Daniel Lee Kendall
Having just released his sophomore EP Talk the Night Away and with plans for a number of tours in the works, 2011 is set to be a successful year for Daniel Lee Kendall.
Interestingly Kendall admits that pursuing a career in music wasn’t always on the cards,
“I was going to be a state of origin, rugby league play for NSW- that was my calling. I picked up a guitar in year nine, and there was a gradual overlap and guitar started to increase and footy started to decrease. Before I knew it I was playing more music than I was footy.”
Whilst Kendall’s music best speaks for itself, I will confess that three artists came to mind after I listened to his EP. Pete Murray, Jack Johnson and Angus Stone. This doesn't come as a surprise considering all share honestly written lyrics, simple but affecting in nature.
" The lyrics definitely - I write down my thoughts a fair bit, so they’re often not too over thought and they come out quite quickly when they need too. It feels natural now but It didn't start like that. I almost had to re-learn how to write naturally because I was used to writing on the computer. So I had to take a break of it, I try to write my songs on guitar now.”
Seamlessly supporting his lyrics are well crafted and often unexpected melodies,
“Sometimes melodies just come to me while I’m driving the car or whatever and it’s almost a game of mix and match. Like I’ll have look at some of the lyrics I’ve written and the melodies I’ve recorded on my phone and see which ones fit.”
For Talk the Night Away Kendall took to the studio to add the final touches to his songs, collaborating with Paul Annison (Black Cab, Children Collide, Red Riders) who also worked on his successful debut EP – Lost in the Moment. Although Annison acted as a valuable sounding board Kendall’s music remains very much his own,
“It was encouraging for me too because we didn’t change a whole heap from when they left my bedroom to the studio, as far as arrangement and all of that kind of thing went. He just added stuff and we made it sound a whole lot better. But as far as songwriting goes for someone like that not to have to change a whole lot was encouraging for me.”
When it comes to playing live Kendall tends to favour the softly spoken approach taken by Angus and Julia Stone,
“I really dug their music but the thing that made me in love was seeing them live, and I’d seen a bunch of bands live and the whole big hype thing really didn’t appeal to me too much and seeing them chilled out and being themselves was something that really got me, I felt like I could do that, If I did music.”
With Talk The Night Away now released and tours planned with the likes of Hungry Kids of Hungary this is definitely something we can look forward to.
Talk the Night Away is now available at JB/any reliable music store or you can jump onto Itunes for your copy. DLK's tour dates will be posted to our Facebook. 
2 Comments
Reader Comments (2)
Love his stuff! im definately going to check out his new release.