David A. Roby was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. He started studying piano at age five and has since become a professional recording multi-instrumentalist. He is self-taught on mandolin, tenor banjo, fiddle, trumpet, guitar, bass, accordion, tin whistle, and bodhrán. David Roby is a member of the recording project Dance the Bridge with long-time friend Damon Gentry. Dance the Bridge has recorded two EPs and one full-length LP, which is also available at iTunes. He also composes, performs, records, and produces music for Deep Space Tragedy, a comic/music project of artist and comic creator Mike Wagganer.

David Roby earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the University of Central Florida. He graduated with honors in the major, with a minor in cultural anthropology. He also attended Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, and studied piano performance under Patricia Halbeck before transferring to UCF. His primary interests as an undergraduate were in ethnomusicology, musicology, music theory, and composition. His undergraduate honors thesis is entitled “Bastard Offspring: Heavy Metal, Hardcore Punk and Metalcore” and addresses cross-genre and culture in heavy metal and hardcore punk.

His current research interests are in crust punk, anarcho-punk, and activism. He is also interested in folk metal, specifically Finnish folk metal and issues of genre, identity, ethnicity, and enactment. In addition he plans to continue to study the multiple genres and cross-genres of heavy metal, trying to stay current on metal trends and the latest artistic developments within the genre. He is also an avid composer, writing for a variety of instruments and musical genres. He arguably created the first dodecaphonic extreme metal, incorporating Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method into blackened death metal music.