Biography

Dan’s been making music with the The Wombats for 17 years. Along the way he has done 2 solo albums, his self-titled debut & Circadian Circus. 2020 also saw him release an EP & debut album with Sunship Balloon, a new project with Tord Øverland Knudsen. Dan started playing the piano, drums & acoustic guitar at a young age & began making songs on a Tascam 4-track in his bedroom at the age of 14. This is where his love for recording & writing music began. His 3rd solo album, Brightly Coloured Creatures, continues in his cinematic folk realm & was written in between London, a hotel room in Stuttgart with a bad hangover, Oslo & a tour bus in Rhode Island. The title was loosely inspired by the Studio Ghibli film ‘Spirited Away’ where the brightly coloured creatures in that film felt like a snapshot of the inside of Dan’s head. The album touches on the passing of time and how we experience it, as well as the beauty & danger of nostalgia (Memory Lane), a playful reworking of the ‘long spoons allegory’ (See You In Hell), self-doubt (Fool Like Me), DNA (Unravelling) and a conversation with life (Let Me Down) amongst others. Dan produced & played most of the sounds you hear. The majority of the album was recorded, co-produced and mixed by long time collaborator Rob Whiteley (Night Café, BC Camplight, Choco & the Toilet Destroyers) in Liverpool. Young Lovers & Earthmover were co-produced & mixed by a super vulture called Mark Crew (Bastille, Rag n Bone Man, Katy Perry).