Dave Rowntree

Dave Rowntree
Rowntree playing in Rome in 2013
Background information
Birth name	David Alexander De Horne Rowntree
Born	8 May 1964 Colchester, Essex, England
Genres	Britpop, indie rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, animator, solicitor, political activist, DJ
Instruments	Drums, drum machine, percussion, guitar
Years active	1988–present
Associated acts	Blur, The Ailerons, Empire Square
Website	davidrowntree.org

David Alexander De Horne "Dave" Rowntree (born 8 May 1964) is an English musician, solicitor, animator and political activist. He is best known as the drummer for the rock band Blur.

Born in Colchester, Essex, Rowntree was born to musical parents – Susan, a viola player, and John, a sound engineer at the BBC. He attended the Gilberd School, Colchester during the week, and the Landermere Music School, Thorpe-le-Soken, at weekends, where he studied percussion. He played percussion with his father in the Colchester Silver Band, a brass band. After leaving school he studied for a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer Science at Thames Polytechnic, and started his career as a computer programmer for Colchester Borough Council.

Rowntree had played in bands with Graham Coxon while the two were growing up in Colchester, and knew Coxon's father who taught jazz classes at Landermere. In 1989 Coxon introduced Rowntree to Damon Albarn, who was forming a band around Goldsmiths, University of London. Rowntree was asked to join, and left his job to move to London. With the addition of Alex James, and after many name changes, the band settled on Blur and were signed to EMI.

Rowntree is a computer animator, and owns an animation company called Nanomation. He directed two series of the South Park-esque animated show Empire Square, which made its TV debut on Channel 4 on 18 February 2005. He is also interested in computer graphics and has contributed to three research papers on topics related to non-photorealistic rendering.