Matt Connarton Unleashed: Daniel Schamroth

0:01 Speaker 1: Oh my god, what a voice. What a great song too. That is Skyscraper. That is Daniel Shamrock all the way from the UK, and I believe we have him on Skype.

0:08 Speaker 2: Daniel, is that you?

0:10 Speaker 3: I'm here? Yeah, can you hear me?

0:11 Speaker 4: Okay?

0:12 Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, Welcome to the program. I love that song.

0:15 Speaker 3: Oh cheers, Matt, thanks for having me.

0:17 Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely. By the way, where in the UK are you? Exactly?

0:21 Speaker 4: So, I'm down in the southwest of England in the UK, which is well, I'm actually in a place called Plymouth at the moment, which is I think you've got a place called Plymouth where you are?

0:32 Speaker 1: We we do, we have we have all kinds of uh, especially in this part of the country. Of course, we have all kinds of cities with duplicate names. I'm in Manchester, for example, and of.

0:41 Speaker 4: Course exactly I was. I was on Google Maps having like earlier. It's like it's mad there's like Portsmouth, which we've got Portsmouth, yea, Manchester, yeah, Plymouth, Yeah, you know New England obviously, yeah.

0:54 Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely. Uh well, so welcome to the show. Tell me about the Tell me about these.

0:59 Speaker 1: Home demo songs, because my understanding is from what I read. So these are these have all been recorded before, but these are new versions of them, kind of stripped down and acoustic.

1:10 Speaker 4: These are no these are just literally just home home demos oh okay, bedroom recordings. So so that that that song there, Skyscraper, I recorded that with a friend of mine just in his bedroom.

1:21 Speaker 3: Set up a few years ago, oh.

1:23 Speaker 4: Okay, and I forgot all about it and he found it on his laptop one night when we were drunk. He was like, oh, I found this song. I was like, this actually sounds pretty cool. So I sent it to my label and they were like, they were like, they loved it, and they just wanted to put it straight out. So we've we've been putting out as like a series of just demo recordings. Oh but earlier this year, I recorded a record with Grammy winning producer Cooled Guy Massey, which was a which is a really good experience.

1:50 Speaker 4: He's recorded like he was at Abbey Road for ten years. He's worked with like on Beatles records, and he worked with Oasis and some really big you know, some big artists.

2:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was that was amazing.

2:03 Speaker 4: But yeah, we've just been kind of going with the kind of homemade home demos the last few releases, and it seems to be going down really well. People really like it.

2:11 Speaker 2: I think now they sound incredible.

2:13 Speaker 1: I'm actually kind of stunned when you say that you had recorded that song and then you kind of forgot about it, because it's so good.

2:20 Speaker 2: It's like, how do you forget about it? But that's amazing.

2:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, I write, I write lots of songs, so I just kind of, yeah, I've kind of always written lots of songs and then yeah, I've just kind of forgotten about those ones. But yeah, I'd send it to Scott, who I worked with at the label, and he was like, we got to put this out. This is great.

2:36 Speaker 2: Yeah.

2:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad.

2:38 Speaker 3: We I'm glad we found it that drunken night.

2:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Yeah, it's It's something we talk about a lot on the show.

2:47 Speaker 1: It's remarkable to live in a time where there's so many different ways that you can record, and yeah, you can do something like like you said, just you know, recording something in somebody's bedroom and have it, you know, just come out so great, and then and then able to put it out and it just sounds you know, when you have something that sounds like it could have been recorded that way or it could have been recorded in a million dollar studio, you don't know the difference exactly.

3:10 Speaker 3: I mean that there's subtle, subtle differences that you hear.

3:13 Speaker 4: I mean the acoustic the record I recorded earlier this year, and that was in a big studio in London, and you know, we put some live strings on it and it had so few it's quite an acoustic record, but it's got a few touches to it, so you can sort of subtly hear the differences. Whereas but yeah, there's not a huge difference in a way, you know, like and what I'm doing just with these home demos because it's just me and a guitar and a voice. You know, there's there's not that much production involved.

3:38 Speaker 4: Really, it's just if you get the vocals sounding nice, to get the guitar sounding level, you know, you're away.

3:43 Speaker 2: You know absolutely. Are there more of these coming or have you released?

3:49 Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, we literally just released a new another home demo yesterday. I'm releasing like one one track a month. Oh okay, I can find you can you can find these all in my Spotify if you go to Daniel Shamrock on Spotify, you'll you'll hear you'll find all of these. I released a song yesterday called sol on Fire, and then we're going to be releasing yeah, every every every month going into next year.

4:12 Speaker 3: So yeah, keep an eye out if you want to hear some more music.

