Dan Schroeder grew up with music.

His father is a guitarist (‘an amazing one’, says Dan), his mother a bass player and his sister a pianist.

During his formative years he says he was exposed to good jazz music, rock and roll and classical.

He took lessons on the piano, drums and vocal training, but it was only in his late teens that he started to write and record his own material.

His first band membership was in a four-piece called Saffron, and they wrote a lot of their own material and played at venues around his native South Africa. The band fell apart, though, says Dan, because each member wanted to follow a different musical path.

His first exposure as a solo artist was when he recorded a song for a local radio competition.

This was designed to give exposure to an unknown local artist and the prize was to play on stage with a very well known local band called The Parlotones, who were at the time opening for a country-wide tour by Live [of Dolphins Cry and Heaven fame], on their Black Mountain White Light tour of South Africa.

Dan’s song was Million In One, which was performed by his band, Saffron, and came second in the competition, earning him some radio airplay in the process.

That led to more writing and recording, with his focus on a musical style similar to that of Cafe del Mar.

Dan also acted as a live sound engineer, played drums, bass guitar, sang, played electric guitar with FX pedals and also added synths and FX to the live worship at his church.

He had his own studio in SA, where he produced and mixed songs for local artists.

Dan moved to Guernsey in the middle of 2010. He’s keen to meet local artists who he might be able to write and record with and is looking at setting up a studio in the island.

The two tracks on this page have already appeared on CDs in South Africa.

Eclipse

Opium