Southern Rock artist Kyle Daniel has just released his debut album, ‘Kentucky Gold,’ showcasing his unmistakable talent in guitar playing, songwriting and storytelling. Every track holds Daniel’s signature gritty vocals, whether it’s the anthemic opener, ‘Can’t Hold Me Back’, bringing the heat with Maggie Rose on ‘Fire Me Up’ or slowing it down in ‘Divided We Are’.
A few weeks ahead of his first full band UK tour, including his return to The Long Road festival, Daniel chatted to me about the stories behind some of his tracks, the outpour of talent on his album and just how he found himself with a guitar in his hand way back when…
Kyle Daniel began to cut ‘Kentucky Gold’ back in 2020, right in the ‘dead of COVID’, battling against established artists for a voice in a market that was struggling to stay afloat. “It’s kind of felt like we just keep trudging through, trudging through,” he says about the process, “things kind of evolved and started happening and I just tried to ride the wave, and so to have that out after all this time, it feels like a huge sigh of relief.”
A combination of both patience and determination saw Daniel complete this album over four years. He initially recorded most of the album in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, had a stint in the studio with Jaren Johnston (The Cadillac Three) in 2022 and finally a remote cutting of four songs in December 2023, including the album’s opener, ‘Can’t Hold Me Back’.
The album maintains that southern rock sound – the beasty guitars and vocal drawls – for each carefully curated track. He laughs as we talk about how I’ve had the album on repeat, ready to see his show when he’s over here. “I appreciate you saying that,” he says in response to my small fangirl moment, “I didn’t want to write my debut record and be one of those that there were two or three songs that people liked on it.” Daniel’s vision was to create a “nostalgic record that you just put on and you take it off when it’s done.”
Listening to ‘Kentucky Gold’ does have that old school essence to it of playing the whole body of music through, rather than picking for a playlist. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve picked and added to my playlists, but it does also work beautifully as a journey of immense talent in songwriting and hits all the right spots for an album. It kind of reminds me of when my dad would stick on a Thin Lizzy or Genesis album – different genres but same sentiment – and we would listen to it from start to finish. ‘Kentucky Gold’ holds that nostalgic comfort whilst keeping us hooked with virtuoso guitars and clever lyricism. One thing’s for sure, this isn’t background music. This is an album you listen to.
Daniel bookends the record intentionally with two significant tracks. ‘Can’t Hold Me Back’ is a classic up tempo southern rock track which immediately captures you with hard hitting guitars whereas ‘Divided We Are’ closes the album quietly but purposefully. “I appreciate you noticing that,” he says as we discuss the two tracks, “it’s certain little things as an artist that you throw a ton of hooks up and you hope that it’s received the way you want it to be received.”
“I wanted the record to come out with a fury and I wanted it to close with a direct closing.” ‘Divided We Are’ was written around the 2020 elections and is still just as prevalent in 2024 as another election approaches for the USA. “We’re supposed to be the United States of America,” he says with a sense of frustration to his voice, “and we’re really not.” Daniel hasn’t been an artist to take a political stance, saying that he’s “never been that guy to pick a side and isolate myself or my fans,” but the track sits more as a “realisation of the reality of where we are and how unfortunate that is and maybe a cry for us to do better”.
“My intent with that song was just to bring it down to a human level…we only live once and I know that we all have our differences and people have their different points of view but at the end of day, I think that we’re here to love and I think that we’re here to care about each other and because when it’s all said and done, that’s all we have left…if we could get back to the basics of who we are as people, I feel like we would be a lot better off. My hope for this song is to be that inspiration because we often find that in music.”
The southern rock sounds of ‘Kentucky Gold’ stem heavily from the prevalence of the impressive guitar work. “I think that’s everything that I am,” he says about the importance of guitars on his album, “I started out as a guitar player, I’ve always considered myself a guitar player.” Daniel first picked up the guitar when he broke his leg playing baseball in high school and needed something to keep him busy while he recovered. As he said goodbye to his dreams of pro-sport, the doors opened to a new dream of being a guitarist.
“For me, it was absolutely essential to show it off because it’s what I cut my teeth on, you know, the Jonny Langs and the Stevie Ray Vaughans and Jimmy Hendrix and Jimmy Pages…every American boy that grabs a guitar at 16 wants to be all of those.”
“For this record, I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’ve had a smoking hot band – some of the best guitar players that I’ve ever heard, let alone played with. David Henriksson from Sweden – unbelievable talent. David took a chance because he and I were buddies, and we loved each other, and he really believed in the music. I’ve got Drew Smithers who plays for Marcus King currently – unbelievable slide guitar player and just overall incredible human being. Jason Graumlich who does utility work for Brothers Osborne, he was on the first two Eps and you just listen to some of those solos…they feel iconic, they feel legendary, they feel deliberate.”
“For me, that’s just part of my DNA…it was guitar long before it was a front man.”
