DAVID HAYNES
David "Fingers" Haynes was born in Columbia, South Carolina. He was the youngest of four children. His early years in South Carolina were spent in a musical environment since his two older brothers played several instruments including the drums.Early on as a child, Haynes began to show some problematic behaviors. In 1984, David and his mother relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio.
At the age of sixteen, David was diagnosed with depression and was admitted into Emerson North Hospital, an adolescent treatment facitlity in Cincinnati.
After he had made a little progress, a nurse from the hospital had the idea to take him to a library to listen to jazz music.
This experience sparked an interest in music and subsequently , inspired him to become a musician. After his release from the hospital in 1986, his oldest brother, gave him a Yamaha RX11 drum machine, although he wanted a drum set, so he tried to trade his drum machine for a drum set, but settled on an Alesis HR16B midi controller. He then completed his final two years of high school at the Ohio Veteran's Children's Home, a group home facility, which focused on the Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps (JROTC) program.
In 1992, Haynes moved to Germany and lived with his eldest brother who was serving as the Music Director of the theater on a U.S. Army base. While there, Haynes purchased his first drumset and attended and completed a course at a music school in Aschaffenburg, Germany called the Future Music School.
David's entry into the music business started in 1994, when he was asked to do a drum clinic at the International Drummer's Meeting in Koblenz, Germany. Dennis Chambers, Simon Phillips, Trilok Gurto, were on the same festival that year. The following year, David did his first tour with sax great Gary Thomas in Europe. Shortly after, playing at the 1996 Frankfurt Music Messe show, David met Sheila E (of Prince fame) and bassist Rhonda Smith and guitarist Kat Dyson. This in turn led him to playing in recording sessions with Prince at Paisley Park.
Since then David has worked with numerous international recording artists that includes Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige (MTV awards 2002 at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City), Stanley Jordan, Lee Ritenour, Joy Denelane (Germany), Mousse T. (Germany), Andrew Roachford (England), Nana (Germany), Till Broenner (Germany) "A Day in Berlin" dvd 2004, Jeanette Biederman (Germany), and Ronan Keaton (Boyzone, Ireland), Frank Ocean at , to name a few. In 2008 he was a Grammy nominee with Stanley Jordan. Currently, David is playing drums for the conscious hip hop group, Arrested Development.
In January of 2007, Haynes posted a video of his finger drumming on YouTube. The video gained extensive attention, massive popularity and was featured on the front page of YouTube for three weeks. Although David is an accomplished drummer, has arguably has become renown for his finger drum playing. His unique finger tapping technique enables him to play a drum machine as he would a drum kit. Videos of his finger drumming have been regularly featured on YouTube, earning him over three million full play hits.
In 2010, David "Fingers" Haynes was featured on a BET commercial throughout the month of June for Black Music Month. The commercial showcased his unique finger drumming technique. On Ooctober 29,th of 2010, one may have seen David playing drums on CNN in a segment featuring Arrested Development.
Haynes is currently working on a trailer video for his upcoming finger drumming tutorial DVD. He was also, featured in the February 2011 issue of Modern Drummer magazine where he spoke about how he started playing the drums and finger drumming.
This in turn led him to playing in recording sessions with Prince at Paisley Park – talk about being in the right place at the right time! Since then David has worked with numerous artists including Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige, Stanley Jordan and Lee Ritenour to new a few.