| George Daniel | |
| Landscape: | yes |
| Birth Name: | George Bedford Daniel |
| Birth Date: | 23 March 1990 |
| Birth Place: | Brussels, Belgium |
| Instruments: | Drums, keyboard, synthesizer |
| Years Active: | 2002–present |
| Origin: | Wilmslow, England |
| Current Member Of: | The 1975 |
| Partner: | Charli XCX (2022–present; engaged) |
George Bedford Daniel (born March 23, 1990), is a Belgian-British drummer, record producer, and electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of pop band the 1975. His songwriting and producing partnership with the 1975's Matty Healy made him the co-recipient of four Brit Awards, and two Ivor Novello Awards including Songwriter of the Year. He has also been co-nominated twice for the Mercury Prize, and once for the Grammy Awards.
Daniel has also co-produced the Japanese House's Good at Falling and In the End It Always Does, which charted at numbers 64 and 29 on the UK Albums Chart respectively, and Charli XCX's songs "In the City" and "Apple", which charted at No. 41 and 8 on the UK singles chart. In addition, his Beabadoobee and PinkPantheress co-production "Tinkerbell is Overrated" has been cited as an inspiration by Coupdekat.
George Bedford Daniel[1] was born in Brussels, Belgium, and grew up in Seattle, Washington, U.S..[2] He was first inspired by the airiness of Fleetwood Mac's works.[3] He later moved to England and enrolled at Wilmslow High School.[4] In 2002, he joined the 1975 as drummer, replacing Matty Healy,[5] who had been promoted to lead singer, replacing future Editors keyboardist Elliott Williams.[6] At the time, the band were an emo band called Drive Like I Do.[7]
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 the likes of Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert, Squarepusher, and Boards of Canada, and Daniel would regularly use the studio at college to work on 1975 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.[8]
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.[9] 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)[10] before releasing the 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), all five of which topped the UK Albums Chart.[11]
In October 2012, he played drums on "Bayonne" on Little Comets' Life Is Elsewhere,[12] which charted at No. 70 on the UK Albums Chart.[13] In 2015, after Healy met the Japanese House via an ex-girlfriend, he and Daniel coproduced her EP Pools to Bathe In;[14] the Japanese House and Daniel would later coproduce her EPs Clean (2015, with Healy),[15] Swim Against the Tide (2016),[16] and Saw You in a Dream (2017, with Healy),[17] followed by her albums Good at Falling (2019, with BJ Burton)[18] and In the End It Always Does (2023, with Chloe Kraemer),[19] which charted at numbers 64 and 29 on the UK Albums Chart.[20] In 2017, Healy and Daniel produced Pale Waves' "There's a Honey"[21] and "Television Romance".[22]
In 2018, after Healy emailed No Rome inviting him to the UK,[23] he and Daniel produced Rome's third EP, RIP Indo Hisashi,[24] as well as his fourth EP the following year, Crying in the Prettiest Places. In 2020, while at that year's St Jerome's Laneway Festival, Healy, Daniel, and Charli XCX worked on No Rome's 2021 single "Spinning", which was credited to "No Rome feat. Charli XCX & The 1975",[25] and charted at No. 94 on the UK Singles Chart;[26] later that year, Daniel and Burton coproduced Rome's album It's All Smiles.[27] Also in 2021, Healy and Daniel coproduced Beabadoobee's Our Extended Play,[28] and the following year Daniel coproduced her and PinkPantheress' "Tinkerbell is Overrated". The track later appeared on Beabadoobee's album Beatopia,[29] which charted at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart.[30] In March 2023, Coupdekat stated that "Tinkerbell is Overrated" had inspired her 2023 song "Babyteef".[31]
In March 2022, Daniel and A. G. Cook produced the title track to Charli XCX's album Crash,[32] and later that month Daniel produced its deluxe version tracks "Selfish Girl" and "How Can I Not Know What I Need Right Now".[33] The following July, he produced her "Hot Girl", which appeared on the soundtrack for Bodies Bodies Bodies,[34] and the following month he coproduced her and Leo Birenberg's Bottoms.[35] In January 2023, they teamed up for a remix of Caroline Polachek's "Welcome to My Island",[36] and that October, he co-produced XCX's and Sam Smith's single "In the City",[37] which charted at No. 41 on the UK singles chart. He then produced XCX's "Club Classics" and "Apple", which appeared on her 2024 album Brat;[38] "Apple" charted at No. 8 on the UK singles chart, and Daniel would later go viral after refusing to take part in the song's dance.[39] 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.[40] 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". 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.[41] That September, he remixed Coco & Clair Clair's "The Hills (feat. Deela)",[42] which appeared on the deluxe version of their album Sexy.[43]
Daniel spent lockdown practicing his deejaying skills, and would spend post-pandemic 1975 afterparties doing so. After their Finsbury Park gig, which took place on 2 July 2023 and saw Healy apologise for multiple personal indiscretions,[44] 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. 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 Tove Lo and TimFromTheHouse.[45] The track had previously been performed at several of XCX's DJ sets and at a set by Jamie xx.[46]
In May 2016, while on the 1975's I Like It When You Sleep Tour, 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.[47] In 2021, he was dealing with depression which, combined with Healy's breakup with FKA Twigs, prompted the band to hit a wall during the making of the band's fifth studio album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language.[48]
Daniel's relationship with British musician Charli XCX was made public in May 2022,[49] and they announced their engagement in November 2023.[50] She first revealed the news 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,[51] XCX stated that the pair were "fucking for life".[52] The Brat track "Club Classics" mentions Daniel by name, while "Talk Talk" was written 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, followed him into a toilet but stopped short of introducing herself.
See main article: List of awards and nominations received by the 1975. As part of the 1975, he is joint recipient of a Brit Award for British Group in 2017[53] and 2019, a Brit Award for British Album of the Year in 2019,[54] and a Brit Award for Best Rock/Alternative Act in 2023,[55] and an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year in 2019;[56] additionally, they won British Album of the Year at the 2019 Brit Awards for A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, and an Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song for their song "Love It If We Made It". Daniel and Healy were nominated for Songwriter of the Year at the 2023 Ivor Novello Awards.[57] The band were also nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2016 for I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It[58] and in 2019 for A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships,[59] and for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for "Give Yourself a Try" in 2020.[60]