If you’re reading this, congratulations; You’ve made it to the second and final part of the Daniel Price Interview. On Tuesday, we left off chatting with Daniel about his upbringing and today, we dive back in to the conversation. Just a week ago, Daniel released his highly anticipated project called, “Peaking”, which has been met with nothing but positive reviews. A body of work this good though doesn’t just appear out of thin air, which is why for part two, we are going to uncover what makes Daniel the artist and musical mind that he is. The Daniel Price Interview Part two is now live, enjoy!

—

Sam: So tell me this…What do you make music for? In part one, we left off and you alluded to the importance of being able to share your perspective with others, but what do you truly make music for?

Daniel: This recent music is more so storytelling, some of it is autobiographical, some of it features things that never happened, but it’s just a good story that I think people need to hear. Overall, just trying to implement what my mom implemented in me. Self belief…thinking for yourself and just not having any regrets at the end of it all. I want people to think for themselves. Especially now, we’re in this era of society where it’s very groupthink…one way or another. Black or White. I think people should just sit with certain ideologies and concepts and ask themselves the question, “what do I think?” Not “Oh I like this person and they believe this, so I’m going to believe this.”

—

Sam: Or, I’m not going to like this person because they do believe this…

Daniel: C’mon Man. But that’s the norm. 

—

Sam: Okay so now that I have that insight, I want to turn the corner and dive into the music itself; But first I have to ask a big question. Clearly you have great people in your corner, but more specifically, one person in particular. What separates Khufu from the rest and the how has he impacted your life and music?

Daniel: I already know it. He’s one of one. To put it plainly, Khufu is the type of person you remember when you meet him. Anyone who meets that man remembers him, and it’s because he’s purely, authentically him. He doesn’t cater to anyone. He speaks to the cleaner on set the same way he speaks to the biggest pop star. It’s the way he carries himself bro. He’s the most charismatic man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s a mentor first. I’m about to be 23 this month and he’s 29. He has some years on me. He’s a mentor. I’ve studied him. I’ve picked up on the ways he moves and interacts with people. He’s very personable. You can tell when you’re having a conversation with him, he’s there. He’s special bro. And that’s just on a human level outside of the art. He and I became friends first. Great friends. Certain people you meet them and you just feel like you’ve known them since you were young. We were actually on text for a while before meeting each other in person, but even over text, I knew that me and this guy saw things very similarly. I would speak to him about the path I wanted to take and where I wanted my career to go and he would just be like “yup, yup, exactly”. And I could tell it was authentic, he really understood. So, once “Dayjob” came out, I was flown out by a management company and he was like “alright, let’s link up”. We linked up and off rip I just knew. It was a clear choice. There was no second guessing,. From our conversations to actually meeting in person, it was complete clarity. I’ve never had someone care as much about this as me. I can confidently say he cares as much as me. The way he moves and the way he has been championing me, you don’t see that shit bro. It’s a very rare thing. It’s a friendship. It’s a brotherhood. I’ve never had an older brother. He’s a mentor to me. 

—

Sam: I love this man. I can’t wait for him to read this; But, okay let’s keep going. I want to stay in the present day, but I also want to travel back a bit to learn about “Dayjob”, “Mirrored Youth” and now “Peaking”…What has changed when you look at those 3 distinct time periods? What do those periods look like for you?

Daniel: It’s a blur. I still haven’t had the time to really sit down and think about this. I’ve just been making decision after decision off of straight intuition. But yeah, “Dayjob” came out, he and I began working together, so we sat down and began game planning. I already had the songs for “Mirrored Youth” ready. I had so much music that I didn’t put out and will never come out. It was a decision of putting out a small project that was fully done by me, so people knew that this was where it all started. To give a reference point. If I came out the gate with “Peaking”, people would wonder how this new artist is making such high level art. We put it out all at once though. We dropped it so it could live in the world as a reference; so people could go back and appreciate the growth. Because, if you listen to “Mirrored Youth” compared to “Peaking”, it’s different.

—

Sam: You found a way to document authentic growth. That’s special.

Daniel: Thank you man. 

—

Sam: For the people who have no idea what you do musically, explain your process. Whether it’s singing, producing, whatever it may be, take us through that. How does Daniel Price take an idea and turn it into something tangible?

Daniel: So, I think my strength is not necessarily a musical instrument or singing…those aren’t my strengths. I look at myself as a very subpar singer. I can’t play instruments like that, but I know exactly how things should sound. That’s what I was doing early on when I didn’t know any producers. It was just me tweaking sounds and piecing what sounded good together. Then I got to a point where I was working with people who are insanely talented and I spoke the language. I knew how to communicate to them what I wanted, because I spent so much time alone tweaking it all. At that point, I just began leading the way in sessions. Most of the time with writing though, I have to be alone, because everything is fully written by me. Then I’ll link with a producer where we’ll add things to start complimenting the vocals. That’s been the process, but I am at the stage where I want to learn an instrument like a guitar or a piano. That’s my strength though. Knowing how things are supposed to sound. 

