Daniel Tashian is a legend in Nashville. He’s a deeply respected songwriter, he’s a solo artist with six albums to his name, he’s been in two superb bands, and he’s the go-to guy when you want a great producer and songwriter. He’s a two-time Grammy-winning artist and producer. He earned two 2025 Grammy nominations for Best Country Album for co-producing Kasey Musgraves’ Deeper Well and for Best Americana Album for producing Sarah Jarosz’s album Polaroid Lover. He also took home Album of the Year at the 61st Grammys for co-producing Musgraves’ Golden Hour. He’s worked with Burt Bacharach, and he’s recorded some children’s albums. He’s worked with around 35 other artists writing songs or co-producing, and in the near future, his work on the new Ringo Starr and Kasey Musgraves albums will be heard as well. American UK’s Paul Russell caught up with Daniel at his Nashville home to talk about Duane Eddy, his very talented musical father, his musical hero, the drummer from Toto, and what it’s like working with so many other artists as well as being a solo artist and band member.
Daniel, what’s happening with you at the moment?
Well, I’m working on several things. I really love hillbilly music, and I’ve done a lot of different things in a lot of different genres. I’m a multi-genre kind of artist and producer, and right now, the country-sounding things, the Appalachian kind of things, are what I’m loving. I’m really fascinated with John Hartford right now (Hartford was a country/bluegrass artist whose most famous song was Gentle On My Mind in 1967). Also, there’s this kid named Jason Scott, who’s from Oklahoma, and he has a band called Jason Scott in the High Heat, and I love his voice, and I’ve been working with him a little bit. (The band are coming to the UK this year and are playing at The Long Road in August). Let’s see, there are some things that Kasey Musgraves and I worked on, where we’re singing very close two-part duet harmony on her new album coming out on May 1st, Middle Of Nowhere. She’s a great artist, and the first track on the record, Middle Of Nowhere, when you drop the needle on that record, it’s me and Kasey singing very close two-part Everly Brothers harmony, all through, and there’s not a syllable of the entire song that we’re not singing.
Your family upbringing, your childhood, was blessed with two amazing musician parents, and bluegrass was sort of never far from your ears for years and years as you were growing up. Can you give us a little bit of background? Your father, Barry, was genuinely talented, and fronted the band The Remains, who I don’t think we know a great deal about in the UK. But we ought to know a little bit more, oughtn’t we?
Well, yes, and that’s for the people that like, you know, kind of noisy, garage, rocky-type things. (The Remains were a successful garage band in the mid-sixties, and they opened for The Beatles on their last US tour). Not sure if you have New Balance running shoes in the UK, but there’s a new TV ad campaign, and it features my dad and Emmylou Harris singing very close harmony together, on a song called Born to Run, which you wouldn’t recognise and know as a Paul Kennerley composition. (It was included on Harris’ 1982 album Cimarron). So, it’s interesting, because I don’t know if you knew this or not, but my dad is in memory care, and he has Alzheimer’s, so he actually probably wouldn’t be in a position to appreciate a newfound resurgence of that music.
But how long did your dad work with Emmylou?
Well, he was in her band, the Hot Band, from 1974 to 1991.
Can you remember the first record that really made a musical impression on you, that really put a stamp on your mind?
My first musical memory is If I Could Only Win Your Love by the Louvin Brothers, and then it’s The Pink Panther by Henry Mancini.
Your first inkling as a musician was to be a drummer. How did that come about?
Well, it was Jeff Porcaro and his drumming in Toto, playing on Rosanna and Hold the Line. And also, maybe a little bit of the testosterone of youth and just being a young man, it just feels really good to just hit things. But just being inside the music and setting the pace and being right there on the front lines of the beat, it felt like, really, the heart of music was the drums, you know?
Give us a little more on Jeff Porcaro. He had a fascinating career.
He was a first-call session cat, and you know, maybe some of the UK fans would know a record called On Every Street by Dire Straits, which was the last record that he performed on before he passed away, but listen to the drumming on the outro of Calling Elvis, and that’s all you need to really hear. They should almost give him songwriting credit (Porcaro was the co-founder and drummer for Toto and was also one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions).
So you recorded your debut album aged 19, it was called “Sweetie”, and you had T Bone Burnette producing and it had the likes of Don Heffington on percussion, and you also had Booker T. Jones on organ on a track. How did that come about as your debut album, aged 19?
