Daniel Merriweather
Location: New York, NY
Websites:
- http://myspace.com/danielmerriweather
- http://danielmerriweather.com/
- http://twitter.com/danmerriweather
Bio: A few of you may know Daniel Merriweather as the emotive voice on his producer Mark Ronson’s chart-busting cover of The Smiths ‘Stop Me’. He ... (more)
is however, anything but a set of rent-a-pipes.
Born and bred in a blue-collar area in Melbourne's outer east, Daniel Paul Merriweather was one of three boys born to teacher parents. 3 years back, the 26 year old swapped the streets of Melbourne and his native Australia for the cosmopolitan bustle of Manhattan, downtown NYC. The road to the release of his debut album Love & War however, stretches back even further, across continents, decades, relationships, moods and struggles.
Daniel was always getting in trouble as a kid and finally ended up dropping of high school, and swapped the books for a job in KFC. However, music had always been part of Daniel's life, by the age of 13 he could play Vivaldi concertos on the violin.
"I’ve always sung, and in many ways my voice was always my first real instrument, from singing Elvis Presley songs in the shower, to falling in love with r&b and hip hop in the 90s. I was always into anything that meant something vocally or if someone made a good sound with their voice, whether it was D’angelo, Boyz II Men, Nas, Thom Yorke, Otis Redding, Jeff Buckley or whatever".
Having quickly garnered industry attention in Australia, signing with indie-label Marlin, he begun work on tracks for his debut album that he would later shelve before release because the label just "wasn't ready and that’s not how I wanted it to be."
Thankfully nature intervened and his demos came to the attention of Mark Ronson who instantly fell in love with his voice. What followed was not only the birth of a unique working partnership but also a great friendship.
Daniel, now signed to Ronson and partner Rich Kleinman's embryonic label Allido, with it's new partnership with J Records, has spent the last 18 months writing and recording, plus months on the road touring with Ronson’s Version Players band.
“Every song started with me sitting down with a guitar but they all ended up somewhere totally different. That is why working with Mark was a real blessing, he works a lot with the Dap Kings. I brought them a whole bunch of songs that they wouldn’t naturally play on and their amazing musicianship really helped these songs evolve...These days there is too much thinking and not enough singing songs, whatever happened to singing songs?"
It is every bit the classic debut one would have hoped & more, filled from start to finish with thrilling hit singles to boot, and is a long, long way from busking on a street corner in Melbourne, just to earn a buck.
Love & War speaks for itself and for now at least, Daniel Merriweather remains a lover and a fighter.
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