David Holmes

David Holmes, born in Belfast as the youngest of ten, basically grew up elbow-deep in vinyl and chaos. He started DJing clubs at 15—yeah, while most kids are still figuring out how to get into a bar, he was running the place musically. Holmes didn’t do the whole “stick to one genre” thing either; his taste was all over the place—Motown, punk, film scores, disco, you name it. He wrote for fanzines, hustled as a concert promoter, then bounced back and forth across England and Ireland, spinning records wherever he could plug in his gear. Early on, he met Ashley Beedle and together they cooked up “DeNiro” in ‘92. That track blew up on dance floors—big part thanks to some killer sampling of Ennio Morricone’s classic “Once Upon A Time In America” theme. Suddenly, Holmes had a record deal with Go! Discs. His first solo album, “This Film’s Crap, Let’s Slash the Seats,” dropped in ’95. It was drenched in cinematic vibes—tracks like “No Man’s Land” were straight-up inspired by movies, and, fun fact, every song on that album made its way into film soundtracks and trailers. He scored his first proper film with “Resurrection Man” in ’98, then went full audio-documentarian in New York, recording everything from psychic readings to bar fight stories, weaving them into a wild mix of techno, blues, and Latin jazz. The album caught Danny DeVito’s ear, landing Holmes the gig to score “Out of Sight.” Remixing U2, Primal Scream, Ice Cube—he did it all. By ’99, his third album “Bow Down to the Exit Sign” dropped, loaded with collabs and inspired by a screenplay from his friend Lisa Barros D’Sa. Holmes just doesn’t stop.