George Daniel

George Bedford Daniel is a British drummer, record producer, DJ and electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of the rock band the 1975, as part of which he released five albums that topped the UK Albums Chart. His songwriting and producing partnership with the band's vocalist Matty Healy made him the co-recipient of multiple awards and nominations including two Ivor Novello Awards and four Brit Awards. He has also been co-nominated twice for the Mercury Prize and once for the Grammy Awards. He released his debut single, "Screen Cleaner", in August 2024.

Charli XCX announced her relationship with Daniel in May 2022 and their engagement in November 2023. He is the subject of her song "Talk Talk" and produced her tracks " In the City", " Club Classics" and "Apple". "In the City" and "Apple" charted on the UK singles chart at numbers 41 and 8. He also co-produced the Japanese House's ''Good at Falling'' and ''In the End It Always Does'', which charted on the UK Albums Chart at numbers 64 and 29 respectively, and co-produced Beabadoobee and PinkPantheress's "Tinkerbell Is Overrated", which has been cited as an inspiration by Coupdekat.

Life and career

Early and personal life and the 1975

George Bedford Daniel was born in Brussels, Belgium, and grew up in Seattle, Washington, US. He was first inspired by the airiness of Fleetwood Mac's works. He later moved to England and enrolled at Wilmslow High School. In 2002, he joined the 1975 as drummer, replacing Matty Healy, who had been promoted to lead singer, replacing future Editors keyboardist Elliott Williams. At the time, the band made emo music and used the name Drive Like I Do. Having taken music technology at GCSE, Daniel left school at sixteen and studied electronic music at a Manchester college. While there, his tutors introduced him to works by Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert, Squarepusher, and Boards of Canada, and Daniel would regularly use the studio at college to work on the band's wares, even going so far as to submit 1975 content as coursework. To keep the band together, Daniel and bandmates Adam Hann and Ross MacDonald went to university in Manchester, during which time all four members worked as delivery drivers for a Chinese restaurant.

By 2010, the band was being managed by Jamie Oborne. After finding that labels were not interested, Oborne set up Dirty Hit, and signed the band for £20. On that label, the 1975 released four extended plays ('' Facedown'' in August 2012, ''Sex'' in November 2012, ''Music for Cars'' in March 2013 and '' IV'' in May 2013), the UK Albums Chart-topping albums ''The 1975'' (2013), ''I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It'' (2016), '' A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships'' (2018), '' Notes on a Conditional Form'' (2020) and '' Being Funny in a Foreign Language'' (2022), and multiple singles including " Give Yourself a Try" and " Love It If We Made It". Their second and third albums were nominated for the Mercury Prize, with the latter winning a Brit Award for British Album of the Year in 2019, while "Give Yourself a Try" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 2020 and "Love It If We Made It" won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song. With Healy, Daniel was jointly nominated for Songwriter of the Year at the 2023 Ivor Novello Awards, and with the 1975, Daniel is joint recipient of 2017's Brit Award for British Group, 2019's '' GQ'' Band of the Year award at the ''GQ'' Men of the Year Awards and Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year, 2020's ''NME'' Band Of The Decade Award, Best British Band and ''NME'' Innovation Award at that year's ''NME'' awards, and 2023's Brit Award for British Rock/Alternative Act.

In May 2016, Daniel broke his shoulder after slipping off their tour bus. He was temporarily replaced by the Japanese House's drummer Freddy Sheed, whom he later congratulated for learning their entire set in less than 24 hours. The band toured their Music for Cars tour between 2018 and March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic ended it early. Daniel spent lockdown practicing his deejaying skills. At the 2019 ''GQ'' Awards, he was photographed with Charli XCX, who announced their relationship in May 2022; her 2024 track "Talk Talk" was about an incident at the 2020 ''NME'' Awards in which XCX, who had been talking to Daniel online but had not yet met him in person, almost followed him into a toilet but stopped short of introducing herself. Both XCX and the 1975 featured on "Spinning", a UK No. 94 single for No Rome, which they had worked on at that year's St Jerome's Laneway Festival in 2020. XCX announced their engagement in November 2023 in a selfie uploaded to her private Instagram account in which she flaunted a diamond ring. In subsequent since-deleted photos with Daniel uploaded to her public Instagram account, XCX stated that the pair were "fucking for life". The pair were subjected to rumours in January 2025 that they had married in Bratislava.

