During his final year at Rutgers University, Daniel Smith turned his senior thesis into a full-length album. A collection of offbeat pop melodies with Christian overtones, A Prayer for Every Hour sparked a prolific streak for Smith, who released six more records under a variety of surname-based monikers—Danielson, the Danielson Famile, and Brother Danielson—during the decade that followed. He also launched a label, signed several upstart bands, hung out with Sufjan Stevens, and started a family. Then, following the release of 2006’s Ships, Daniel Smith took a break.
Five years later, Smith returns with Best of Gloucester County, a new album that straddles the (rarely crossed) border between oddball indie pop and evangelical neo-gospel. It’s also a tribute to Smith’s South Jersey hometown, where Patti Smith spent her teenage years before moving to New York City. Smith will leave Gloucester County next month, when he launches a four-week countrywide tour in support of the album’s Feb. 22 release.
There’s much to do before then, including a partially constructed studio to complete and a label, Sounds Familyre, to run. While finishing some pre-tour home repairs last week, Smith caught up with Paste about the album.
Paste: How’s your morning going? Did we just pull you away from something?
Daniel Smith: We’re building some things in our studio. There’s some more work to do before another session starts, so I’ve got my construction clothes on this week.
Paste: It’s a new studio, right? Lots of traffic already?
Smith: Last year was spent doing a lot of in-house projects for Sounds Familyre, as well as the new Danielson album. Those projects really filled it up. We’ve got another four things booked this year, though, so it’s looking pretty busy.
Paste: And you recorded Best of Gloucester County there?
Smith: We did the first half in my old studio, which is my parents’ basement. We did many of the overdubs and all the mixing in the new studio, though.
Paste: What’s the place like?
Smith: It’s a full, proper recording studio in a building behind my house. Eighteen-foot ceilings. Big live room. It has a decent sized isolation room and a separate control room, too. It’s set up so bands can record as live as they want to, which is pretty important for me.
Paste: And it’s located in Gloucester County, New Jersey, which is part of your new album’s title. Did the location inspire the music?
Smith: The music came as it always does; it’s just a process of collecting bits of songs, melodies and chord structures. You take lyrics from everyday life, and then you just need to find time to put the songs together. As the album was shaping up, we decided to release it ourselves, making it the first Danielson release on Sounds Familyre. So there was this immediate shift in the way we were thinking about the album. It started off as a practical thing—just putting all our chips into our own label, including my own music—and from there, I started to get excited about being back in the town I grew up in. As a frustrated teenager, I only saw what it lacked. Now, I’m able to enjoy an area for what it is, not what it’s not, and the album turned into a fun challenge to appreciate a very unromantic kind of area. As we continue to make art and release it on our small little label, I think that’s what we’ve decided to do: to enjoy everyday life and the mundane, and to turn it into something good rather than get frustrated about what it’s lacking.
Paste: What’s Gloucester like?
Smith: It’s pretty rural. In a lot of ways, it’s a suburb of Philadelpha. A lot of people work in the city and then come out to the country because it’s cheaper living out here. But even though it’s close to Philly, there’s still a lot of farming out there. There are some developments going up, but it’s still very much a farming area. Open fields and greenery and trees—it’s all part of what I love around here. And that’s what I mean when I talk about the challenge of looking around and trying to appreciate something that maybe I’d looked past before.
Paste: It’s been five years since you’ve released an album. Has the process of putting out a new record changed since 2006?
Smith: There are different people involved this time, but the basic approach to making a Danielson record hasn’t changed very much. It’s clearly changed on the business side, though. The business is just a really strange one, and in my mind, I’ve come to a place where I’m not expecting my own music to sustain me financially. I have to do many other things for it to pay the bills, so I don’t have that unreasonable expectation that one’s own music alone is gonna cut it. And I think that takes pressure off the music-making process, too. It doesn’t take it out of the equation—you always have to think about business a bit—but in terms of the approach to writing and recording, if you’re making an album while hoping it’s gonna reach a certain number of sales, it can really ruin the process.
Paste: Given your involvement with the label and the studio, is it hard to set some creative time aside for songwriting?
Smith: It’s something I have to carve out time for. But at the same time, it’s the thing I love to do the most. For this record, it’s been five years since we put out the last one, and a lot of that time was just me not writing at all. I wasn’t feeling it yet. My approach has never been to sit down and try to churn something out. At this point, if there’s something happening in my gut, I’ll take the time for it. But if I’m not feeling it, I can’t just force it to happen.
Paste: What got you writing again?
Smith: It was just time. It was a year and a half ago that I started, and I had some song ideas I wanted to complete. I’d been collecting stuff for a couple years. For me, it’s a pretty mystical experience. It comes when it comes, and that’s the way it is. I don’t really question it.
Paste: Now that your kids have gotten older, do they play a part in that process, too?
Smith: Of course, because I’m always trying to write from a perspective that pays attention to everyday life and tries to look out for the moments that might easily pass on by. Family life, everyday chores, and relationships in general play a key role.
Paste: What do the kids think about the new album?
Smith: Oh, they love it. My son’s two, and he’s already listened to it so much that I’m getting sick of the record. So if he’s any indication, this thing is gonna be huge!
Paste: As always, you’ve got some family members playing on the album. Will the touring lineup be the same? Will Sufjan Stevens, who plays on the record, also be involved?
Smith: We’ll have the core lineup of the album, in terms of basic instrumentation. The female backup singers will rotate between my sisters and my wife, depending on who can make it for each night. Sufjan is too busy, of course, but everyone else will be there on tour.
Paste: Even with your family members involved, this is a very different lineup from your past projects. Does playing with new people allow you to do new things?
Smith: I don’t know. Whoever I’m working with—whether it’s family or friends—they’re all individuals who bring their personalities and immediate reactions to the interpretation of each song. And I want them to do that. Everyone’s a unique character. They’re all gonna bring interesting things because they’re interesting people. Hopefully, every record we make is gonna bring something new, whether it’s new musicians or new sounds.
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