4:15 Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned that Soul on Fire. Well, I do have it in front of me here. We'll actually play that when we and the segment.

4:22 Speaker 4: What's that wicked?

4:23 Speaker 3: Thank you very much?

4:24 Speaker 1: Absolutely no, no, glad to do it. Yeah, no, I was going to play I was going to play something of yours at the end, and that's that's perfect since it just came out. How many how many more of these do you have? You say, so you're releasing one a month. How many more do you have or do you even know yet? Are you still finding? Are you still finding things?

4:42 Speaker 4: I've got a few more from this from this session that we did a few years ago. Yeah, I'm going to be releasing a few more of these, and then I'm going back into the studio early next year and I'll record some some I've allad the new stuff that I want to want to record, so I'll be releasing lots of new music, so yeah, there's plenty, plenty more where that came from.

5:00 Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent. I'm curious about influences, especially in terms of not only your songwriting, but you're singing. I love your voice and you've you've got one of those voices.

5:12 Speaker 4: You know.

5:13 Speaker 1: You You kind of remind me a little bit of some different people, but I can't quite pin it down. I can't think of anyone who sounded exactly likely.

5:19 Speaker 3: But I was gonna say, who do I remind you of? Because I find that interesting?

5:22 Speaker 2: Yeah?

5:23 Speaker 1: Well, actually, oh what the hell? The guy from I can't I can't remember his name, but the singer from the band America. Are you familiar with that band?

5:34 Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, I know I know them.

5:36 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah you kind of you kind of remind me of him.

5:38 Speaker 1: I cannot remember his name, Unfortunately, it's in the it's in the back of my brain. But yeah, I was thinking about that. Yeah, yeah, but like who who's a big influence on you?

5:50 Speaker 4: So? I grew up over here in the UK with the like britpop in the nineties, so it was all kind of Oasis and Blur and yeah, those kind of English britpop bands, but also so that was a big influence. Oasis were a big influence on me, but also kind of Sixties bands like Beatles and you know, the Stones and the Kinks and all those kind of bands, and then lots of singer songwriters, you know, massively into like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, you know, all those kind of guys, just people that sit you know, you can do something with a guitar, just guitar and a vocal and a song.

6:22 Speaker 4: You know. I've always loved that kind of simplistic approach, you know. Yeah, So yeah, all that kind of stuff, really loads of stuff. Tom Petty, I love, I love Tom Petty. I was listening to I was watching the Tom Petty documentary a few nights ago, the one about what you know you're a Tom Petty fan.

6:41 Speaker 2: I am. I'm a casual fan. I don't you know. I never had all the albums. But you have to understand.

6:47 Speaker 1: You have to understand in America, if you turn on any classic rock station and you listen for an hour, you're going to hear a Tom Petty song.

6:54 Speaker 4: So you can hear Tom Petty song. Yeah, yeah, So I'm a big Tom petty fan. I love some of his like more sort of solo acoustic y stuff as well. Yeah, so yeah, loads of stuff, loads of stuff. But yeah, big big Beatles fan. That's one of my kind of major loves musically, is you know all the Lena McCartney stuff and yeah, yeah, I love all of that. Yeah.

7:17 Speaker 1: Now, based on what you've told me, I assume that you started writing songs at a really young age.

7:22 Speaker 2: Am I correct?

7:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, So basically I picked up the guitar when I picked up my dad's guitar when I was probably ten or something, ten or eleven, Yeah, and just as soon as I could play like three chords, I just started trying to write songs. And it was this really weird thing, like I don't know where that came from. You know, I've had no musical training or you know, no formal classes or anything like that, but I just kind of just felt compelled to kind of try and carve a song out out of something, you know, and that's just always stayed with me.

7:56 Speaker 4: So yeah, I just love I love writing songs. That's just what I do.

8:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting what you say about how you don't even know where it came from, because you didn't have any musical training, and I've I've kind of realized over the years. I think I think music is one of the few things well, actually, well, let me broaden it out a little bit. I think creating art, yeah, more broadly is one of those few things that can be just just really sort of intuitive for some people, because you know, anything else that you try to do, you have to kind of you know, there's some sort of training involved.

8:25 Speaker 1: If you want to be a nuclear physicist, for example, you know, that's not something you can intuitively figure out. But when it comes to when it comes to music, people people are some people are able to just kind of intuitively figured out figure out how to play guitar, figure out how to sing. Most of the vocalists I talked to you never had any formal training. They just they just can do it.

