Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 29 October 1949, David Paton grew up in the south eastern suburb of Gilmerton, Edinburgh where he attended Liberton High School. At 18 years he joined his first band, the Beachcombers who signed a recording contract as The Boots with CBS Records. The band split up just two years later after just two single releases. After short stints with the Bay City Rollers and another band called Chrystian, he took a job as a musician in a nightclub called Tiffanys where he met Ian Bairnson. They founded Pilot together with Billy Lyall and Stuart Tosh. Their biggest hit ‘Magic’ is still wellknown.
In 1976, Paton and Bairnson started working with producer Alan Parsons and published a first album under the name Alan Parsons Project, ‘Tales of Mystery & Imagination’. Paton continued to work with other artists as a session musician. During this time, Paton played bass on Kate’s songs James And The Cold Gun, Kite, L’Amour Looks Something Like You, Moving, Oh To Be In Love, Strange Phenomena, Them Heavy People, Room For The Life, Symphony In Blue, In Search Of Peter Pan, Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake, Fullhouse, and Coffee Homeground. He also played acoustic guitar on the songs Wuthering Heights and Oh To Be In Love, and provided backing vocals on Oh To Be In Love.
During the 1980’s, Paton was known for his work with Camel and Elton John in studio albums and touring around the world. Other credits include bass guitar and backing vocals for several albums by Fish, as well as Rick Wakeman in the 1990’s, such as The Classical Connection, African Bach, Softsword, The Classical Connection 2 and Prayers.
His first solo album was released in 1991, titled ‘Passions Cry’, and second album ‘No Ties No Strings’ – a re-recording of an album he never released in 1980 – was released in 2003.