Dave Greenfield

Dave Greenfield
Dave Greenfield in concert with the Stranglers - Paris, Olympia - 13 April 2012
Background information
Birth name	David Paul Greenfield
Born	(1949-03-29) 29 March 1949 (age 68) Brighton, England
Genres	Punk rock, new wave, post-punk
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Keyboards, synthesizer, electronic organ, vocals
Years active	Late 1960s–present
Associated acts	The Stranglers, Rusty Butler

David Paul Greenfield (b. 29 March 1949, Brighton, England) is the keyboardist with the English rock band the Stranglers.

He was born in the south coast seaside resort of Brighton. Prior to The Stranglers, Greenfield played in local progressive rock band 'Rusty Butler'.

His sound and style of playing, particularly on The Stranglers' debut album Rattus Norvegicus, has frequently been compared to that of Ray Manzarek of The Doors. The comparison was even made at The Stranglers' inception by Jean-Jacques Burnel, who claimed that Greenfield had not heard of The Doors at the time. He is also noted for his trademark style of playing rapid arpeggios. His distinctive sound on the early Stranglers recordings involved the use of Hohner Cembalet (model N), Hammond L-100 electric organ, a Minimoog synthesizer, and later an Oberheim FVS-4 polyphonic synthesizer.

On the albums The Raven, Gospel According to the Meninblack and Aural Sculpture, Greenfield used a Korg VC-10 vocoder. Notable instances of this include in "Genetix" when it accompanies his own vocal and during the "Gene Regulation" section underneath Hugh Cornwell's monologue, on "Baroque Bordello" towards the end of the song, and in the song "North Winds".

It was a piece of music written by Greenfield during recording for The Meninblack, which was discarded by other members of The Stranglers, that Hugh Cornwell later adapted into their biggest hit "Golden Brown", although the band themselves did not initially see this as a potential single, let alone an Ivor Novello award winning, UK number 2 hit single.