29 Facts About Dave Rowntree

David Alexander De Horne Rowntree was born on 8 May 1964 and is an English musician, politician, solicitor, composer and animator.

Dave Rowntree is best known as the drummer for the rock band Blur.

Dave Rowntree attended The Gilberd School in Colchester during the week, and the Landermere Music School, Thorpe-le-Soken, at weekends, where he studied percussion.

Dave Rowntree played percussion with his father in the Colchester Silver Band, a brass band.

Dave Rowntree played in bands with Graham Coxon while they were growing up in Colchester.

Dave Rowntree knew Coxon's father, who taught jazz classes at Landermere.

Dave Rowntree was asked to join and left his job to move to London.

In 2014 Dave Rowntree started as a presenter for Global Radio's alternative rock radio station XFM with a regular show on Sunday nights.

On 31 July 2018, Dave Rowntree appeared in the video for Slaves' released single, "Chokehold", as a drummer auditioning for a part in the band.

Rowntree hosts The Dave Rowntree Podcast Show on Spotify with "researcher George".

The first series was six episodes long, starting with an episode of Dave Rowntree's "go to" music for challenging times released in November 2020.

In November 2021, Dave Rowntree signed a deal with Cooking Vinyl for his first solo record.

Dave Rowntree is a computer animator and owned an animation company called Nanomation for eleven years.

Dave Rowntree directed two series of the South Park-esque animated show Empire Square, which made its TV debut on Channel 4 on 18 February 2005.

Dave Rowntree has an interest in computer graphics and has contributed to three research papers on topics related to non-photorealistic rendering.

Dave Rowntree worked on the BBC series The Capture, which premiered in 2019 and Netflix's science fiction series The One.

Dave Rowntree trained to become a solicitor when Blur took a hiatus in 2006.

Dave Rowntree worked in the criminal department of London law firm Kingsley Napley, a firm of solicitors based in Moorgate, London.

Dave Rowntree has been a keen activist and supporter of the Labour Party since becoming a member in 2002, and has been chair of London's West End branch.

In February 2008, he was selected by the Cities of London and Westminster Constituency Labour Party to stand against the incumbent Conservative MP Mark Field at the 2010 general election; Dave Rowntree was defeated at that election.

In March 2024, Dave Rowntree was selected as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Mid Sussex in the 2024 general election.

Dave Rowntree is a committed opponent of the death penalty and patron of Amicus, an organisation that provides legal representation to people on death row in the United States.

Dave Rowntree is a member of the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group, a United Kingdom-based digital rights NGO.

Dave Rowntree is a founding director of the Featured Artists Coalition.

Dave Rowntree has held a foundation licence for amateur radio in the UK since 2012, upgrading to a full licence in 2016.

Dave Rowntree stopped drinking alcohol in 1993 after a particularly heavy drinking session with members of the band Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Dave Rowntree has apologised several times since for his behaviour, saying that "the day after a cocaine binge I'd sometimes fly into a murderous rage, and that this was the case on that day".

Dave Rowntree keeps a clip of the interview on his phone, to watch if he ever considers relapsing into drug use.

Dave Rowntree is a trustee on the board of Release, a charity that campaigns for evidence-based drug policies founded on principles of public health.