Since he was eight-years-old, growing up in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Adam David has been playing the guitar. Growing up he learned to play from his cousins and uncles, who would visit from Connecticut.
They would play and sing, and that encouraged David to sing the little ditties he would create.
His mother, who went to Woodstock in 1969, would turn their car rides into musical trivia. She colored his musical palette with artists like Santana, The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.
These experiences with his family led him to create his own soulful, blues-tinged rock.
READ MORE: South Florida musicians bring bold beats to NPR's Tiny Desk Contest
In 2012, he decided to audition for The Voice. He flew out to Los Angeles, waited in line for six hours, sang and got rejected. He auditioned again in 2016 after they reached out to him.
🎧 We're showcasing our submissions in South Florida for this year's NPR Tiny Desk Contest, which aims to amplify the work of independent musicians. Find past interviews with local musicians here.
They said to prepare three songs. He got through one-and-a-half before they said, “All right, thank you.”
“I was like pretty disenchanted, you know, almost resentful, honestly, you know, so I get the emails every year and every year I kind of just, you know, 'Thanks, but no thanks,'” he said.
They reached out to him again in 2023, and he decided to audition again. He wasn’t able to prepare as much as he did the previous two times because he’s been working as a full-time gig musician. However, after a few weeks he received an email saying he got in.
The experience the second time around taught him an important lesson.
“The whole process was this exercise in letting go of what you can't control and just showing up the best you can, preparing the best you can, which in a lot of ways I didn't know how to,” he said.
In 2025, David won the 27th season of The Voice. He felt vindicated in his victory as it cleared up his imposter syndrome. He always questioned his skills and his abilities, and the opportunity to practice and apply what he learned on stage helped him believe in himself more each time.
A self-described drug addict, David has been sober for seven years. During the filming of this season, he released the single Savior. He describes the song as “reflecting the night he began the process of treatment, towards sobriety.” It was his first release in 11 years.
That night, he had played South by Southwest, a week-long event in Austin, Texas that merges music, film and conferences. At that time he was in the grips of addiction and had already been up for two days by the time he flew out of Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport to get there.
While he had the chance to meet other musicians and network, he was also still finding drugs to take while at the event. He remembers going to the bathroom with someone to re-up before going back on stage.
For the three days he was there, he slept only one night.
“ The day we're coming back, I'm like coming down man, and I am sleep deprived and I'm just like crying on the airplane, watching Elf on my iPad,” he said.
They landed at Miami International Airport but he had no way to get home. He had no money and no car, so he was stranded. He had to call his mother to pick him up.
“ I was so exhausted and realizing like I'm gonna come home to keep doing the same thing unless I do something different,” David said. “ I have no more in me to do this. I need to do something else.”
Through a friend he got connected with Recovery Unplugged, which has a program that awards professional musicians grants for their treatment. The night he submitted his application, he wrote the first half of Savior.
He didn’t finish the song until he left rehab. In rehab he didn’t touch the guitar for about two weeks, but slowly he picked it up again as he felt better and noticed that those around him enjoyed it too.
He finished the song the day his mother picked him up.
“ For me, sometimes songs are the reward for making it through to the other side, and they can't be finished unless you get to the other end,” he said. “It was a gift to finish it, and I hope that other people get something out of it.”
The Tiny Desk Contest is another opportunity for David to practice giving the best you have and not overthinking things. It came together last minute and was recorded right in David’s home.
He performed the song Rockets, a blues track about a childhood friend he used to shoot bottle rockets with in Ivanhoe, a neighborhood in Southwest Ranches, Broward County.
“ It's just a really reminiscent song for me, and every time I play for people it brings up stuff for them, which is cool,” he said. “I think it's kind of the point … It's a powerful thing.”
David hopes he gets the chance to have a Tiny Desk performance. Winning the contest would mean progress for him. He’s been a gigging musician for a long time, and he’s making the journey to something that he has been too afraid to say for a while: He wants to be a recording artist.
“ Playing Tiny Desk is just another step in that direction,” he said. “I wanna share my message with people. I want it to reach people who, who might be struggling … That's why I'm so open about talking about my story. There's a lot of options out there and, and I'm just an example of that. “
With production help from Sherrilyn Cabrera, Helen Acevedo, Alyssa Ramos and Valentina Sandoval.