The 1975's fifth album was delayed by the band hitting a wall as a result of Daniel's depression and Healy's breakup with FKA Twigs. The band resumed touring in March 2022 and later mounted the At Their Very Best and Still... At Their Very Best tours; Daniel spent post-pandemic 1975 afterparties deejaying. After a gig at Finsbury Park, which took place on 2 July 2023 and saw Healy apologise for multiple personal indiscretions, Dirty Hit's general manager suggested mounting a Dirty Hit club night, prompting a suggestion that the label launch an imprint. At the time, XCX's managers had just began managing Kelly Lee Owens, who Daniel had been wanting to collaborate with for some years. Later that month, comments made by Healy at Malaysia's Good Vibes Festival got the festival cancelled two days early, prompting its organiser to sue the band's individual members for restitution. Healy later stated in a September 2023 concert in Sacramento that the band would go on "indefinite hiatus" after finishing their booked run of concerts; at the time, their last scheduled gig was in March 2024.

Daniel later signed Owens to Dh2, which launched in July 2024 with her single "Love You Got" and with a party at Phonox in Brixton. The party involved performances from the imprint's first signing Kelly Lee Owens and from DJs Oscar Farrell and TimFromTheHouse. The following month, he released "Screen Cleaner", a glitchy three-minute-30-second dance track cowritten by both its vocalist Tove Lo and TimFromTheHouse. The track had previously been performed at various events including appearances with XCX at Glastonbury Festival, Boiler Room New York, Amnesia in Ibiza, and Venue MOT with Jamie xx in London. Remixes were later released by Farrell and Kelbin. In November 2024, Daniel released a further track, "Chlorine", which combined ambient music and techno. A further track, February 2025's "Volc3", featured Farrell.

Other works

In October 2012, he played drums on "Bayonne" on Little Comets's '' Life Is Elsewhere'', which charted at No. 70 on the UK Albums Chart. In 2015, after Healy met the Japanese House via an ex-girlfriend, he and Daniel coproduced her EP '' Pools to Bathe In.'' She and Daniel would later coproduce her EPs '' Clean'' (2015, with Healy), '' Swim Against the Tide'' (2016), and '' Saw You in a Dream'' (2017, with Healy), followed by her albums ''Good at Falling'' (2019, with BJ Burton) and ''In the End It Always Does'' (2023, with Chloe Kraemer). The last two of these which charted at numbers 64 and 29 on the UK Albums Chart. In 2017, Healy and Daniel produced Pale Waves's " There's a Honey" and "Television Romance".

In 2018, after Healy emailed No Rome inviting him to the UK, he and Daniel produced Rome's third EP, ''RIP Indo Hisashi'', as well as his fourth EP the following year, ''Crying in the Prettiest Places''. In 2021, Daniel and Burton coproduced Rome's album ''It's All Smiles.'' In June 2021, Healy and Daniel coproduced Beabadoobee's ''Our Extended Play.'' The following year, Daniel co-produced Beabadoobee and PinkPantheress's "Tinkerbell is Overrated". The track later appeared on Beabadoobee's album ''Beatopia'', which charted at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart. In March 2023, Coupdekat stated that "Tinkerbell is Overrated" had inspired her 2023 song "Babyteef".

In March 2022, Daniel and A. G. Cook produced the title track to Charli XCX's album '' Crash'', and later that month Daniel produced its deluxe version tracks "Selfish Girl" and "How Can I Not Know What I Need Right Now". The following July, he produced her single "Hot Girl", which appeared on the soundtrack for ''Bodies Bodies Bodies'', and the following month he coproduced her and Leo Birenberg's ''Bottoms''. In January 2023, they teamed up for a remix of Caroline Polachek's " Welcome to My Island", and that October, he co-produced XCX's and Sam Smith's single " In the City", which charted at No. 41 on the UK singles chart. For her 2024 album ''Brat'', he produced XCX's "Club Classics" and "Apple", the latter of which charted at No. 8 on the UK singles chart. "Club Classics" was released as a single alongside "B2B", which featured Daniel on the cover art. Daniel later went viral after refusing to take part in "Apple"'s dance, only relenting on the opening date of her Brat tour. In addition, ''Brat'''s "Sympathy Is a Knife" and "Club Classics" mention Daniel by name.

In May 2023, he coproduced "Feels Like My Hands Are On Fire" from Salute's EP ''Shield'', which also featured contributions from Sammy Virji and No Rome. Shaad D'Souza of ''The Face'' wrote in August 2024 that dance acts like Salute, Virji, and Floating Points had "energised" Daniel in "recent years". The following month, Daniel released two remixes of Salute and 's "Go!" from the former's album ''True Magic''. In August 2023, he released a remix of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Shadow", an album track from ''The Loveliest Time'', which she had released the previous month. That September, he remixed Coco & Clair Clair's "The Hills (feat. Deela)", which appeared on the deluxe version of their album ''Sexy''.

Notes

References

External links

*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, George
Living people
British indie rock musicians
English male drummers
Ivor Novello Award winners
Brit Award winners
English DJs
English electronic musicians
English experimental musicians
Polydor Records artists
English record producers
21st-century English composers
NME Awards winners
The 1975 members
Year of birth missing (living people)