We were lucky on a recent visit To Nashville to be able to sit down and have a chat with Dan about growing up and his journey to American Idol .Dan grew up in Western Branch , Chesapeake Virginia. Dan was raised in a military family where his grandfather , dad and brother have all served but he had different aspirations. After school he headed to Virginia Tech College where he spent four years playing football but whilst other players were coming in at 6ft 5 he realised it may not be the career path for him.
Dan applied for American Idol and managed to get through to the final 14 contestants before being voted out. Dan sang Garth Brook`s song The Dance for his audition as it was one of his favourite songs and he also learned to play the guitar with that song, also it was a song that he knew so well it wouldn`t distract him from the nerves. After getting through the audition stages he continues on his journey where he had a fair say in which song`s he sung and he didn`t choose the easy route by picking easy song`s he kept with the big numbers even going as far as singing Stuck On You by Lionel Ritchie in front of Lionel. The days where long with lots of voice training and rehearsals. "You would go in in the morning with your guitar and there would be a room of producers and you would pick three or so songs and then they would work which song he was singing according to what was going on within the shows". Prior to American Idol Dan had never been to Nashville or Tennessee and Luke gave him some friendly advice to work on his fan base before heading out to Nashville and also went on to say that Dan was one of the best country voices that he has heard on Idol.
Dan went on to tell us that "prior to going on American Idol he had very limited experience on stage having played maybe a handful of shows at a local brewery and he seemed to go down well with the local crowd".
After his time with American Idol Dan went on to release his first single She Wants A Ring which is a fantastic song I asked Dan what he uses for inspiration and he says he tried to use life events as this allows him to get right behind the song and this allows the purity and emotion come through. On Dan`s Tiktok account earlier this year he teased us with snippets of what going to be his next release and what seemed like a eternity passed and we finally got the amazing song that is Heaven`s Honkytonk .A fantastic song and the chorus was genius as he went on to sing about Johnny Cash, Chris LeDoux and George Jones Sitting in The Heaven`s Honkytonk listening to Merle Haggard playing Mama Tried. The Chorus is one of them master pieces that sticks in your head, Asked about the big delay between getting the first snippet of the song till he gave us the chorus and release of the song Dan tells us that "I never thought the fans would react they way they did and to be honest I hadn`t completed the song when releasing the first part". Working with other musician's allows him the chance to get other people perspectives on song direction and this can only improve the songs.
Dan`s latest release has a more emotion packed romantic feel to it and the cover art was a photo that Dan had took years before whilst with his brother. The strength of Dan`s voice is getting bigger and stronger with every new release and we are excited to see where he will go on his journey. We spoke about how Dan`s music is spreading not just around the USA but having followers over in Australia and the UK and even managing to chart in the Uk Itune`s Country Charts and he replied that "it is exciting to think that my music is travelling so far and people are getting enjoyment from my songs". Dan went on to say that he can`t wait for the time to come when he can make the journey to these far lands and get to meet his followers from all over. What is to come next for this up and rising young star, well lots in the pipeline he tell us without giving to much away . If the hits keep coming like they are now hopefully it won`t be long before we see him at CMA Fest or across the pond here at C2C which he would be keen to play. Check Dan out on all social media pages or here at his website www.danmarshallofficial.com.
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