‘Kentucky Gold’ features a wealth of talent including Maggie Rose, The Cadillac Three, Kendell Marvel and Sarah Zimmerman. “I’ve been friends with everyone that is on the record for quite some time,” Daniel says about the artists he’s worked with, “I’ve known Jaren since I was about 16…Jason Graumlich introduced me to Maggie and what a phenomenal singer…and then Kendall Marvell and I got connected writing music together. Very lucky to have such talented buddies to call on when you need them!”
Daniel is bringing his tour to the UK later this month where he says the majority of his fanbase is. “I think it’s because I’ve made the effort to continue to show up and be a part of the community,” he says about his UK fans, “and I love the people because they’re not just fans, like, I’ve made hundreds of thousands of friends.”
The Long Road Festival is sandwiched between his tour dates across Europe and Daniel is ‘super stoked’ to be returning for his second year. “I love the vibe of the festival,” he says about the country and americana festival, “it reminds me of a miniature Bonnaroo meets CMA fest…it makes it feel like home.”
Favourite song off the album to play:
It’s funny you ask this because I’ve been trying to knock the dust off of it up here rehearsing in the studio the past couple of weeks and make sure I’m on my game. The record is quite complicated, it’s not your typical 1, 4, 5 chord sort of ordeal, there’s a lot of intricacies in the record – there’s a lot of like dual guitar solos which I obviously take part in and new material that I’ve never played with a band, ever, so that’s going to be interesting. My favourite song to play off the record is probably ‘Fire Me Up’ the one that’s with Maggie. It just feels so good to play it. I think it may end up being one of the first songs we play in the set because it’s rock and roll. I love the Blackrose kind of feel that it has to it, so that’s probably the favourite song.
Hardest song off the album to write:
Probably ‘Can’t Hold Me Back,’ because it was the last song that got recorded, it was the last song that got written, there was a purpose for this song. I signed with Snakefarm records last year and we kind of went into this mode of OK, so we need some rock tracks because they’re going to start pushing it to Planet Rock radio which we were super grateful to have some success right out of the gate with Planet Rock. ‘Can’t Hold Me Back’ was the first single that came out off this record. I went in with Clay Mills who’s a hit song writer in Nashville and we had a Zoom write with a guy named Michael Krompass who’s in Canada. It was probably a four-five hour writing session. I remember having to step out, smoke a cigarette and come back at it a couple of times. When we got it done, I did an acoustic vocal and guitar take snapped to a grid, sent it over to Michael and Michael sent back the entire track as you hear it. And I was like, oh, my Lord. It was astonishing to be able to remotely record to that calibre, I’ve never done anything like that. So from start to finish it was the most difficult song to do because at that point then, he had built this entire monster of a track and I had to then go back and sing to it the way that it was, because my acoustic vocal demo that I sent him was not what came back to me. I was like, woah bro, like this is hot, I can’t wait to sing on this. So, very cool process and I loved working with those dudes so, those would be the favourite and the hardest, for sure.
Career high so far?
The one that first comes to mind is the moment that I got a phone call from Casey James who is on American Idol and he said, ‘man, I would be honoured if you would join me to play on the Grand Ole Opry’ and that was such a cool, cool experience to stand there and know the hundreds and thousands of unbelievable iconic musicians that stood right there and played their songs, just like I was going to do with Casey.
I would say a close second to that was while I was also playing with Casey, I got a phone call from his manager that said, ‘hey man, listen, there’s somebody on the management team and they have an artist that needs a guitar player and I have checked Casey’s schedule, there’s nothing that’s conflicting, would you be willing to play guitar on tour with this up and coming chick artist’. And I said yeah, absolutely. This was like on a Wednesday, I think. And they said ‘OK cool, you have rehearsal tomorrow it’s four hours that’s all you get and then you leave the following day for a fifteen day tour’ and I said alright cool…who is it? and he said ‘oh it’s Clare Dunn and it’s the Bob Seger ‘Ride Out’ tour and she’s going to be opening for Bob Seger’ and I thought well! Here we go! I was super grateful to have that phone call and have that opportunity come organically the way that it did.
Career moment you maybe wish you could forget?
This was back when I played in my college band – speaking of losing your voice – I was in Memphis, we had played a show the night before, I believe it was a government mule after party in Memphis and the next morning we were to appear on the Memphis morning news show, playing a show inside a shopping mall. Woke up that next morning and did not have a voice…at all. So I acted like it wasn’t a thing and that I could do it and boy…it was absolutely horrible. You could obviously tell I was sick, there was nothing. It was very raspy and nothing was really coming out and thank god that was way back when! I’m sure there’s a video of it somewhere but it’s deep somewhere. Don’t go trying to find that because it’s not even worth watching! If I could rewind and go back and redo that I’d say thank you but we’re not going to be able to do today.
Stay up to date with Kyle Daniel through his website.
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