Singled Out: David K. Starr's Not Dead Yet

David K. Starr (WildeStarr, Vicious Rumors, CHASTAIN) just released his new single "Not Dead Yet", and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the inspiration behind the track. Here is the story:

Basically, the origin of this song, is my being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2020. I wrote the music and lyrics for this song in 2024. It was originally a song about myself, but then I thought that was too ridiculous to write a song about me. So I took my Parkinson's diagnosis and used it to write a song for anyone out there who's experiencing pain or suffering in their life no matter what it is, a disease, a broken heart, death in the family, or some other tragedy.

This song was a new departure for me in that I never had sang lead vocals before, so I was a bit intimidated in doing this for the first time. But since I felt that this was such a personal message from me to the world, I felt really there was nobody else qualified to sing it except me! As I recall, things came together pretty quickly. I wrote most of the guitar parts the summer of 2024 and then start working on lyrics. The lyrics came together rather easily, and thats another new thing for me since I dont write lyrics very often. The whole thing was rather surreal. My mind has a tendency to go blank when I'm writing songs, I have literally, no recollection of writing things, they just sort of happen. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I was amazed at how quickly this all came together. I was a bit nervous in the studio recording the vocal tracks, but I thought they came out pretty good. I'm not the greatest singer in the world but I think I got the message across. My wife, London Wilde coached me in the studio in a few parts here and there. But it's all me. There's no pitch correction or autotune!

Parkinsons has affected my guitar playing, so Ive had to alter my playing style a bit. I cant really play some of the more complex lead guitar parts like I used to. So I simplified things here and there, it gives it more of a RAW sound IMO, so I think its actually kinda cool! I got my friends from Annihilator, Rich Gray and Fabio Alessandrini to play bass and drums on this track for me and they did an amazing job.

I think one of the nicest things about this song is that I've already heard back from people who said that the song was a real inspiration to them, and they totally got where I was coming from and it really hit hit home.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

David K. Starr Shares 'Not Dead Yet' Video

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