David Benda
Born in Most on May 15, 1991.
David started playing the guitar at the age of 6 under the guidance of his dad. A few years later, he started attending the elementary art school in Litvínov, majoring in classical guitar. In 2002, he was enchanted by the banjo instrument after he saw Pavel Zícha play, and then he got to the Newgrass Revival video recordings with his bluegrass godfather Milan Kimla, where Béla Fleck became his great role model. Dad brought him his first banjo, which was built from a chair. At the age of 12, he started playing with his first band alongside his father, Milan Kimla and Igor Popkov, which was called J.I.M. Band. During his adolescence, he tried to find peers with a taste for bluegrass, and in 2008 he came across Jindra Vinkler (Monogram), with whom he formed a band called Blue Part, where bassist Nikohla Köhlerová (now Tinková) also played. With this band, they won the all-republic round of the Dětská Porta.
David always gravitated towards other genres and in 2008 he played bass guitar in Junior Big Band Litvínov and several other local jazz groups. Throughout this time he was still playing the banjo with his dad in various ensembles.
In 2015, an offer came from Michal Kunc to play a concert and possibly a permanent engagement with several other musicians whom David already knew well, thus the first line-up of the music group was created Milkeaters. After a year, Michal Kunc left and the Milkeaters remained at four. The band began to work both on the Czech and European scene, and made a professional music video and released two albums, while on the second album titled "The Devil by My Side" David is the author of the music and lyrics. The band played almost all over Europe from Iceland to Portugal and was twice nominated for European bluegrass band of the year at the French festival in La Roche, but due to the covid situation the festival was canceled each time and was no longer competitive in the following years.
Milkeaters organize annual music camps.
In 2020, he participated in the world banjo competition World Virtual Bluegrass Banjo Contest, where among the competitors were several great banjo players from the USA awarded by the IBMA organization. The biggest motivation for David to apply was the fact that his great role model Scott Vestal and also banjo player Gary "Biscuit" Davis (Dolly Parton's bandmate) sat on the jury. David successfully won this competition and thus became the first ever official world banjo champion, and in addition to the financial prize, he also won a promotion to the National Bluegrass Banjo Championschip in Winfield (USA), where he was again unable to travel due to the covid restrictions.
From 2021, he occasionally performs with Frank Solivan, Radim Zenkl, Ondra Kozák, Loes van Schaijk and other artists.
Since the beginning of 2023, he has been collaborating and performing in Pavlína Jíšová and PKMB TOUR 60. He is working on several music-educational programs for primary and secondary schools. Since September, he has been teaching at ZUŠ F.L. Gassmanna in Most. At the end of the year, David formed his own band called David Benda & Sebastellar, which combines jazz, folk, rock, bluegrass and world music.
