David Pace
David Pace is a musician, a music teacher and environmentalist in Victoria, Australia.
One of Australia’s greatest rock bands, the Painters and Dockers, was formed in Melbourne in 1982. Dave Pace was not one of the original five members but he joined the band with Mick Morris in 1984 to play the trumpet and do backing vocals, “adding an earthy R&B edge to the band’s raucous, punk infused, power pop” according to music historian Ian McFarlane. In 2009 he performed with other members for a one-off show at the Prince Bandroom in St Kilda, where the band was also inducted into The Age newspaper’s EG Hall of Fame. Since 2011 he has performed, from time to time, as one of the Painters and Dockers Trio.
Early life
David was born in 1963, the second of four children. He attended Sacred Heart Primary School in St Albans, then St John’s Braybrook and Chisholm College. He began teacher training at the Institute of Catholic Education’s Mercy College in 1982, and began his teaching career at Holy Eucharist Primary School in St Albans in 1985. He has taught at a number of other primary schools as well as at the Healesville Sanctuary and for 7 years with the Melbourne Zoo Education Service where he taught visiting school children about the environment.
His fascination with the environment began at an early age when, with his younger brother Michael, he would wander the then mostly rural countryside around St Albans, seeking and observing anything that moved. He enjoys introducing children to a wide variety of fauna such as possums, flying foxes, frogs and snakes. In 1998 David began teaching at Torquay College where he has been a classroom teacher, a music teacher and is currently the coordinator of the school’s P-6 environmental education program.
Environmental awards and recognitions
- 1999 - BHP National Science Teacher Award
- 1999 - Victorian Association for Environmental Education’s (VAEE) Environmental Educator of the Year.
- 2003 and 2012, David was “Highly Commended” in the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science Teaching.
His music
David’s interest in music began in primary school. The children lined up to march into school in step to recorded band music. One of the nuns thought it would be a good idea to supplement the march music with a small school band of 6 buglers and 6 drummers. David of course, being a boy, opted for the drums but the nun had all the children try out on the bugle and, as David put it, anybody who could produce any noise was automatically co-opted to the bugle brigade. David produced a noise and thus his musical career was kick-started. A year later his father, George Pace, bought him a trumpet for his 11th birthday and he has been playing music in various forms ever since.
David began writing songs as a child and he derived great enjoyment from listening to and playing music. Some of his songs have been recorded by the Painters and Dockers but his favourite composition recorded by the group was a song called Veronica Brown which was accompanied by lots of strings and was quite orchestral. He saw his role as somewhat “like the George Harrison of the band, left of centre”. When he is not performing with a later incarnation called the Painters and Dockers Trio or with the Dili All Stars, he is the lead singer and trumpet player of The Swirls, a group of five who all have had experience from other bands, and they specialise in singing cover versions of songs for their generation, ie, forty, fifty and sixty-year-olds.
David has always been an avid collector. He collects natural history books with an emphasis on birds and frogs. He wrote a children’s book called World of Frogs. He also has a set of aviaries for the various birds he owns and he breeds several of the eighteen varieties of Australian finches. He is a Vice-President of the National Finch and Softbill Association. He also collects unusual men’s shirts, old collectables such as football cards from his childhood, and of course musical instruments including guitars, brass and strings.
David lives in Torquay with his two children, Dylan and Chloe, and his partner of 9 years lives in Adelaide with her daughter Maddi.
Sources
- Interview with David Pace
- St. Albans Keilor Avocate, March 30, 1994