The 1975's drummer George Daniel insists it's not his aim to get "more attention" than frontman Matty Healy with his solo career.
George Daniel doesn't like 'attention' and insists he has 'impostor syndrome' about solo dance music
The sticksman and producer - who has contributed to fiancé Charli XCX's 'Brat' run - released his debut solo single, ‘Screen Cleaner’, last week, marking his foray into electronic dance music, and he admits he suffers with "impostor syndrome" and would never want to have the same amount of fame as Matty.
He told The Face: “I have a huge amount of imposter syndrome with this stuff – I think about this every day, like ‘Oh, this is the guy who plays drums and produces this band, they’re successful, now he decides he’s going to do a label because every other video on Instagram is a DJ right now’ – that’s my nightmare."
George insisted: “The last thing I want people to think is like ‘Oh, George wanted more attention.’ Absolutely not. Matty can have everything!”
The music star explained how the way The 1975 approached their music in the early days was like making dance music.
He said: “The way we made music initially was actually very dance music in its method.
“Not necessarily in what it sounded like – but we didn’t really know what a song structure was, we didn’t know any chords, we were very much making sounds that looped, and the peaks and troughs were from repetition or something dropping out. It wasn’t traditional songwriting, because we literally didn’t know how to do that. At this point, I’m 16, Matty’s 17, we’re really finding our feet – we didn’t know what the band was gonna sound like. So this is a really nice full circle moment.”
And whilst they weren't regular clubbers in their native Manchester, the band used to drive around in cars with subwoofers in the boot blaring tunes.
George recalled: “I wouldn’t say we were ever regularly hitting the clubs in Manchester, but we all had a hatchback with a sub in the boot, and we were being little naughty boys, playing our silly dance music in our little town.”
Meanwhile, George gushed that he is "so happy and proud" of his partner's success with 'Brat'.
On his dance label imprint on Dirty Hit and solo career launching at the same time as the pop star’s viral album, he said: “dh2 started maybe a few months before Charli started thinking about Brat, and these two things happening simultaneously this summer is a big coincidence.
“It’s quite exciting – this is the summer of a lot of changes in my life, which is really cool. It’s not intimidating, because Brat is… why would I compare? That would be the most futile exercise. I’m really happy and proud of her, and proud of my input in [her] record. To be honest, that gave me a bit of confidence.”
On being "George from Brat" after being name-dropped by Charli on the track 'Club Classics', he added: “I didn’t anticipate the ‘I want to dance with George-ism’ of everything’ – I didn’t see myself as a protagonist."
However, he feared he would receive "hate" for it.
George concluded: “[But] it just feels celebratory. Actually, I’m relieved – when I heard my name on Club Classics for the first time, Charli was like, ‘What do you think of this?’ and I was like, ‘People are gonna cringe – are they gonna hate me?’”
Tagged in Charli XCX The 1975