Anthony David:“Uh, I’d say Anita Baker; when I was younger, a lot of 80’s R&B groups, Rock, Hip Hop. Bill Withers, because once I started playing I didn’t think of myself as much of a singer... Bill didn’t have a tricky voice, but the simplicity of his writing was what I wanted to do. And, when I went into labels, I wanted to start thinking seriously in terms of who has been successful at doing what I wanted to do...and so I could identify.” ATM: Let’s switch it up and talk about love...you sing forever is a mighty long time...You recently came out of an engagement, and no kids; what is your love life looking like? Anthony David: “I won’t get into how COMPLEX my love life has gotten... just as of yesterday, but it’s good... I’m dating and I love love.” ATM: I read in an interview you did earlier this year, that you like the ideal of marriage but don’t really know if it can work; what’s that all about? Anthony David: “You know I think about it all the time and read stuff, but I don’t know. As a society we should really open that up. People that have alternative lifestyles shouldn’t be off in a corner somewhere defending their ‘thing’ against the world. I like the idea of a commitment and a lifelong partner...BUT [sigh] it’s just so hard and maybe it’s because we’re putting the square peg into a round hole.[I Don’t Know] maybe it’s supposed to be hard. I just think it should be open to interpretation. I think there is a prevailing big voice; a big brother type of thing that’s like ‘no, it’s got to be like this’. You see that when gay people want to get married they’re like ‘no you can’t’ and it’s like WAIT, what? So I’m not sure.” ATM: You’ll be turning 41 years old this year. You don’t feel the least bit pressured to get married and have children;do men feel like that the older they get? Anthony David: “No. No. No. I’ve seen people do that. People that say ‘I’m not getting any younger, and then they do it and get a divorce. Now you owe money to somebody. No, you should do it [marriage] if you feel you are qualified to do IT! And if you never feel that
way and you never earn that privilege, then don’t do it. It’s like everything in life...you gotta go hard or go home. I won’t feel less than a person if I don’t do neither.” ATM: Do you feel you have sex appeal? Anthony David:“Yeah...Yeah to a degree, because I know who I am; and I think that’s kinda sexy. That’s a funny thing for me in terms of the way I use to view the word sexy in that regard. I mean obviously, I don’t look like Brad Pitt or anything, so I don’t look at it as that type of sexy.” ATM: A lot of people are shocked to find out that you are an Atheist. Why do you think people are so shocked to find this out about you? Anthony David: “Because I’m from the south and I’m Black, and most of the time when people hear the word Atheist, they think it means devil worshiper and all kinds of stuff.” ATM: So, can you help clear up what people are thinking in regards to your religion and gives us your definition of what being an Atheist means to you? Anthony David:“It means that everything that we’ve made up so far is not necessarily true,.and that’s IT! I understand that people want this big answer and we don’t know what the answer is. We don’t know. We shouldn’t even be making guesses. The people who wrote most of these books, wrote them a long time ago. People just don’t open themselves up to re-evaluation — like most things in life. I like to be in a position about anything that when I learn something new, I want to be able to say ‘Oh my bad’ and I don’t think you can do that in religion. It’s a form of open mindedness to me, and I think it’s more about philosophy. The reason I even tell people is so they don’t ask me to sing a Gospel song...not that I hate it; but I like to sing about stuff that’s true to me. You should know that about me, but you should also judge me on me–not on that.”