It’s a wet, muggy day in New York’s SoHo district, and Daniel Merriweather is in Mark Ronson's studio trying to find something to wear. He sifts through suitcases and racks of vintage Technicolor button-ups, his typically perfect coif is a mess. A makeup artist stares at him as she waits to make him look like the soul-belting Aussie heartthrob who made Morrissey hip again. But Merriweather isn't feeling heartthrobbish today. “Um, can I get some spots covered up?” he asks, pointing to a batch of new pimples on his face. “I had a hard weekend…this type of weather makes me depressed.”
“Hard” is an interesting way of describing the weekend. Forty-eight hours prior, he and Ronson were in Las Vegas for MTV’s Video Music Awards, where Ronson was the house DJ and Merriweather performed. At the show, Merriweather, 25, noticed a couple of things. Chris Brown? “That kid can dance!” Britney Spears? “She sounded horrible!” Merriweather, on the other hand sounded great performing “Stop Me,” his hit remake of the Smiths' 1987 song that appears on Ronson’s slick Version (RCA/Allido). Sitting with his brother after a near-fatal car accident took part of his sibling’s leg is what Merriweather says imbues the song with its emotional might.
Still close to his family, Merriweather was raised in Melbourne, La., by two educator parents. After a few graffiti arrests, the high school dropout and Prince devotee scored a record deal with a small local label. But he wouldn’t be home for long. It’s over a latte and turkey burger at a sweaty bistro called Lucky Strike that Merriweather recalls receiving the lucky chirp to meet Ronson.
“I’d never heard of him, so I Google’d his name,” Daniel says. "He’d heard my demo and flew me out [to New York].” He quickly signed with the Ronson’s label, Allido, in 2004 and is now prepping his untitled debut for Spring 2008. Ducks in a row, turkey burger tucked away neatly, Merriweather is prepared to be the soul-belting Aussie heartthrob he wants to be. Pimples and all.
December 20, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
Daniel Merriweather
No Fuss, No Muss, All Soul
Article tags: Mark Ronson, Daniel Merriweather
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