Tim: If you could, would you form a Soundbeam band?
David: Well, I have Soundbeam bands all the time.
Tim: Yeah but not on the road all the time...
David: No, my whole concept now, it's what I do now - In a way, I suppose I still am the Pied Piper, and I'm even more the Pied Piper to be absolutely honest with you because I program everything that goes on, but I never know exactly what's going to happen and it's gone in leaps and bounds - In 1993 I stopped working with people with learning disabilities and I made this leap into working with people with physical disabilities - it wasn't a policy of the organisation I was working with - it was a learning disability organisation - but, you know, there's got to be more to life - and I made a leap - people with physical disabilities - that's what it's for - so I made a conscious decision and worked for a year exclusively with people with physical disabilities and it opened my mind because that's where my skill as a programmer and as a writer of music for disabled people to play ... Now, what do they want to play, how do they want to play it - incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding.
As to what drew me to working with disabled people is that, initially it was an interesting job, but I realised that I loved it. - It was incredibly rewarding and challenging and satisfying. There doesn't a day go by without some disability organisation rings up and says, you know, we want to do 'Oklahoma' on the Soundbeam!
Tim: By the nature of your Soundbeam Workshops, the gigs are very small - do you miss the large concerts?
David: I've just come from Ireland - this year it was only about 250, but that was because that was all you could fit in - it was a small venue - in 1999 I played to 750 people and in 2000 I played in Wexford to 800 people. I've just done a disability gig at a venue called the Anvil, and there were 500 in the audience, so it's not only small gigs.