Well, Heffington had played with Emmylou a little bit, so I knew him from playing with my dad, and then T-Bone knew Booker T and said, “Would you like to have Booker T?”, and I said, definitely. I’ve recently kind of gotten back and rekindled my collaborative friendship with T-Bone. We’ve been writing some songs together for Ringo Starr, but also working on some other projects collaboratively, and it’s great because, well, imagine if you had a coach, like a basketball coach or something like that, when you were a young person, who you were really fond of, and then you sort of went your separate ways. And then as an adult, you got to get back together with that same coach, and kind of meet eye-to-eye in a different kind of way, you know? One of the great joys of my life is working with T-Bone. He’s just a big ball of love. I mean, he’s very encouraging. He gives people space, he gives me so much space, and, for example, if I’m gonna try to work on some guitar parts or something like that, he just goes, “Okay, well, I’m gonna go get some lunch, I’ll be back”. And he’ll leave as soon as I pick up the guitar, and then come back. Good things happen when you give people space and you’re not breathing down their neck, he’s so good, he’s such a good guitarist and musician and all that stuff, just having someone there staring at you while you’re trying to play or do something can be a little intimidating, so it’s actually quite nice that he disappears, and I give him the same space. You know, so we sort of get out of each other’s way, but also just really encourage each other.
And what was it like working with Mr Starr?
Well, I mean, he’s just the best ever. He’s just the finest person you’ll ever encounter. He’s so funny, and so self-deprecating, but also just so kind, and has so much teenage energy about his physicality that you can’t sort of believe it.
Going on to your next band, The Bees (Daniel started his first band, The Bees, and they released two critically acclaimed albums, “Starry Gazey Pie” and “High Society”, before they were forced to change the band’s name to The Silver Seas, so as not to get confused with the British band of the same name). What was that like, being in the sort of band environment?
It was really an uplifter, after losing my record deal with Elektra in the mid 90’s, I moved back in with my parents, and I sort of sank into kind of a bit of a depression. I think my grandmother was around, and I think she sensed that maybe I needed to learn something, so she offered to pay for some guitar lessons for me with a guy named Justin Thompson, who still teaches in New York. He got me to expand my chord vocabulary on the guitar, and so I started going to see him every week, and each week I would get a little bit less depressed, and as I would be learning these things and practicing these new chords and then suddenly I was writing songs using these new chord shapes and sounds that my teacher was showing me, and then that became The Bees.
I had all these songs, and then suddenly we started playing. I saw this fantastic drummer, who didn’t set up behind the band like every other drummer I’d ever seen. He set up on the side; there were 3 people across the front of the stage, and the drummer was one of them. It was very strange, but he played so lightly with chopsticks, and I knew I really wanted that guy. So that was David Gehrke, and then he was really the heartbeat of the sound of that band, and so, we made a few records together, and it was very easy to write those songs, because I knew that David was gonna pick right up and know exactly what to do. And he’s very Ringo-esque in the way that he approaches composing a drum part for a song, and it’s very musical, it’s very orchestral, and so, honestly, my muse for that band was David, the drummer.
So you were forced to change the name of the band to The Silver Seas, and you started getting universal praise for these great albums. I mean, the press went wild. Yet it was a struggle to gain good sales. How frustrating was that?
I think I realised that it was going to require boots on the ground, that it was gonna need me to be constantly touring, in order to get it to break and to be successful. I’m kind of a bit of a reluctant frontman. I’m a bit happier behind the scenes, and I really like using my voice as a harmony singer. I really like that. I can sing lead, but I really do like using my voice as a support voice, and I take a lot of time and consideration picking the notes for the harmonies. But being the lead in a band wasn’t really me.
You released the “Chateau Revenge!” album in 2010, but you released it in two different versions, a red version and a blue version. What was the background to that?
Well, I kind of wanted to allow the songs to be heard from another point of view. I’m very proud of those things. I worked really hard on those songs. I kept office hours. I would clock in to my desk at 10 in the morning, and I would take a lunch break, and then I’d be back at the desk at 1, and work until 5 or 6 every day for a long time on those songs. This was my first sort of, alright, roll up the sleeves, nose to the grindstone, let’s get serious about writing songs. And so, I’m really proud of them. They hold up.
The next Silver Seas album, “Alaska”, which was released in 2013, is another great collection. I mean, those two albums, you should be proud of those.
Well, thank you, thank you very much. I am, and it’s funny, I committed a bit of a cardinal sin with Alaska that I’ve since seen other people do, and it’s a big mistake. When I came out to play live to support the release of this album, I played the entire Alaska album from top to bottom at a sold-out show in London. I didn’t give anybody any of the old songs. It was the week that it came out, so they didn’t know any of the songs yet, so that was a mistake. Never do that. Just sprinkle a couple of them in towards the end of the set, but stick with the old standbys.