8:45 Speaker 4: Definitely. I mean obviously you can. You can learn tricks, and you can learn ways of doing things. I mean, like I'm not I always say like I'm not a great musician. You know, I'm a I'm a good steady rhythm guitarist.

8:57 Speaker 3: You know I can.

8:58 Speaker 4: But for me, I sit down on with a guitar and that that's just a tool so I can find a melody and come up with the song. You know, That's what it's all about for me. Yeah, but yeah, I mean if you listen to my songs when I was like fifteen, you know, compared to now, there's been a progression.

9:13 Speaker 3: I'd like to think there's been a big progression, you know.

9:16 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, in the way I write lyrics, you know, just with a bit more life experience, you know that kind of stuff, and you do hone your craft as you get older, of course, but yeah, some of those, some of those songs I wrote when I was like thirteen, you know, I wouldn't really want anyone to play from the radio, you know what I mean?

9:34 Speaker 2: Right right?

9:35 Speaker 1: Well, so I am curious did any of that really early material survive. I can't remember who it was, but I had one guest on the show who had written a song when he was like twelve years old, and I asked him do you still play that today? And not expecting him to say yes, and he was like, yeah, actually I do.

9:51 Speaker 4: I was like, wow, listen, no, any songs I wrote from that age have been hidden away, hidden in a safe and locked away. He has been thrown away.

10:02 Speaker 2: Do you remember the first song you ever wrote.

10:05 Speaker 4: You'll laugh about this. I can't believe I'm actually saying this out loud, but yeah, So one of the first songs I ever wrote was a song called the Guy Upstairs as an Alien, and I can still yeah, I'm not going to sing it for you now, but I can still sort of remember the melody of that.

10:20 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that, you know.

10:21 Speaker 4: But I was just I was just kind of learning how to put words and you know, make things rhyme, and just just learning the basics, you know. But yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just been It's always been something that I've just been curious about and loved, you know. Yeah, and that never goes away, you know, and I think I'll be tinkering around on the guitar, you know, into my old age. You know.

10:43 Speaker 3: It's just something I absolutely love.

10:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, Is that what comes first for you when you write? Is a melody on the guitar? Or do lyrics ever come first?

10:52 Speaker 4: It comes in different ways, so yeah, sometimes sometimes it all comes out in one go, like it all just kind of falls out, and those are generally the best songs, Like it just falls out effortlessly and it's like the chords the melody, all the changes and the breaks. It will just kind of just comes out and we'll go and you've got to quickly grab a paper and pen and just get it down. But then sometimes you've got to really work at work at a song and chip away at it and you know what's what you know what what what word rhymes with that?

11:19 Speaker 4: Or you know what am I going to do on this after this chorus? Or you know. So it works in different ways, but generally, normally I'll kind of play a few chords and then and then the melody will come in and it will just kind of take on a life of its own. But but yeah, I just love just grabbing something out of the air. You start with nothing and then suddenly you've got this this song, you know, out of out thin air almost and it's like a magical, magical experience, right, I love it? Right?

11:44 Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely?

11:46 Speaker 1: Now, So tell me about what happens when you play live? Do you Is it always just you solo? Or do other musicians join you?

11:53 Speaker 2: Or how does that? Or maybe you have a band I don't.

11:54 Speaker 4: Know for like, for the for the last few years, I was playing in an indie band called the Loft Club. Oh okay, And we were actually signed to we were signed to an American label actually in LA and so yeah, that was kind of my thing. It was my songs, but with a band, it was kind of kind of like a slightly old country indie kind of vibe. And that was all going really well, and then we had a coronavirus lockdown down and that kind of kind of blew everything out of the water a bit. But now I'm just kind of just doing me and a guitar, just me going out and playing, playing solo.

12:30 Speaker 4: I'm going to be doing some shows and going into next year and maybe with a band as well, just to kind of pad it out a bit. But it's it's very stripped down, just mostly just me and a.

12:39 Speaker 1: Guitar, okay, okay, which is nice in a sense, right because I mean, you know, being in a band is great and all, but at least when it's just you and a guitar, you know, it's certainly simplifive things. You've got more there's more places you can play, and you don't have to work around anyone else's schedule, and.

12:56 Speaker 4: So that's exactly yeah, yeah, there's less people to fall out with.

13:00 Speaker 3: You started and start an argument with yourself, you know exactly.

13:04 Speaker 1: I've played in a lot of bands, but I never did a solo acoustic thing. So I've always been a little bit you know, I've always wondered what that must be like and the you know, the freedom that comes with that.

13:12 Speaker 2: What did you say the name of what did you say? The name of the band?

13:15 Speaker 4: Was the Last que the Loft as in like up in the Lost the Loft t Yeah, the Loft Club.

