If you decide to catch singer/songwriter Miles Daniel’s performance at Genevieve’s in the Peace Center on Feb. 4, you’ll be watching an artist who decided to change a fast-growing career midstream. Once upon a time, Daniel was known as a country singer named Seth Cook. But despite some career momentum, the Indiana boy never quite got comfortable in his cowboy boots.
“Miles is my bloodline,” he says later in the clip, “and Daniel is my middle name.”
As 2020 dawned, Daniel, a fiery, skilled guitarist, and his Grammy-nominated producer Matt McClure (Lee Brice, Kellie Pickler) started making music that was more dance-pop oriented, adding electronics and funky beats to Daniel’s sizzling six-string. It was both a dramatic departure and a revelation for Daniel.
“In the process of getting to this point, there’s a been a lot of development and a lot of beating my head around trying to figure out what it’s going to be,” Daniel says. “And I finally feel like my producer Matt and I have arrived at a sound that feels really cohesive but reverential to a lot of music I grew up listening to. I love dance music; I love to dance. I love Michael Jackson and Prince and Justin Timberlake and Whitney Houston, just to name a few. I feel like my music now is those sort of things but my own spin of that, you know, so it’s been fun kind of getting to pick and choose what influences to bring in along with a guitar approach to it as well.”
The sound was so different from what he had done before that Daniel felt he had to leave his old career behind entirely. And thus “Seth Cook, country artist” became “Miles Daniel, dance-pop singer.” Last September, he posted a YouTube video with samples of his new music and an explanation of his new name.
“I love dance music; I love to dance. I love Michael Jackson and Prince and Justin Timberlake and Whitney Houston, just to name a few.”
“It felt like a whole new identity musically,” he says in the video, “and for me it made the most sense to start rebranding the new music under a new name.
“Miles is my bloodline,” he says later in the clip, “and Daniel is my middle name.”
As confident as Daniel sounds in the video, he says it wasn’t the easiest move to make.
“It was such a hard decision because of what I was doing before,” he says. “But I feel like music is always going to be a part of me, and for me to build fans and to connect people with my music, I feel like the best route is to always be your true self. A lot of the music we’d been working on in the studio had been naturally going towards the sound anyway, so for me to make the shift was the only option, really. And I’m really happy about it.”
The plan for 2021 is for Daniel to release a new single every month until the summer.
“That’s really exciting because I’ve just never had a consistent year of releasing singles,” he says. “But it feels like right now is a perfect time to introduce a new sound the people never heard. It’s going to be a little bit of a process in the beginning getting people familiar with it, but I’m excited about it.”
In the meantime, Daniel says he’s looking forward to trying out his new pop material in a stripped-down setting at Genevieve’s.
“It takes me back to the beginning of writing the songs,” he says. “It’s really cool to kind of take it back to that beginning process when we were pulling a song out of thin air.”
What: Miles Daniel
Where: Genevieve’s in the Peace Center, 300 S. Main St., Greenville
When: Thursday, Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $200 (tables only, masks required)
Info: 864-467-3000, peacecenter.org
