I quit fame to be a farmer – now I’m ready to be a pop star again, says Daniel Bedingfield
HIS bedroom-made breakthrough hit took the UK pop scene by storm in the early noughties.
Daniel Bedingfield’s budget garage banger Gotta Get Thru This made him an instant superstar when it topped the charts in 2001 and 2002.
His debut album sold more than 4 million copies and he won Best Male at the Brit Awards in 2004 following the success of two more number one hits If You’re Not The One and Never Gonna Leave Your Side.
However, New Zealand-born Daniel struggled with the intensity of the media spotlight at the peak of his stardom and, after his sophomore album Second First Impression failed to replicate its success (though still made the top 10), he took a four-year hiatus.
During this time reams of music, enough for a trilogy of albums, was written and shelved.
There was a comeback in 2012 with an EP release and a starring role on the X Factor judging panel in New Zealand, while further chart success loomed in the form of a writing credit for Second City’s dance anthem “I Wanna Feel”, which reached number one in the UK.
A brief stint as the Artilleryman in War of the Worlds on West End followed, but Daniel found himself in the musical wilderness once again in recent years.
Instead, his career took a surprise turn in the form of regenerative farming in a bid to help the environment.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Daniel, 44, explains how he adapted to rural life away from the spotlight.
He says: “Coming from that single-minded focus of music and something that must make me feel epic when I listen to it… I want to make it so when other people hear it it blows their socks off, that’s quite hard to step off a drive that intense.
“So I focused it on learning languages and trying to reverse climate change, honestly. Trying to figure out regenerative practices, aggro farming, so I just learnt a lot of that.
“It’s the same level of intensity, the eco-system’s being destroyed by human hands and we have to do something to reverse it, and I just put that same intensity into something else.
“And now that drum ‘n’ bass and garage is back then I can do both.”
Daniel surprised fans last month by announcing a return to music with three UK shows to celebrate 20 years of Gotta Get Thru This.
It’s likely to lead to plenty of new music and further live dates down the line.
The singer is hopeful of channelling the passion he had for music as a young boy who obsessively worked on new sounds with his friends, to create the type of music they wanted to hear when he takes to the stage again.
He says of his youth: “The goal to make epic music, to push garage forward, to push drum ‘n’ bass forward, to impress my peers, to impress me, we’d listen to each other’s stuff, we’d try and make the next song that each other goes crazy about, kind of like The Beach Boys and The Beatles did.
“That’s incredibly driven for a nine-year-old until my early teens.
“The only thing I cared about was trying to become good at music, learn how to sing well, like my uncles, because I was raised by a Jamaican family who were some of the best singers I’ve ever heard. The Wades.
“One of us is in the new Bob Marley movie, which is great.”
Coincidentally, his sister Natasha, who also had great chart success in the same time period both here and in the US, is also on the comeback trail.
GEN Z
Daniel is excited to see a whole new generation at this concerts, those who might have grown up with their parents’ pop tastes and appreciation of the Bedingfield siblings.
He says: “I think what people may not immediately understand about the experience of an artist while singing is that the whole crowd is singing back to you with a lot of emotion and it’s kind of like a private concert that I’m getting.
“That part is quite exceptional. I think I’m excited to feel that again.”
And he sees plenty of himself in Gen Z – the term for those born after 1997.
“I really like this generation,” he says. “I like Gen Z, I like them a lot. They seem to be a lot more like me than my own generation.
“They have idealism, which is not connected to religion, they want to save the planet, they’re really big on post-colonial stuff, patriarchal idealisations and there’s a consent culture, there’s a moral backbone without all the religious trappings that I felt very trapped in growing up, then there’s a light-heartedness and comfortability with sexuality and knowing your own boundaries.
“People are moving into a more healthy space.
“Within all that seriousness there’s a great deal of fun.”
‘CHARTS DON’T MATTER’
The new version of Daniel is less worried about chart rewards than striking up a connection with fans across media platforms.
It all links in with his new tech venture, Hoooks, which strives to help aspiring musicians breakout and become financially viable in a time dominated by legacy artists whose huge hits from yesteryear are making up around 50 per cent of the charts.
He says: “I don’t think the charts matter at all now, to be honest.
“I think everything’s to do with streaming and visibility and connection and subscribes and shares, so I’m not looking at the charts at all.
“It’s really hard to get from zero to 60 right now for young artists.
“There are human being on this planet I think are some of the greatest musicians of all time that are starving right now.”
Remembering his own path to success, he says: “[DJ] EZ gave me my leg up he put me on a compilation and that blow gotta get thru this up.
“I’ll be eternally grateful to him. I do feel a great responsibility to do what I can to help new musicians break.”
At the same time, Daniel is eager to reestablish himself and anyone who gets a ticket to his shows can expect a night of joy and celebration from a man who just loves his music.
There’s a sincerity to the return that puts to bed any claims this might be a cash grab.
And Daniel sums it up best when he says: “Live shows are the only reason to be physically present nowadays.”