of storms and calm
interview with daniel mills

Daniel Mills is a solo artist from Manchester. He plays folky acoustic rock. He’s played one show with my old band, carcrashdrama, and is currently working on his first release.

Interview by Martin Brown

Right, how did you first get into music?
To be honest I can't recall a definitive moment. I remember just listening to most popular music through school and then suddenly it all changed, and I began listening to particular styles and so forth. I believe it's similar in every youth's life: they'll grow up with the norm, and then develop their own style. For me, the first music I got 'into' as it were was Britpop, ashamedly so.
I'm the same!!!
And then once I went through secondary school, and then college, at almost period changes my tastes completely changed to the rather eclectic, mad scientist approach I now take to all music!
How did you first start playing?
I had a friend who used to have several imaginary bands. He was a huge Iron Maiden freak, and we started imagining together, he was playing guitar (admittedly incredibly badly at the time, but he thought he was God, one of those, y'know?) and I started getting into playing as well. I got a guitar, and began to teach myself, and that grew and grew into the appauling musician you see before you today!
Who can't spell 'appalling'
That would be me. You make me blush, Tino!
Tee hee! Moving on, you don't sound very much like Maiden anymore; how d'you think you developed in your guitar playing?
I could never play Maiden stuff, far too tricky, and I just didn't have the motivation, or the quick fingers to even begin to start to play that. The earliest things I can recall playing were incredibly bad Oasis covers. The first stage in getting into music, and the playing thereof, has to be playing typical Indie/60's covers!
Yay!
Heck yes, the whole, I've got a guitar, I'm going to grow my hair like the Gallaghers, and I'm going to play songs that aren't mine! Huzzah!
Haha! The whole 'one man and his guitar' nonsense is actually ridiculously popular right now. Elliot Smith kinda spearheaded it, and now there are people like David Singer on Deep Elm, Denison Witmer, the guy from Pavement, Rocky Votolato, Damien Jurado, et al. Do you feel that the success and exposure they've been getting kinda motivated you to go for it and play a show?
I'm becoming a huge fan of a lot of the artists you mentioned there. I believe I even got you into at least one of them, Martin!
Denison I do confess!
I think the freedom and just complete artistic stylings of playing as a solo artist is such a huge, well, attraction to any living musicians. Writers work alone and can create such personal emotion without having to compromise for any other. I think by playing alone it's one of the only ways that it's possible to truly express that individuality and personal angst or emotion without having to compromise any self belief, or give up any of the meaning of the songs. I'm repeating myself, I know - it's so amazingly clichéd, but it's true. You just can't get the same feeling and release through playing with others. I love being able to mess up and start over again without having to worry about annoying anyone else but myself!
I agree, I mean when I was playing with CCD I always would feel kinda self conscious cos of what the 2 other components of the band were doing, and concentrating on holding the song together. When I'm on my own I don't have to worry and can just go for it. Dashboard Confessional for instance - the guy apparently stops halfway through some live songs and just screams the lyrics on his own.
I remember my first show supporting CCD and forgetting what came next in one of my songs. I stopped, thought about it, then carried on. You just can't do that with a few other guys trying to follow your lead. It's what I mean about the freedom that comes with playing alone. It's a lot more personal and intimate than trying to put on a 'show' as you would with a full band. This way it's just the singer, his voice and his guitar, and the whole world listening to him and his music (or her and her music of course).
It's like one man sex! There's no one else in the world apart from you!
I'm in danger of going blind, man.
So who influences you in what you’re doing now?
As I stated earlier, the one man and their guitar routines you mentioned above, have slowly crept into my listening rota over the past few years. Pedro The Lion is doing an awesome thing at the moment, and the music they produce is a heavy influence on the music I was writing (and still is). I'm becoming far more open to what I listen to. I've been getting huge inspiration from Gileah. Then the obvious comparisons: Denison Witmer, Rocky Votalato, Martin Brown and so on.
Haha!
I get a lot of power from literature as much as music, so it's as wide and varied as it is deep. Oh and Jonah's OneLineDrawing to the list of influences. Sorry I always do that - I'm a backtracker!

