The Savant: Dave Pezzner

Age: 36
Hometown: Seattle
Current neighborhood: Central District
Pets: None. But I have kids, which are like pets.
Favorite place in Seattle: The Canterbury on 15th

Whether it’s sound design for prime time TV commercials or house music for underground dance clubs, Dave Pezzner executes his artistry with uncanny aptitude.

“I’m not sure what makes it so easy,” he says. “It’s just something that comes naturally to me.”

Pezzner is admittedly useless on piano or guitar but a whiz on digital production tools—which led T-Mobile and American Idol to contract him for commercial work and respected dance music labels like OM and Freerange to release his slinky, smart house music on vinyl and MP3. His is the journeyman’s strategy: “I’ve been at this 18 years now and somewhere along the line I picked up an ear for scales and melody.”

Pezzner’s ear is good enough that, after the success of his 2010 album The Tracks Are Alive, he quit commercial work to focus strictly on dance music. Along with a “mini-LP” on OM Records, expect more Pezzner originals and remixes to bubble up in 2012.

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Photography by Kyle Johnson.