13:22 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Now that is anything that you did with that band? Is that available online?

13:28 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's all on That's all on Spotify, So you can go and go and hear that as well. We did a collaboration with Lisa Lobe if you know Lisa Lobe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did a song. We did a song with her actually called which is a song minaeled Flicker and she put a verse on on one of the songs and that actually got onto the Billboard chart.

13:47 Speaker 3: So that was a kind of a song that kind of did something in America.

13:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, so you can you can go and he hear that on Spotify.

13:56 Speaker 2: Oh, that's that's very cool.

13:59 Speaker 1: Do you have any plans to get back to being in a band or I mean it sounds like the solo acoustic things working out pretty well.

14:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really enjoying doing what I'm doing at the moment, to be honest. It's you know, I've got a really good label that I work with here in the UK, and and we just we.

14:13 Speaker 3: Just work really well together.

14:15 Speaker 4: And you know, I get a song, I can record, record, they put the record out and suddenly it's out on Spotfy and it's just it's just a nice, nice, nice setup and it seemed to work really well. So yeah, I'm kind of happy doing doing things as they are at the moment. I'll probably put a little band together to go and to do some of these songs next year, as I said. But but yeah, yeah, I'm happy as I am, I think.

14:37 Speaker 2: And then now, so you're working with Guy Massey. Has that already begun or is that coming up?

14:43 Speaker 4: Yeah? So that's that's the record. That's the record I did earlier this year, earlier this year, so it's called so that's that's when we recorded in London. So that's that was called Major Companion and it's a six track EP. Yeah, And I was talking about him earlier. So Guy's kind of he's won two Grammy Awards. He's like, yeah, he' remastered all the Beatles records and yeah, he's just worked with like everybody. So that was like a really cool experience for me to go and to go and see how he works, you know, and be in his in his world.

15:16 Speaker 4: So that was yeah, that was super cool. Yeah, and we put we put some strings on a couple of the couple of the tracks and we recorded in a studio called conk In in London, which is belongs to the Kinks. It's the Kinks recording studio. So that was that was a really cool experience.

15:33 Speaker 2: Oh wow, Oh that's extremely cool.

15:35 Speaker 4: Yeah.

15:36 Speaker 1: Is that intimidating at all working with somebody like Guy Massey? I mean that's you know, he's a heavy show.

15:42 Speaker 3: Yeah.

15:42 Speaker 4: I really thought it was going to be and then I met him and he just got completely just put put me at ease, Like within seconds, he was just like, yeah, come in, have a couple of you know, sit down and chatting him. He's called his you know, gold Records on the Wall or whatever, you know, and I was like, whoa. But he's just really to a really lovely guy and an amazing producer, like really cool guy to work with. You know, we had a lot to talk about. You know, we're into the same kind a lot of the records that I loved growing up listening to in my teams.

16:12 Speaker 4: Like he was involved in the in the recording, so it was like, yeah, it was like it was quite a big deal for me. But yeah, really great guy and a great producer.

16:24 Speaker 1: By the way, you mentioned this is a little off subject, but I'm just curious because you mentioned Oesis earlier.

16:29 Speaker 2: What what how.

16:30 Speaker 1: Are things looking over there? Did they already they haven't played those shows yet, right, I know, I know take on sale, but no.

16:37 Speaker 4: So so so with my band The Love Club, we actually managed to support Nol Gallagher. Oh my god, ago, which was which is this amazing experience at this at this old castle they do these big outdoor gigs at the place called Powderham Castle and and that was that was like he's like one of my heroes. So that was like an amazing and amazing thing to get anywhere near Oh yeah, being on the.

16:59 Speaker 3: Stage with him. So that was a real highlight for me.

17:03 Speaker 4: But yeah, so when when I heard they're getting back together, it was like, you know, me and all my friends who are big Oasis fans were like, you know, very excited, but there was this big clamor for tickets, and you know, tickets were going for like stupid money, you know. Yeah, three four hundred pounds of tickets and sometimes five hundred pounds a ticket, you know. Yeah, so it's it's a big deal. Yeah, a big deal over here for sure.

17:25 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.

17:26 Speaker 1: Oasis is one of my favorite bands from the nineties and my my favorite oh yeah, Acquiess is my favorite Oasis song, which originally was a B side, but but then they performed it on Saturday Night Live.

17:40 Speaker 2: I was like, how cool was that performing a B side?

17:44 Speaker 4: Totally And that's why I love no Gallagher because some of his best songs were B sides, you know. Yeah, and that song, that song Skyscraper that I wrote, it's kind of people have said to me, it sounds a bit like a like an Oasis B side or something. It's got that kind of vibe to it. I think, yeah, but yeah, yeah. Some of my favorite favorite records of theirs are the kind of hidden the hidden gems that you know you find on a B side somewhere.

