I'm Donny V ("Donny the Fifth"), a songwriter and performer with over 15 years playing venues in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, several years in the Austin, Texas area, and now in the Salt Lake City area. I've written nearly 100 songs in that time and have never lost my taste for good old fashioned guitar, bass, drums, and vocal harmonies.

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My sound has been described most recently as "urban Texas rock", which comes from blending the rock music of the American coasts and the southern blues rock of Texas.  Which makes sense as the Austin area continues to absorb music lovers like me from coastal cities.

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My musical inspiration comes from sources as diverse as the hard driving Foo Fighters, local Portland heroes Everclear, to hard rock like Van Halen, to the pop guitar licks of John Mayer.  In my mind, a good song is a good song.

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I've been writing songs as long as I have been playing guitar (25 years), but as a kid I was painfully shy and performing was just a dream.  Eventually I faced my fear and rehearsed the hell out of two original songs that I played at an open mic in Portland and the response I got was so warm, that I haven't looked back.  This is what I was born to do: write and perform music!

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In Austin, I led a grassroots band called Bigger Than Donny that played the Austin club circuit and released an EP called "Politics, Whatever."  I wrote the music, fronted the band, and coached two friends to learn bass and drums.  

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In 2021, I released a full-length record of songs that I introduced to my social media friends via Facebook.  My friends voted on 18 songs to choose those that will go on the LP to be a bright spot in the mess that has been COVID-19, American social justice reckoning, and the burning of the Pacific Northwest that has happened in 2020.  The record is my biggest achievement as an artist so far and it is available on Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, iTunes, and almost anywhere you can stream/buy music.