A Quote by Dan Smith

There's definitely a couple of people I'll play stuff to when it's nearly finished just to see what they think; Mark, our producer, his wife is Australian and just listens to the radio - she's awesome - and, I guess, is quite a casual music listener.
I guess I would definitely feel a bit of a void in what people are getting from music these days. And I think that the problem lies not so much on the listener. People kind of listen to what is presented to them, whether it be on the radio or at a local venue.
I think I'm a whole lot to handle. I definitely am, on every aspect. I'm the video director. I'm the graphics designer. I'm the rapper. I'm the visionary. I'm the music producer. I'm the executive producer. I'm just going to end it off to be poetic: I'm the future of music.
I am no theologian. I am a layman. I am among those who are preached to, and who listen. It is not for me to preach. I should not willingly forego being a listener, a man who reads the Gospels and then listens to what others say that our Lord meant. But sometimes a listener speaks out, and listens to his own voice.
I would like to work with Ed Sheeran at some point. I really admire his songwriting, and I just think he has a great voice and great artistry. Who else? On the producer side of things, definitely Diplo: that'd be awesome.
I always think about Katharine Graham - she was the publisher of The Washington Post. In her autobiography she talks about the way her parents met. Her father was, I think, in New York just walking by on his way home and looked into a store and saw the lady that became his wife. It was just pure luck. And she said that it once again reminds her of the role that luck and chance play in our life. I really believe that, too.
It's pretty awesome to be in a band with your wife! The tour, it beats you down, and we can just share that, and sometimes revel in the experience. If she wasn't here, or she was just here as a civilian, she maybe would feel uncomfortable.
Doing new stuff live is tough just simply because I pay my money, I stand in my seats, and I see the guys I love. And if I paid that ticket, there's a good chance that I'm there to hear the stuff that made me fall in love with 'em - we call it the "old stuff." And if an artist comes in town and dumps his entire new album on me, as a listener in a concert venue, it happens to miss out on the old stuff that I came there for. That doesn't work too well for me as a listener. Most of the time for concerts, it's the old stuff.
For making music for myself, I just need to be happy. I'm the producer, the director, and the listener.
I just listen to a lot of stuff. Sometimes I play music; a lot of times, it will be stuff from back in the day. Sometimes I scan through the radio. Not the average stations that play the everyday thing.
My mum especially listens to music in a way that is incredibly feelings-based. There's virtually no snobbery about what sounds are in it, she just wants to hear a song and that is quite refreshing.
You put music in categories because you need to define a sound, but when you don't play it on your so-called radio stations that claim to be R&B or jazz or whatever... All music is dance music. But when people think of dance music, they think of techno or just house. Anything you can dance to is dance music. I don't care if it's classical, funk, salsa, reggae, calypso; it's all dance music.
People used to think of vocal music as boring choir stuff, once you figured out that you can do crazy beat-boxing, awesome bass lines (and) throw everything together, you just have really cool music.
I think the parts I was offered when I was younger, where I was asked to play that kind of slacker person, that was just because people would go, "Oh, she has dyed black hair." I guess that's how they thought I looked. I played a couple of those roles, and then unfortunately you get pigeonholed really fast, and then you just keep getting asked to do that. And now it would be weird at the age of 46 for me to play a slacker. It would look like I was nuts.
Aretha Franklin, she's just the most amazing singer ever. But I think there are so many singers that I just loved and sang along to on the radio. I guess I just enjoy trying out different styles along the way.
The music you play, it's never intended for other people, so it's quite amazing dealing with stuff now, because obviously any tracks I write, a lot of folks are going to hear. It definitely plays on my mind quite a lot.
I definitely prefer things to be dark, I definitely prefer things to not be particularly obvious. I like a lot of mystery in music, and I like it when things don't sound just like what they sound like always. But at the same time I like everything to sound very earnest and honest. So I don't really think that I have a definite stamp, but if people see that, that's awesome.
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