Daniel Peterson

"I really like 'Rose' and I think 'Strawberry Blonde' has pop hit potential". "This gent has an *incredible voice, and I was really happy to see it was just as strong live. He sings songs that you can imagine both us at Xfm and Radio 2 playing, which I mean as a huge compliment. There are a couple on the myspace that really get under my skin whenever I hear them, and I end up singing them all day. It was great to see them played live, and so well." Marsha Shandur - XFM DJ

Born and raised in the thriving cosmopolitan environment of Newtown, in Sydney Australia, Daniel Peterson had a strong musical heritage. His grandfather had been a songwriter, composer and pianist; his father, also a pianist, played double bass in a folk band in the 60's. Encouraged by his parents, and following in the footsteps of his two brothers before him, Daniel began to learn to play the piano at the age of six.

Six years on, Daniel gave up on the staid formality of piano lessons and picked up his first guitar. His older brother, Chris, had previously dropped the piano in favour of the drums and the two would regularly practice together at home. Daniel's newfound love of the guitar was insatiable and he would play for hours everyday taking occasional breaks to play his brother's drums.

It was as a young teenager, tagging along to his brother's band's gigs and soaking up the atmosphere of live performance, that Daniel decided to make music his career. At the age of 15, he persuaded a friend to lend him the $800 needed to buy a four-track tape recorder. This allowed him to spend hours learning to write and record his own songs. Daniel was never much interested in learning covers and instead always preferred to write his own riffs and melodies.

Daniel moved to London after being asked to join the band Audiogene where he served as guitarist and co-writer for three and a half years. It was through Audiogene that he met drummer Christian Finn and bassist Joe Kelly.

Daniel's first solo gig on 5th January 2006 was one of his increasingly rare performances with just the man and his Stratocaster. These days he prefers playing with the band as they are better able to capture the ideas he had when composing the songs. As he says ?when I come up with songs I love thinking about what every instrument will be doing as part of the writing process. Also, writing and recording are an inseparable partnership for me. Its probably more conventional for a songwriter to finish their work entirely before they hit record. I love to record as I go, adding and subtracting, tweaking until I'm happy and then re-record the whole thing again when its finished!?