Jason Kimber: My name is Jason Kimber. I am interviewing my longtime friend.
David Simmons: I'm David Simmons. I grew up in Providence, Utah. This valley has grown a ton since I've been here. And back when I grew up pretty much out of 1400 North it ended-until you got to Smithfield. And my parents are from here, my grandparents are from here.
Jason Kimber: Can I use the term Cache Valley royalty with some of your grandparents?
David Simmons: Yeah, my grandpa Stratford Loosle was a teacher in Skyview High School. If you're familiar with Cache Valley area, in the middle is Logan city and they have their own little school district and Logan High School. It's like a doughnut hole and everything out around it is Cache County. Everybody that didn't live in Logan went to Skyview High School. People knew who Grandpa was. And you know, some people might know Michael Ballam and Craig Jessop, those guys -- he taught them. And Grandpa directed all the musicals and something called the Front Porch Majority. We used to go to every production the grandpa put on. And it was a big deal. They did records, like vinyl.
Jason Kimber: Really?
David Simmons: Smithfield still has an award that they give every year that is to a young musician and I think they call it the B. Stratford Loosle Award.
Jason Kimber: I love that!
David Simmons: He was a special, special man. The other side of my family grew up musical as well. My grandpa Simmons played the trombone in the community band. He was on the float in in the different parades. My dad and his brothers had a little singing group called The Simmons Brothers. They'd go and do programs all over the place, and I'm sure what my dad and his brothers were able to earn got us through a lot of Christmases.
Jason Kimber: I'm familiar with your childhood home and where you live, there's some big hills.
David Simmons: Oh, boy! Before I was old enough to ride a bike, Dave Webb and I would ride our big wheels everywhere. I remember putting tube socks on my arms and pretending to be CHiPS patrol. I mean, you have to have gloves in the CHiPS patrol. So we would ride around and we'd bash into each other, or we'd get up on top of somebody else's driveway that happened to have a little hill to it and we'd go down and we pretend like we're sideswiping one another. And the neighborhood seemed to have all sorts of dogs. And you would know, "Oh no, Chuck Singleton's out. Get in the house."
Jason Kimber: But wait, wait, we need to clarify. Chuck Singleton is a dog.
David Simmons: Yes, Chuck's a dog. They all had last names. There was Newbie Toone, Nicky Brenchly, Cotton Buttars. I remember opening the door one time and Chuck Singleton was in my garage. Scared me to death. That door went closed. I'm like, "Hey, Chuck's in the garage. Stay in the house." Cotton Buttars was tiny, but he'd come after you. If you ride your bike by the house, Cotton Buttars is chasing you down and nipping at your heels. When we started getting into bikes—you keep your legs up while you ride.
Last day of kindergarten: me and David Webb and were like, "we're gonna ride our bikes to school." So that makes us what, six? We were known as The Davids. David Webb was always a little more adventurous than me. And he grew faster—he's bigger and he's stronger. He was going to be further ahead of me. And so we're cruising and we get to the hill. We're not going down that hill. Let's not be crazy.
Jason Kimber: Yeah.
David Simmons: Plus, there was a dog right at the beginning of that hill, so you better be moving.
Jason Kimber: Yeah.
David Simmons: We go the curvy route. And my little spaghetti arms start to maneuver back and forth. I'm losing control. And they start going faster. And I'm going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Boom! The whole thing turns and little David launches over these handlebars. And I was a hamburger bloody mess.
Jason Kimber: Oh, buddy.
David Simmons: So, David Webb's out there in front of me. He rides back to me. And the one thing I remember him saying is "Well, we gotta keep going to school." So, we finish the ride down to school and I stumble into Miss Purser's class, a bloody mess.
Jason Kimber: Oh, what a way to go out at kindergarten.
David Simmons: We live in a bit of a different world. If we rode down to the Country Shopper, which was down off the hill too, we just said "We're going to buy some baseball cards," and it was okay. Now we'd probably have to think about it and schedule a playdate or something.
Jason Kimber: That's what happens from growing up in a small town.
