David McGovern

Hi David and welcome back to NE, can you give our readers a quick introduction for those that may not have seen your previous feature? I’m David McGovern and I own the record store Beyond Vinyl and Record Label Beyond Records. I have been releasing singles in aid of the Batten Disease Family Association since Christmas 2020.

You have just released another Christmas single, This One’s For The Children (feat. The Batten Community, Children’s Choir), tell us a bit more about the song and how it all came about? Since I released my 1st single in 2020 to help raise awareness of Batten Disease I have been looking at ways to get the children from the Batten community involved with a single. The pandemic and the fact they are spread across the country hasn’t made it easy. A few months ago before I started recording the single I spoke to Liz from the BDFA about how I wanted to involve the children with this single and ways that we could achieve this. I come to the conclusion that the only way we could do this was to ask the parents to record the children singing into a mobile phone and recording them that way.

How did you find it working with The Batten Community, Children’s Choir? It was really fun & challenging. They recorded their parts at home with a mobile phone so it was a case of trying to get them all to line up with each other. All the children did brilliantly and I’m so proud of them all.

So who do we have in the choir? Well we have Jessica, Nicole & Louis Rich, Finley, Arther & Harrison Dodkin, George Hadman, Ava Hartigan, Abia 7

Kisbee-Brown, Darcey Gildert & Harry Houghton.

The single is yet another song you have recorded and released in aid of The Batten Disease Family Association, why does this charity mean so much to you and why should people get behind it? Batten Disease is such a cruel disease. The children are healthy when born & after a couple of years they start to become ill and eventually lose their eye sight, have seizures, lose all motor functions and ultimately lose their life. It’s not very well known & is quite rare, but people really need to know about this awful disease and what signs to watch out for.

This song is another New Kids On The Block cover, along with previous single Valentine Girl and Stay The Same was by Joey McIntyre from NKOTB, so what’s with the whole NKOTB thing you have going on? It was never the intention to record 3 NKOTB tracks it just kind of happened. We were trying to think of songs that would be good to cover but also have a message behind the song. New Kids On The Block were massive when I was growing up in the late ‘80’s & early 90’s & seeing them & hearing their music set me on a path to becoming a pop star so their music stuck with me, more than I had thought. It’s only took me 30 odd years to give this singing a go!

Musically what is next, is there anything in the pipeline? Next year we are going to work on song writing & some original music so watch this space. For next Christmas we are wanting to involve the children more in the song and have a couple of them record some If you could work with anyone musically, who would it be and why? I’m going to have to say the guys from NKOTB & East 17 now aren’t I. It would be great to work with the guys one day because they had such an influence on me growing up. It would be amazing to record something with Sam Fender in the future. He’s a local artist and he’s doing amazing so why not. Elizabeth Liddle is another local artist I would love to work with at some point. I had better hurry up though as she is destined for big things.

You have several songs under your belt now, what has been your proudest moment with it all? There’s been so many moments but it has to be how proud I am of all the children that feature on the single. They are amazing, having them sing on the track and seeing how much joy it’s bringing them is priceless.

How can people follow you and keep up to date with the shop and your music? You can follow Beyond Vinyl & myself on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram by searching “Beyond Vinyl” & David McGovern

How can people get a copy of the song? Buy a copy of our CD single now & the Batten Disease Family Association get double the amount as part of the campaign. Any donation we make to the BDFA via the BIG GIVE from midday today until the 6th December is matched by the Big Give so the charity get £8 per CD and you only pay £4!! Win Win....

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE CD https://beyondvinyl.co.uk/ product/david-mcgovernbatten-community-childrenschoir-tbc-cds/

Plus please watch this heartwarming video featuring the children, their siblings and cousins and please buy, download and stream the track via the link below https://distrokid.com/ hyperfollow/davidmcgovern/ this-ones-for-the-childrenfeat-the-batten-communitychildrens-choir-3?fbclid=IwAR2Y OV4r8T6ww4YPC3k8qn94brdLK rYjZ4JIEdFVUBBVcdtcGF9iJ0ErM Dg

We are aiming for a top 40 position in the official chart and need everyone’s help to do it! Please help these incredible children to be heard and raise awareness of this devastating condition.

For more info on the BDFA check out their website at http://www. bdfa-uk.org.uk/