Pop

Damiano David feels sorrow no more. The Måneskin frontman has embarked on his first solo project, releasing the song “Silverlines” — produced by Labrinth — on Thursday (Sept. 26).
“This song is a very special story to me,” the Italian artist tells Billboard of the emotional track that begins as a raw, stripped-back melancholy tune that fills with hope as it crescendos. “Sometimes, you hear a song and you think, ‘Oh my god, this song talks about me.’ … It was so amazing for me to get to work with such a huge artist and also on a song that, it’s basically describing my whole journey.”

According to David, singer-songwriter Sarah Hudson was already working on the tune with Labrinth when she came up with the idea to connect the two men and have the Måneskin rocker hop on the track, for which he helped pen the lyrics. And given the opportunity to collaborate with Labrinth — who has worked with the likes of Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and more — he wasn’t about to say no. “If you have the chance to work with Labrinth, you don’t get precious! You just do it!” David laughs, praising his “extremely meticulous” producer and their “very easy” collaboration process. And he’s more than delighted with how “Silverlines” has turned out.

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“It was funny for me how [this] first song was actually, it was, like, all I hoped for,” he marvels of “Silverlines,” which finds him showing a vulnerable side that he had yet to share in his music with Måneskin. “It was like the lyrics are such a message of hope for me because it was exactly what I was aiming for with this record, and now that the record is finished, I look back to that song and it’s like, ‘Wow! That’s basically the last stop of my journey,’ and it’s so funny that it came at the beginning — like [it was] heaven sent.”

“There’s a level of vulnerability that I never reached and a level of honesty that I never managed to reach not because I was not being honest in the other songs,” he adds. “I had to dig deeper into myself in order to even get to this information and then be able to transform it into music.”

David explains that part of the reason he had not yet shared this more personal side of him in Måneskin was because he wanted to respect the band’s strong identity — which he credits as part of its success — and also the “role that was assigned to him,” but it wasn’t showing him as a whole person. “At one point I started to really suffer this very partial point of view of myself that I myself was giving to the world … I knew that I was the one choosing only to express that,” he shares, emphasizing that he takes responsibility for that, and is now, with his solo work, revealing a fuller picture of who Damiano David is. “Literally my brain and my body rebelled to me and forced me to actually kind of cut me open, cut myself open and show myself to the world.”

And that honesty is right there in his favorite lyrics from “Silverlines”: A smile/ I welcome you/ A darkness/ I’ve long forgotten you/ And peace belongs to me. “That’s what happened. This is the part that I share with the audience — it’s the public part of the work I’ve done,” explains David, who moved to Los Angeles in January, where he spent a few months by himself to figure out his priorities. “I of course did a lot of personal work and personal growing, and I cut some things out of my life and I replaced [them] with new, healthier, more beautiful ones. I think now things are better.”

Helping him pull back the curtain is the accompanying music video for “Silverlines,” a theatrical visual directed by Nono + Rodrigo that shows first the struggle, then the endless possibilities that await David. “One of the main topics of the whole thing is like, more than having the world,” he shares. “For me, it’s more like, from now on, it’s a white sheet and I’m able to actually … make my visuals become reality.”

And now that he’s sharing a closer look at himself with his solo music, the vocalist is excited to see what’s on the horizon, though nabbing a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 for “Silverlines” may not be at the top of his list. “I don’t want to be like a hypocrite and say I don’t care about the charts because of course I care! Everybody cares!” he admits. “But at the same time, the goal of this song is not topping the charts. I’m introducing myself to the world, so I don’t expect to be first from the first day. Actually, I don’t expect to be first any time. But I’m just very glad I have the opportunity to do this, and the results will come.”

Check out Damiano David’s debut solo song, “Silverlines,” and its video below: