Dan Croll – credit Max Knight
Dan Croll upped sticks from Liverpool to LA in 2018 and has been working on a new album since then, Getintothis’ Peter Goodbody got him to answer our 13 Questions.
Dan Croll announces the release of his third album Grand Plan, out August 21 through Communion Records.
The album is available to pre-order now and will feature his latest double-a-side singles – album title track Grand Plan and Work which are out now.
The album, Grand Plan, chronicles the 12-month period starting in February 2018 when Croll decided to up sticks and move to Los Angeles after the realisation that he might be becoming restless in Liverpool.
Over the ensuing 12 months Dan turned his experiences into 20-odd songs, eventually whittling them down to a solid dozen chapters.
The latest tranche to be released is the album title track Grand Plan – a song about the overwhelming feeling created by moving to a new city, thousands of miles from home, where everyone seems to have a master plan and you feel like you’re barely treading water. Featuring lush harmonies and delicately picked guitar.
As the chorus goes, “Everyone’s got a grand plan, but I’ve barely come prepared.”
The flip side to Grand Plan is Work – an elegantly minimal song about the very opposite to its title.
He said: “I wrote ‘Grand Plan’ a couple of months into my move to California, things had got off to a tough start with having to start life from scratch again.
“On one hand it’s incredibly exciting to live in such a creative city and be surrounded by very talented people, but on the other hand (and in my case) it can also be quite overwhelming and make you feel like you’re lagging behind everyone else.”
He added: “Grand plan was about that feeling, being on the back foot, feeling like everyone but yourself had this grand idea and plan for life and you’re still figuring out the basics.”
Over the course of 2020 Dan Croll will be releasing new material in couplets like this culminating in the release of Grand Plan in August.
From the impetus to go, the reason he stayed, to the people he met and the universal challenges he had to deal with along the way, Grand Plan tells it all.
Douglas Savage 13 Questions plus exclusive listen to single Ballerina
We posed our 13 questions to Dan. Here’s what he had to say:
1. Where are you and what are you doing?
I’m in Los Angeles, in quarantine, in my living room, answering 13 questions.
2. What is your favourite view?
Right now my favourite view is of my girlfriend and cat, if they weren’t here I think I’d be going mad.
3. What’s your favourite record label – and why?
Communion, because they signed me and got me back up on my feet after I was dropped, and also because they’ve got some great artists!
4. What’s your first memory?
Lying on my dad’s stomach whilst he’s watching rugby on the TV
5. How do you like your eggs?
With hot sauce
6. Who is the worst ‘celebrity’ you’ve met?
7. Recommend one band or album that you think we should check out.
I’ve recently been loving the new Porches album ‘Ricky Music’
8. What’s your favourite season and why?
I’m a sucker for a snowy winter, mainly because I like wearing coats
9. Tell us a secret.
Summer is actually my favourite, who wants to be cold?
10. Which city do you recommend we visit – and why?
I just recorded my new album in Richmond, Virginia. Get yourselves over there, it’s a real beauty full of incredible musicians.
11. What’s your favourite film?
Matrix
12. What would be your final meal if you were on Death Row?
I’ll take a Sunday roast
13. Do you have anything else to declare?
All good thanks
Listen to Grand Plan below.
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