David Luning was our first guest in the Studio after our summer hiatus. Interviewing David under the lights and in front of the cameras felt pretty much like being in my own living room. He has an easy going, laid back personality that masks the smart, talented, and I’ll stop short of saying shrewd, songwriter underneath. He’s engaging. His original music is entertaining and plumbs intriguing depths. His singing voice has a riveting growling catch in it. And he’s found a couple of solid musicians to play with.

David has a background in the blues, classical piano, theater/show/film music, and hip-hop. He was attending college at Berklee in Boston, finding the weather abysmal when he came under the influence of two folk musicians he met there. And that’s when he did an about face and threw himself wholely into folk music. He wrote a couple of songs while back East and came back here to his hometown of Forestville to ply his trade in the folk circuit. And this was all just last year. I say all this by way of explaining that all this musical background has informed his folk music, so instead of getting a straight-forward derivative sound, you get some traditional-sounding songs with some heavy layering to it. There isn’t a trace of hip hop in his songs, or is there?

David opened the show with My Baby Blues on Wheels his homage to the broken down truck that he loves. That’s just a perfect fun-loving country song. His lyrics are amusing, conversational and draw you in for a confidential chat.

He introduced the Third Wheels. John Luther, recently moved from New York, played a plugged-in, acoustic bass guitar which meshed well with David’s acoustic guitar. Zach Garn played a variety of percussion treats including a homemade foot tambourine. It was a bit of a shock to learn the Third Wheels didn’t exist two months ago. John and David met by chance, John decided not to return to New York, but to throw his lot Iin with David. And Zach whom David met through friends meshes well with the two guitarists. They sound like they’ve been playing together all their young lives.

John is just a solid, dependable bass player that sneaks in a few interesting and suitable licks here and there just to keep us all on our toes. Zach plays a kit that is low and close so you never see him reach for anything, so his work feels organic and loose. Excellent brush work here and there, matching David’s songs nicely.

So David and the Third Wheels went through four more of David’s songs: Humble Apologizin’, Always Gonna Be That Way, Northern California (which David performed solo) and Whiskey Bottle.

David’s songs are characterized by clever lyrics that turn around nicely: In My Baby Blues, the singer describes possibly the world’s worst truck in the verses, but in the chorus and as the song builds, you realize the singer loves his truck. The irony of Humble Apologizin’ is that the singer is apologizin’ like crazy “for the things I said when I was drunk”, but as eloquent and as appealing as his entreaties are, you just know instinctively no one’s accepting his “humble apologizin.” In Always Gonna Be That Way, there is no way this guy is ever going to find love, it’s “always gonna be that way,” and then surprise he meets someone who seems to love him and he prays that it’s “always gonna be that way.” Clever twists and turns in the lyric and just solid melodies. Singable, memorable and familiar but not stock.

Northern California is a lovely ballad of homesickness and (possibly) regret about screwing up once you leave the protection of home: “You gave me my wings and I stupidly fell from the weight of the halo.” A universal experience of coming of age beautifully expressed.

The final song Whiskey Bottle is a pretty straightforward country-esque song. The singer is proposing to the Whiskey Bottle since all the women he’s known and he painstakingly (and hilariously) lists them one by one and why they had all walked out on him. It’s such a simple idea! Why hasn’t anyone proposed to a whiskey bottle before in a song?

So the show wrapped and we were able to spend a little more time with the band. All three guys are very natural and down to earth. Which makes listening to David’s music all the more enjoyable — because of the men behind it.

David Luning will be opening for the Federalists’ CD release party on November 1 at Blakes in Berkeley.

You can see David Luning’s American Songwriter appearance on our blip tv channel. The show is currently running on Wednesday and Friday night on Comcast Channel 27 in the Midpeninsula at 9 pm.