release it on his label.

"Joan has been a huge inspiration for me. It's hard to make music as unique as hers, and she showed me that if I can fully express myself as a person, the art can flow. Doing this record has rekindled my faith, interest and excitement in music."

LISTENERS are downloading random songs off the Internet these days to create their own private iPod life soundtracks, but "Norfolk Downs" works best as an actual album, a seamless collection of songs. They delineate particular moments from Derby's much-traveled life. "Sugar and Violets" ruefully makes vivid a drunken and sketchy time in '91. "Overnight Low" is actually a old song he and Masunaga wrote during their Dambuilders days, rewritten to commemorate a late friend.

"Even in Darkness," along with "Olivine," are the most outwardly rock tunes, the former filled with naked emotion reminiscent of John Lennon at his most autobiographical, the latter with a Hawaii connection in its imagery of the lava byproduct that gave Diamond Head its name.

But Derby's most direct song is one he does with Wasser, "My Back Issues" (title inspiration from Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages"). In it the singer finds himself "drifting into midcareer malaise."

Whatever the dark times, they seem to remain in Derby's past, as he's found a happy medium between business and his art, his public and private lives.

"It took me a couple of years to make this album," he said. "It is very much reflective, because I wrote a lot of it during the autumn seasons, times when it's getting colder, the days are shorter and the leaves are falling."

That's in direct contrast to the weather at home, specifically Aina Haina. With every return, Derby said, "It sounds clichéd, but there's no place like Hawaii. Every time I come back now, I ask myself, 'I lived here and I left?'

"But with living in New York, even though it's the polar opposite of Hawaii, in a weird way it feels like Hawaii in terms of its cosmopolitan mix. Plus they're both islands, and New Yorkers are incredibly friendly, even though they can be at times obnoxious and in your face."

DERBY has also found "gold in licensing." His work with Kotch has included music for major bank clients, Nike, toy lines like Barbie and Bratz, and music for television series on Fox, Oxygen and Nickelodeon.

With Kotch's wife, Colleen Fitzpatrick, as an additional collaborator, the three have formed a songwriting team, the Collective.

"We've written songs for the T-Squad, a Disney act that's like a kiddie version of the Black Eyed Peas. It's a challenge for me to write R&B, so it was nice to be one step removed from actually playing it myself.

"We're now working with a 16-year-old alternative Christian artist by the name of Krystal Meyers. She's a bright kid who really knows her music. In fact, when we first met her, one of the first things she said was, 'I love the '80s!' We then looked at each other and said, 'Yeah, we can do that.'

"Writing music for her makes me appreciate being able to do stuff like that. I really love music, all kinds, and I'm enjoying the anonymity of the business side, like learning to write tango or deconstructing a John Phillip Sousa march.

"I just have to keep working and stay more disciplined," he said.