All eyes on... Dan Caplen (english)

All eyes on... Dan Caplen (english)

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No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to remember how I came across Dan Caplen‘s music. I don’t know if it was because of a comment on Instagram, a YouTube recommendation, his video showing up on my Facebook feed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t BECAUSE of it, but THANKS to it. Cause what I do remember is that it occurred on a quite moody Friday in November, which urged me to claim that this musical discovery was the best thing happening to me that day. As soon as I heard that tone, I knew that I wanted to drown all my sorrows in it through clumsy harmonies.

Formerly known as D/C, Dan Caplen is a British singer-songwriter who grew up listening to a lot of jazz and neo soul, and getting later on familiar with hip hop, UKG and electronica thanks to his brother. Now, what makes all the difference to me is his classical training: aside from the piano, he also plays the cello and you should know that I’m a sucker for strings, with a little extra fondness for this instrument often described as being the closest to the human voice. Daniel’s skills got him a full music scholarship in the United States, where he studied for 4 years. “I applied to universities in the UK, but got offered a music scholarship to go to Lewis & Clark College in the US. I based my decision on going out there purely on watching Superbad… I wasn’t disappointed. McLovin’s everywhere”, he recalled for Notion Mag.

Ultimately, this fount of influences gave him his ticket to the music industry. Singing since the age of 16 (just because it was handy for his first instrumentals), Dan Caplen admits in Hunger Magazine that he “didn’t think [he] would be a singer…”. “I always thought I’d be behind the scenes”, he added. But following the advice of his cello teacher Jeff Leonard, he uploaded in 2012 a brilliant mashup of SBTRKT‘s Wildfire, Kid Cudi‘s Day & Night, Labrinth‘s Earthquake and No Doubt‘s Don’t Speak, using the body of his instrument as percussion.

I don’t really know how suddenly everything fell into place but in June 2014, Dan Caplen ended up in the credits of George Ezra‘s debut album for playing a bit of cello on Blame It On Me while his vocals were being featured on Audio MonstersTrouble. In November, he eventually signed a record deal with Atlantic Records UK.

Here comes the part where I get frustrated: I wish I could link all the songs which made me fall in love with him, such as I Love Gold and Devil On My Shoulder but they have all been set to private, just like his Epiphany EP has disappeared from the iTunes store. But you can still enjoy another one of his flavorful mashups as I’ve managed to find Well Lit Hometown (combining Kanye West‘s All Of The Lights, Adele‘s Hometown Glory and Bruno MarsJust The Way You Are) on his Bandcamp page. Or you might prefer to get a little taste of his oldest original song still available at the moment: The Fall.


The good news is that Dan Caplen is far from being lazy and recently released Bad Man and All My Sins, two soulful demos where our man is taking it to church!


Dan Caplen is currently in the process of creating his debut album, which he partly recorded in Los Angeles and might contain some collaborations with Dave Tozer (John Legend, Kimbra), Stephen ‘Di Genius’ McGregor (Ne-Yo, Nelly Furtado, Sean Paul) and Levi Lennox (who produced Zayn‘s debut solo single Pillowtalk) according to his Instagram posts. The singer also started touring with Anne-Marie (and will also be Jay Prince‘s support act next month) and blessed my ears with a few snippets of new songs he’s been working on in the studio. There is indeed more to come to keep us patiently waiting: Dan Caplen is planning on introducing himself properly with an EP called Bad Man, which will include his brand new (and very addictive) track Longing For You produced by Hoost. “Wanting something you can’t or shouldn’t have is a bitch, but something we all feel at some point, whether it’s a person, time, a cigarette, drugs…”, he explained to Clash Magazine. I guess you all know what I’ll be longing for in 2016…

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