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DANIELSONBY DYLAN PETERSON

DANIEL SMITH IS AN INDIE-MUSIC WONDER

“We received Daniel [Smith]’s cassette tape demo in themail one day and took a listen,” says Brandon Ebel, thepresident of Tooth & Nail Records. “At rst we thought it

was bad,then we thought it was a joke, but the more welistened to it we realized it was brilliant.”

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“IT WAS SOME OF THE MOST UNIQUE MUSIC I hadever heard,” he continues. “His lyrics were mind-blowing, hisvocals like nothing I had ever heard, and the overall originalityin his art was very powerful and intentional. It was clear thathis work was not the chaotic result of a mind in mayhem, butof a carefully crafted and methodically approached creativeprocess.”

The rst Danielson track, “Smooth Death,” appeared onthe Tooth & Nail Rock Sampler in 1997. The song begins, It’sgoing to be a smooth death, take it slow / I’ll take a diet shaketo go . It then ends with, Take a bath in the blood / What theblood really means . It’s easily the most bizarre song on the CD(lyrically and musically), and took many listeners by surprise.It was beyond what anyone knew of indie rock at the t ime.

Danielson was weird. While Staryer 59 shoegazed andPedro the Lion moped, Danielson chirped like a helium-induced carnie.

“There were a lot of mean Christian reviews that came outfor that rst record,” Smith remembers. “You’d be surprisedhow it upset people. And lyrically it was words taken straightfrom the Bible, the music just upset certain folks.”

Though his music was released on Tooth & Nail, Smithnever liked the idea of making music exclusive to a faithsubculture. “I decided that there were fundamentals to

some of those philosophies of having a kind of separatedculture that I never really connected with,” he says. “I don’tmake Christian music, I just make music. It comes from myrelationship with God, and I want this music to be available toreach anyone who wants to hear it.”

Indie musician Glen Galloway, founder of the groupSoul-Junk, actually inspired Smith to pursue his art. “When Iread about him and got his records I thought, ‘Wow, there’ssomebody in the indie world who’s making incredible punkrock music for God. I’ve got to connect with this guy,’ and oncewe connected, we just had to tour together,” Smith says. “Itshowed me how important it is to connect to people you relatewith creatively and spiritually.”

Smith’s live show embodies his everyone-is-welcome

ideology. “What I like about playing in clubs [as opposed tochurches] is you can have Christian kids coming, but you can

also have folks coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, side by sidein a room, enjoying music together,” Smith says. “I feel very strongly thatChristians are supposed to be in the world and not of it.”

The problem is, he doesn’t quite t in either. “It’s certainly been said thatwe’re too weird for the Christians and too spiritual for the folks who don’twant to hear about that stuff,” Smith says. “I don’t care about any of that.For me, this is a very natural culmination of things that I love.”

Smith started a record label, Sounds Familyre, which hosts Half-handedCloud, Ben + Vesper, Woven Hand and Sufjan Stevens—the latter of whomwas heavily inuenced by Smith. It has become the stuff of indie legend thatStevens got his start touring and playing with Danielson.

Stevens remembers his rst trip: “Danielson was going on a tour and

Chris, the keyboardist, couldn’t make some of the dates, so I went down toSouth Jersey to rehearse with the family. I played the farsa.” This ll-in

job meant that Stevens had to join in on a strange regularity that goes intoDanielson’s live shows: costumes.

Smith says it’s “something to occupy your eyes while listening to themusic to put all the parts together.” At a Danielson show, the strange musiccomes to life, as your eyes could be occupied with seven or eight people inshiny, white nurse uniforms, with Smith standing in the middle of the stagein a tree outt.

After Stevens toured with Danielson, Smith produced Stevens’ SevenSwans album. “There are some obvious residuals from spending so muchtime in hospital scrubs in a family band,” Stevens says. “But the biggestinuence has probably been the visionary aspect of Danielson. Daniel’s got a

wild imagination and he’s incredibly resourceful.”While Stevens is known for his multi-instrumental prowess and musical

concepts—he’s still talking about making an album for each of the 50states—he admires Smith for the execution of his ideas. “I’ve always likedbig concepts, and I nd his comprehension of the ‘big picture’ prettyfascinating,” Stevens says. “He works it out with songs and drawings andcostumes. It’s a beautiful and odd world that he creates, and it’s constantlyexpanding.”

For many indie fans, Stevens was another small branch of the DanielsonFamile—people didn’t usually hear of him unless it was through Danielson.But in 2005, Stevens released Illinois , an album that took him to the heightsof critical acclaim. From there, music fans no longer heard of Stevensthrough Danielson—rather, the tables turned.

Smith is happy about Stevens’ fame, but remembers the most importantaspect of their relationship. “I don’t know how many people are hearingabout Danielson through Sufjan,” he laughs, “but I’m thrilled to hear thatthey are. That’s what friends do, they point to each other.”

Danielson is based on authentic relationships—quite literally, consideringthe band name. “The starting point was, ‘OK, my name’s Smith and I’m a son.I’m going to call my songs “Danielson,”’ and it came out of a very quiet timewith the Lord and asking Him to reveal to me what that means,” he says.

Other identity shifts in Smith’s musical career have included DanielsonFamile (when his family is touring with him) and Tri-Danielson, which is basedon the trinity. “I had this conceptual idea to talk about the mystery of the

trinity and break into three different bands and have all three sides tell thesame story, made up of different personas,” he says.

He later became Brother Danielson, recording and touring as a solo artist.Most recently, though, he’s gone back to the original (and least confusing)name of Danielson. “In the past I thought it was funny to be really cryptic,”he explains. But now, Smith wants to clear up the confusion. SecretlyCanadian released Trying Hartz in 2008, a double-disc retrospective on therst 10 years of Danielson. The album doesn’t change the past but solidiesthat the mystery and incarnations were all from the same source, and wereinspired by the same things.

“I grew up l istening to my dad write folk-gospel songs,” Smith says.“From that and listening to Bob Dylan and Beatles records as a child, I hada real foundation for my love of music. Now that I’d learned about all thesedifferent sounds and different conceptual ideas, instrumentations, song

structures, chords and approaches, I just wanted to put it all down and say,‘Who am I?’”

So, he began Danielson. “Out of that came singing in falsetto sometimesand coming from a place of vulnerability and childlikeness,” he says.“Because you must become like a little child to enter the kingdom of God.”

Stevens bears testimony to Smith’s childlikeness: “The faith of his musicis about uninching love, about presuming the best. He’s a man of deepconvictions. The rest of the world is caught up in petty, whimsical fashions,but Daniel’s got a vision of his ownand he’s sticking with it because it’sa vision of the heart of God.”

Smith is dedicated to the ideaof community in his art. “It’s nota style of music that we’re talking

about, it’s relationship,” he says.“You can trust a true relationshipand true support for each other.If everything starts having asound, then that becomes reallyuninteresting.”

“I just love the mystery andthe unknown side of this,” he says.“I feel like I’m able to watch andenjoy as much as anybody becauseI really do feel like I don’t knowwhat’s going to happen.” 2

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