And back in 2008, it was the first time you ever actually had a side career as a songwriter for other artists. Lee Ann Womack recorded your song ‘The Bees’ on her 2008 album “Call Me Crazy”. Now, you’ve written songs for a staggering amount of acts. What’s it like working on your songs with other acts?
It’s great, I have to think if I ran the world, what would this act sound like? You try to think about whatever you think would be a good look for them. Almost like someone designing some clothes for a look for somebody, you need to think of it that way. That kind of songwriting, commercial songwriting for other artists, is quite collaborative. So, there are a lot of other heads that come in, and I had spent most of the younger part of my life, obviously, writing by myself. So, it was a learning curve to bring that in, to try to learn to write with these other people, and accepting the other ideas that they were bringing in, and not feeling like I know how to do this. It happened later, in life, and also making money in music happened later in life, and they both happened simultaneously. When I started getting into collaborative work, that’s when I started seeing financial success. And Kasey Musgraves has been the perfect example of this. She’s a great artist, she can do everything, she can write great lyrics, superb melodies, she can sing and play, a perfect collaborator.
So with all this collaborative work, you still have time to record solo albums. “Arthur, The Lights Of Town”, “Some Other Country” and what’s become one of my favourite albums of the last ten years, “Night After Night”. The songs on that last album are career highs for you. And you worked again with Paul Kennerley.
I think so, too and it’s weird, it’s the accumulation of a lifetime of wanting to do well. What I had wished had happened is that my first album on Elektra, if I had been able to convince Paul Kennerley to work with me at that point, then that record would have been Night After Night, and that would have been great. Paul Kennerley is the finest calibre of songwriter, collaborator and lyricist, and I’ve learned so much from Paul and revere him so much, and have since I was a young person. I’d heard his songs because Emmylou was doing them, she was married to him for a while, and I heard his songs then, and I recognised something almost iconic, like a Burt Bacharach level of writing to me. And so, it was just a huge windfall and total blessing for me to be able to have Paul as a collaborator for so many songs on Night After Night.
You’ve also managed to work with the late, great Burt Bacharach. How did that come about?
Well, a woman named Melody Federer had written some songs with him, and she ask if I would like to produce the demo for him. And I was like, okay, here’s my chance, because I always wanted to find a way to get to him, you know. And, so I produced a demo of a song that she had written with Burt, and he called me up. He was all mad. I answered the phone, and he said, “This is Burt Bacharach”. I was like, Burt, oh, oh my god, what an amazing thing to hear your voice and talk to you. I’m such a fan! He goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you didn’t look at any of the cues”. And I was like, what are you talking about’? He goes, “On the music, the lead sheet, you didn’t look at any of the cues”. And I said, Burt, you’ll have to forgive me, but I can’t read music, man. And he was like, “Oh, well, it’s okay, I think we can fix it”. He yelled at me for a little bit, but then he softened up, and then we became friends, and, you know, we figured out how to fix the things that I missed. And then, when I was out in LA, for the Grammys, when Golden Hour, one of Kasey’s albums, won Album of the Year, I got in touch with Burt’s manager, and I said, “I’d like to come see Burt”. When I went to his house to see him, we immediately went right to the piano and started writing songs. And then we never stopped until he passed away.
So, Daniel, is there any new music or artists that you could recommend to us that you’ve come across recently?
There is. There’s a young woman named Stacey Kelleher, who sent me an Instagram video where she was singing a Kasey Musgraves song that I had written, and she tagged me, and I went and listened to it. I thought, wow, this girl has a great voice, so, you know, maybe I could write a song with her at some point.
Have you heard of Leah Blevins?
No?
Well, you know, Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys, he invited me over to co-write some songs with this girl, Leah Blevins. Well, her record All Dressed Up is on Dan’s label, Easy Eye, it’s recently been released. I wrote several of the songs on this album. And she’s one of those people, she’s from Kentucky, I think, she’s got this wonderful country, kind of sounding voice. Dan’s a brilliant producer, and I think, David Rawlings, is playing some guitar on it, and it’s an interesting album (Leah Blevins is coming to the UK soon and will be supporting The Black Crowes on June 25th in Manchester, playing Rough Trade in London on June 26th, she plays Hyde Park on 27th June and the State Fayre in Chelmsford on 28 June).
And there have been a few other artists that I’ve written with over there at Dan’s. A blues singer, a young blues singer from Louisiana called Eddie 9V. Yeah, we’ve written a handful of things together for his new album, so that’s gonna be coming out soon.
Well, thank you, Daniel, for your time. It’s been a fascinating and really enjoyable chat. Thank you.
Thank you, Paul. It’s been great talking to you.