—

Sam: That’s inspiring to me and to probably so many artists. Reaffirming talented people that it can still be done without knowing how to play an instrument or produce. Someone is going to read this and know that they can do it too.

Daniel: Yeah, because in my mind when I would talk to producers, I wouldn’t really explain the sound, I would explain where the song is and where it lives. I would tell people to imagine a cobblestone road in Spain. A guy and a girl met on a whim and they’re walking around at 3am on a cobblestone road in an empty city. What does that sound like? Then I lead them there. I can see exactly where a song lives and where it takes you. Because that’s all that music does when you listen to it; it takes you places in your mind, you’re seeing something. 

—

Sam: Okay, so with that, selfishly, I have to ask you this question; How did “Video Girl” come to existence? I can confidently say that I haven’t witnessed a better song/video package this year than “Video Girl”. I’ve been around since you dropped your first single, you were a little smaller…then I see this video of you in a red jacket and it looked like you completely transformed…I don’t even know what I’m asking, but tell me about “Video Girl”. 

Daniel: So, there actually is a pretty cool story behind it. It was 2020 and it was my first time moving out and I was in New York. I had been planning this forever. I always wanted to move out simply to take control of my life the way I wanted it. I think I deleted all of my social media, because I didn’t have any music out. I made a deal with myself that I was only going to read, meditate, make music, workout and cook all of my meals. Overall, I just wanted to grow into the person in my head. Like the optimal version of self. So, that’s what I did. That was my lifestyle. I would also listen to a lot of music. And I’m pretty sure FKA Twigs has this song called “Video Girl” and I was more obsessed with the title than the song, ya know? So, as soon as I saw the title, I was like, “I’m going to make a song with that same title.” This was in 2020. Fast forward one year, I was in LA, working with producers and this guy named Sigurd sent over a pack of beats and that song was on it…

—

Sam: Man, that’s so tough!!!

Daniel: Exactly. The moment I heard it, I just knew. It was fun. It was infectious. You could dance to this. And its funny because it was my first time visiting and staying in AirBnb’s. Khufu and I had shot a video in late 2020 that never came out. We had a girl for that video and I started talking to her, hanging out, spending time, all of that. That’s exactly what it was. But she had a very tumultuous life. She was in the LA scene…Model…around the parties, drugs and that’s exactly what the song was about…”I’ll live in your world, even if it’s burning down….I sit and think of all I can be for you…” Because at that point, I was still new to LA. I felt very small and at that point, I was thinking that I had to amplify certain parts of myself to get her attention. Even though we were still hanging out and things were good, I felt like I had a slight inferiority and that’s what the song is about.

—

Sam: Wow, what a crazy thought. And what makes it crazy is that it’s true. I told you this before, but, I smoked a cigarette for this first time after watching your music video for “Video Girl” and it was the same situation. Trying to impress a girl; and honestly not to even impress her, but just to mesh with her. Wow, I absolutely love that song. This is crazy.

Daniel: Yes bro. It’s one of the few songs I haven’t gotten sick of. And I think that song still is going to have its moment. Who knows, it might be a year from now, but that song is going to hit people at the right time. When I had the title, I just knew that it was going to be a song…Just the title alone, I knew it had to be something. So, yeah, that’s how it went. 

—

Sam: How about the video? That’s a key part of this too.

Daniel: Yeah, on the video part…In 2017, my dad had this old biker jacket. A red and black jacket. It was around the time when Frank dropped Blonde and I was super into what he was doing. Dyeing his hair and all of those things…So, of course I dyed my hair blonde and started wearing this jacket and blue jeans. The contrast of the blonde hair and the red, it all looked fire. It just had to be a creative direction at some point. It wasn’t there yet, but I knew it was going to be. Once it came time though, I had “Video Girl” and the other songs, so I knew this was going to be it. And conceptually, I was thinking, “What can this era represent and who can I be so people can dress up like me for Halloween?” It has to be that concise. It’s a character. That was the rough think of it, then I had a reference photo of a guy who was bloodied up with a cigarette in his mouth and I was like let’s combine these two photos and surround myself with a bunch of bad bitches. The “Video Girl” video was definitely exaggerated, but realistic at the same time. 

—

Sam: Beautiful man…Second to last question coming up right now. One thing that I admire about this rollout is that it seemed like you and Khufu had a concrete plan that ya’ll saw all the way to completion. What was the plan that y’all came up with?

Daniel: First, it all came down to figuring out what were we the biggest fans of. It always came back to artists who told stories and connected a lot of things within songs and videos. This whole project is just part one and it’s the beginning steps of me moving out of my hometown, getting to LA, meeting new people. An era of really experiencing things that I would see in my head for so long. We wanted to tie it all together in a creative way and that was really the plan.

—

Sam: Final question. “Peaking” is out. Looking back, what advice would you give younger Daniel before all of this happened?

Daniel: I don’t know if I would say anything. I would just tell him, “You know exactly what you’re doing”.

—