David, our resident Danish-Romanian, has been the brains behind making everything we do look pretty by providing graphics and editing to our numerous articles, videos and live streams. Not only that, he tirelessly reviews the national final hopefuls of each year (and doesn’t hold back). His calm, laid-back manner in front of the camera also won him many live-stream fans in Tel Aviv and within our Israeli team! Currently, David serves as administrator for the ESCUnited Discord and as the main correspondent for Denmark, Moldova, and Romania.
Tell me about your first Eurovision memory?
Out of ALL places… it had to be in Sweden. Anyhow in 2003, my mother suggested that we should visit some of her friends in Göteborg (Gothenburg), so 9-year-old me thought “Hell yea! No school!”. I remember that trip very clearly despite the young age, so let’s just skip to where the Eurovision stuff happens.
After a few nights staying at their place, my mother and her friends wanted to go out in town, and they decided to leave us young ones home. My mother’s friends had 3 children, two elder girls in their teens and 1 boy who was a pest, so clearly the girls babysit us. I was a very simple child who just wanted to play games, so they just left me on the computer where I played the most racist Danish game, I knew about… it was 2003, everyone in my class played that junk, it just sounded stupid and looked funny, I was 9 mind you, MOVING ON!
Eventually, I got bored, so I looked into what the girls were doing, and there they were… watching the song competition, and it was RIGHT on time, because it was Romania performing (We were all of Romanian descendent). Amazingly enough, it had me check in now and then regularly for the rest of the night, and I do remember enjoying the Turkish winner, as well as the Slovenian announcer who walked away with THE results, that literally decided the final outcome. Stupid little me didn’t think too much about it, and I never really asked about the show, the Romanian song even became popular among some female dancers from my school that were a few grades higher than me, so I would recognize the song and even watch them in pure curiosity. Overall, I just thought it was a very popular song, and eventually in 2005, I zapped through channels with my mother, she found the contest while it was live from Kyiv, and since I eventually figured the rest out myself.
What’s your favourite Eurovision song?
Changes constantly, a few did spark something the very first time I’ve heard them, but some of them have lost their charm over the years, while others that I first ignored have slowly impressed me. If I have to point one out, then I would say “Non Mi Avete Fatto Niente”, there was just something magical about the composition, the message, the sound, the build… everything, and I still feel like that! Ask me again next year, or in a few years and maybe a new song might have replaced that.
What are some of your favourite musicians outside of Eurovision?
I don’t listen to modern music, cause it’s shit. Hip-hop music was a big deal for me growing up during the 90’s and 00’s, so some “old” names I still respect a lot, would be Akon, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Timbaland and such.
What about your favourite food?
Don’t really have any, I mostly only eat once a day. I probably eat the same stuff too often, so that’s probably why I’ve lost the taste for certain foods.
Do you have a favourite place to visit?
No, I’d rather see the world instead of being stuck the same place for the rest of my life. I do love Bucharest, Romania, but I’ve also visited it way too many times. It’s always different every time I’ve been there, since the country had just been communist when I was born, so a lot of re-building there, then they joined the EU and a lot of changes was done as well, but it’s been about 10 years now. I would love to go back, because I know it’s different, but I would also hate it, since it would be smaller changes for me.
I would honestly prefer for once to visit Bucharest with some friends, so TVR… GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER ALREADY!
Besides doing work for ESCUnited, how do you spend your free time?
I know some of the others on the team say they are “gamers” as well, but I’m 120% certain that I’m the most serious gamer of the entire team. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to games, so I always want to complete everything within games, not always everything because games nowadays can become a chore which eventually kills a game for me, but I’m pretty sure that I would go the furthest. I usually hype myself up to play at a competitive level, maybe not like a pro, cause that’s just overkill, but high enough where someone might be better than me to 1 game/series, but then I’ll destroy you in anything else. If you have a PlayStation, then you should know what a Trophy hunter is.
I also enjoy geopolitics a lot, because of the contest, for example I first learned about Armenia back when they made their debut in 2006 and then I’ve learned about the history of most of the countries competing in the contest and their relationship which each other.
Plus, I do work a lot on my computer, I’ve taught myself how to do complex graphical stuff, coding, editing and so on, I might not be as professional as many others I’ve seen, but the difference is that I can cover a lot of ground on my own, while most people are only good at one of these things. See it like this, my knowledge is not as limited in different fields, but not as great as people that only know their field, I prefer this like this, since I’m more open to learning this way. If I would have to prove my words, then I’d say check out my YouTube channel “https://www.youtube.com/c/heydavid17”, it’s currently dead but maybe one day… I might revive it.
Everything on that channel, is 100% purely my own work, all the editing, every graphical thing, all ideas. It’s hard, because it’s like being a one-man army, but I strongly doubt you’ll ever find someone else like that. Here’s the fun thing, all of this started back in 2008, when I did Eurovision-related videos, at the age of only 14. I would make these very poor and stupid videos, which I was proud of, because I always improved every time I made something, I even did reaction videos all the way back then… and now, I absolutely despise those kind of videos(which is why I’m rarely seen)!
Tell us one interesting fact about yourself?
I was thinking a lot about this one, because I could’ve picked so much, so I decided to go with something that’s Eurovision-related. I don’t even think the team knows about this, but in 2017 a music label asked Eurovision fans to sing along with one of the 2017 songs (listen, I have a YouTube channel with nearly 2000+ videos publicly available, you think I care at this point… well, I do, only if you talk about it with me). I just thought the idea was fun, so I originally told them, I’m down, but I never really got the chance and opportunity to do it properly, so I told the label “I won’t be able to take part in this, cause there just never was a proper opportunity to do it and if I do it, it will be done poorly”. They then replied and said “We’ll extend the deadline, just for you”. After they said that, I was thinking I better do it, to think a record label extended their deadline just for me, how could I not do it!
I even told them “it will be done poorly”, and they still wanted me to send them something, so I did it… POORLY, VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL LEAVE ME ALONE! Sent them the video, and as a thank you for taking part, I received the official CD as a gift. WHAT I NEVER KNEW ABOUT, was that they SOMEHOW liked it so much (I knew A LOT of the other Eurovision fans here in Denmark, who also submitted mind you), that they decided to use the clip, as part of their promotion material, for the official karaoke CD of 2017. So yeah… I’ve technically been in a worldwide available Eurovision commercial, here have a laugh(and never speak to me about this… EVER!)…
https://fb.watch/bc602FIq5v/