I've asked pretty much every interviewee so far this, and it's kinda appropriate considering the popularity of folks like Smith, Dashboard, etc. If you were offered, would you suckle at the teat of the corporate goat, so to speak?
I've always, always said, that I'd keep my music on a personal level, as a hobby so to speak. I've never imagined I'd be popular enough to even come close to anything like the goats you speak of. I use music as a release, just an expression. If people dig what I do, then it just makes playing it such an extra thrill. If people don't, then fine - it means nothing to me when people don't like what I do, but so much more if they do. I think if offered anything like that, naturally it'd be tempting: a means of getting the music and meaning to more people than ever before. But in doing so, i wouldn't compromise what I did or how I did it for anything.
Your lyrics of late have been a tad more cryptic than the stuff you wrote in Switzerland for instance. Is that a development in your writing, or is it just that you don't have as much inner pain, or what?
To be honest, nothing worthy of note has happened since Switzerland. That was the main focus point of any previous material, and I think the sheer bitterness of those songs, really came so blatantly through the music. For those who don't know what happened, I was engaged to be married and then wasn’t. So, from there sprang the bitterness, and generally angry lyrics and music that comprised my first ever set of songs, and music.
I played a friend a tape of that show and he said 'He doesn't sound like a very happy gentleman'.
I find it hard to play those songs now, for the reason that my heart just isn't in them anymore. When I played them back then, It was a case of "I'm playing these songs to exorcise these demons. This is for you, Goodbye" kinda thing. But now, I just don't have the time to feel the same emotion, when I’m way past all that, if you get what I mean? I found myself singing a song about telling


Just before first show, Croydon

someone to drown in their guilt, and how I'd never know how sorry they were, and smiling whilst I was singing it, That just wasn't right, so I stopped singing it. Music is all about that release, and once it had got past that point, I felt the song had achieved it's purpose, so I moved on.
So as times change, music changes too - I guess that's the ultimate testament to you saying you write music for release.
Exactly. Change is a hard thing to accept, but it's inevitable, so why try to hold onto things that you just can't?
Wise words. So what's this about you recording something anytime this millennia?
Yes, it's true. I'm finally getting off my ass and recording some songs for handing out purposes. It's going to be called "Of Storms & Calm", final details keep changing, are finalised, then change again, but it will hopefully be available for trade or whatever very soon. I'm recording in my local Church, so the acoustics are great, the equipment is fantastic, and I really have no excuse for not getting anything done. The new songs are a lot less personal, more about events and places than about me. They tell a story this time, rather than just a collection of anger.
Reflective rather than releasing.
A rather cool combination of both, my friend!
Modesty becomes you!
As a friend of mine would say, My greatness is only surpassed by my modesty!
So if a kid was feeling down and picked up a guitar and just tried to get something done, what would be your advice, if any, to him/her?
Just play. It what your voice and your guitar is for. I made a rule of never trying to force creativity: if it is forced, it's not honest (hence my on/off activity over the past year or so). Just write what you feel, and feel what you write. (I'm such a clichéd mess, but I love it)
Haha, I actually really empathise with your comment about forcing creativity. I've come up with riffs, etc. at times when I've been really happy, and that's an artistic thing, but the lyrics won't come for months.
I've been playing a single guitar piece that I stole from an old Spy vs Spy song since I began playing guitar properly, I still haven't written a song for it yet...!
Haha! I know the very riff!
I think I played it in between songs when I was down with CCD. Heh. I always seem to play it, then think, Damn, I need a song for that!
I'll have to have another listen!! So when do you think you'll be ready to play live again?
Hopefully by the winter, I hate the summer. I think I told you how I only believe in two seasons?
No…
It's either summer or it's winter. I like the cold, the brutality of the rain and the storms. I'm not a summer person, So I intend to lock myself away for a few months, get the songs finished, rehearsed, recorded, and then, and only then will I perhaps play a few more shows. I'm full of self doubt, in sporadic portions, so my plans for one day, will completely change for the next!
Hehe, I've fallen at the brunt of your self-doubt many-a time. I remember having to pretty much force you to play the show with CCD!
Man, I was finishing writing songs on the train on the way to the show! I was petrified.. as the one existing photograph I have shows! Every person who's seen the picture has asked me how many drugs I was on, I looked that bad!
Many thanks for the interview.
I’ve had tremendous fun!

Email Danny here, and see his website here.