18:08 Speaker 2: Yeah.

18:09 Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of a British thing where artists will put, well, we'll put on a B side something that is not available anywhere else, because a lot of them, like when I was growing up, I noticed it, a lot of American artists, the B side is just another song on the album, you know what I mean. But but a lot of British artists seem to really insist on making the B side something completely separate that you can't get anywhere else, which I always thought was really cool.

18:38 Speaker 4: Definitely, I think it started with with the Beatles because they were really wanted to make sure that the fan sort I saw an interview with Paul McCartney talking about this, and he was like he wanted to make sure that the fans were getting the most for their money. So when they when they'd buy the when they'd buy the you know, the seven inch single or whatever, you know, they try and make sure that there was a lot of good material on there. So they try and make sure that the side was as good as the A side, just like you know, like the double A sides and all of that stuff.

19:04 Speaker 4: And so I think it was just what Oasis we're doing was trying to continue that tradition of trying to give people good quality music. You know that paying money for a for a single, you know, and they want to make sure that they get two good songs. It's not just one one good song and a and a filler on the b side, you know.

19:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I always respected that.

19:22 Speaker 1: And uh, you know, Noel is one of those guys too who's always writing, so you know.

19:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes sense.

19:27 Speaker 1: He's he's got plenty of music. Oh yeah, absolutely.

19:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not he's not sure of a song or too for sure.

19:36 Speaker 2: So what so, so what do you have? What do you have coming up? Daniel?

19:39 Speaker 1: So you've got you're you're continuing to release Uh are these homedown?

19:44 Speaker 4: I was once a month, that's it. So yeah, song came out yesterday's song on Fire and then there'll be some We'll be releasing the song every month going into the new year. I'll be going back into the studio early next year to record some new stuff and then and then going out and doing some shows and hopefully some festivals next summer.

20:02 Speaker 2: Outstanding outstanding, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any any plans to get to America in the future.

20:09 Speaker 4: Well, yeah, we were really close to having an American tour with the band. It was all being lined up and then and then because we did the now Gallagher support and then the album came out, and then everything was going great. And then we got some American radio and that was all going great. And then and then they were going to bring us over for a tour because it was obviously an American label. Yeah, and then and then obviously coronavirus hit, so we couldn't go anywhere. You know. It was like no one could do anything, and it just really like not the stuffing out of the whole the whole thing.

20:38 Speaker 4: But yeah, I'd love to I'd love to come over. I'd love to come over at some point. So yeah, in the future, i'd love to come. And I've been to America a few times and I absolutely love it. You know, spent some time in Seattle and Miami and a few other places, so yeah, I love it. Nice.

20:54 Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah.

20:55 Speaker 1: Seattle's obviously a very in terms of American music, a very influencedential place, especially in the nineties.

21:02 Speaker 2: You know all those all those bands.

21:03 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Nirvana and yeah, Jimmy Hendrix.

21:07 Speaker 3: Is that's the whole thing from Seattle, isn't it.

21:10 Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, there you go. I forgot about that. I forgot that I forgot that he came from there. Yeah, that's right, absolutely, Uh, Daniel, Where should people go online to keep track of everything that you're doing so they can keep up, especially with these new and by the way, we would love to be sort of one of your American radio partners in these promoting these singers as they come out. If you know, if you send them to us, well we'll play them, we'll premiere them here.

21:32 Speaker 4: Brilliant.

21:33 Speaker 3: I really appreciate that. Yeah, well there'll be one a month.

21:35 Speaker 2: Excellent.

21:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, you won't be sure of a few songs, but yeah, so you can, you can, you can. If you want to hear anything, going to my Spotify is probably the best thing. So just to go Daniel Shamrock and you'll find me there. And then if you want to come chat to me on on socials, I'm on Instagram, you know all those kind of platforms. Just if you just go to act Daniel Shamrock, you can. I'm in there, come and chat to me there and see what I'm up to.

22:03 Speaker 1: Outstanding, outstanding. All right, So we're gonna we're going to close out the conversation with this this track, Soul on Fire.

22:09 Speaker 2: This just came out yesterday.

22:10 Speaker 3: You said it just came out yesterday.

22:12 Speaker 2: Yes, brand new, outstanding. Has this been on American radio at all?

22:16 Speaker 4: But you know, I think this is a I think this is the premiere on American radio. So you're the first.

22:21 Speaker 2: Awesome. We love it. We love to do that.