been a passion for the 21-year-old,
from singing around the house as a
child and enjoying gospel music when
going to church to being part of the
choir and performing in school musicals
like Bugsy Malone and Les Misérables
(he played Javert) at school.
A couple of years ago he decided to
focus on it more as a career prospect –
alongside rugby – and he’s two years
into a three-year course in professional
musicianship at Bristol’s British & Irish
Modern Music Institute (BIMM). As well
as learning about the business – agents,
record deals, etc – students work on
developing as artists and sing in front of
their peers every week to become more
comfortable with the performance side.
Davis is influenced by many types of
music and names Leon Bridges, Samm
Henshaw, Childish Gambino and Chris
Stapleton among the artists he currently
likes. He was previously in a band called
Majesti but has now gone solo and
when asked about his own style, he
says: “That’s a tough one. Funk, R‘n’B,
all modern music... it’s a big mash-up.
It’s taking bits you enjoy and putting
together a vocal line over the top.”
He enjoyed writing poetry at school
and he’ll record voice memos on his
phone when he has an idea, then work
with other musicians to see what chords
would work best with the lyrics.
“I’ve got the theory knowledge but I’m
not good enough to put an arrangement
to music yet,” he explains. “I could make
a song but it wouldn’t be the song I want.
I work with a producer in Newcastle –
he sends me stuff to work on.“My mind works in weird ways and I’ll
sing ideas into my phone. I like to portray
past experiences that people can relate
to, the feelings I had at that point.
“I’ll put an idea down and the guys
will say, ‘This is good, this is bad, this
is what you need here’. Then we’ll put
things together and write all the lyrics.
It’s a long process. It’s amazing how
people help each other out – it’s very
rare in the world for people to do that.”
He has plans to release music later in
the year that will be available on Spotify,
Apple Music and social media. The goal
is to increase his profile and fanbase,
then hopefully get showcased by BBC
Music Introducing, which supports
unsigned artists, with the ultimate aim
to secure a record deal. “That’s the
dream,” he says. “I want to be an artist
and put my music out there. When you
have a crowd and emotionally affectthem with the music you’re making, it’s
quite an intimate feeling and is not one
that can be replicated easily.”
He recognises that music is an
extremely hard business to crack but
he is an extremely driven human being.
It is that drive that helped him secure a
rugby contract at Bath in the first place.
Football was his first sport growing up.
He went to the same school, The Friary
in Lichfield, as Daniel Sturridge and
was involved in the Wolverhampton
Wanderers Academy, but he was
‘scouted’ for rugby aged 12 when
spotted chasing someone who had
stolen his cap. His speed stood out,
he started playing for Burton RFC and
when he went to Denstone College at
14 his progress accelerated. “I was quite
an aggressive kid and I took to rugby –
I enjoyed the physicality,” he recalls.
Davis was involved in the Leicester
Tigers Academy but came to Bath
to study sports
performance and “fell
in love with the city
and the club”. It took
him a while to get
signed, playing for
Hartpury and the
University of Bath,
as well as making
the odd A League
appearance for BathHitting the right notes
On stage at Walcot HouseFACT FILE
Age 21 (12 Mar 1998)
Born Birmingham
Club Bath
Position Wing
Height 5ft 9in
Weight 14st 9lb
Twitter @LeviDavis4My Day OffPICS
REX & Andrew Sydenham