The soulful Aussie is taking the music world by storm

“To be honest, I’m not very good at relationships. I think that’s why a lot of these songs, like Cigarettes, are about me screwing them up really bad,” Daniel Merriweather says, referring to his much anticipated first album, Love & War, released earlier this year. Packed with powerful ’60s soul mixed with a nice dose of oh-so-smooth urban vibes, it is clear from the first listen that Merriweather’s debut succeeds at being both current and timeless all at once.

After all, aren’t we all tired of pop tarts and Auto-Tuned cookie cutter hit-makers? Guaranteed to please those in search of a more sincere musical output, Merriweather offers a refreshingly honest piece of work. With old school charm and a soulful voice to match, the Australian is hard to resist.

Also quite the prodigy, Merriweather was introduced to music early on. At the tender age of four, he found an old broken violin with no strings, which sparked his interest in music. “I still don’t know whose it is,” says the singer-songwriter. “I was just fascinated by it, and my mom was told by someone that you can start teaching kids to play the violin when they’re really young, before they can learn to read. You teach them by ear. So that’s what I did till I was thirteen. I was playing Vivaldi concertos, Bach, all sorts of stuff.”

About his love of music, he says, “I think when you start anything at that age, whatever it is, it becomes part of you. By the time you’re ten, it becomes another part of your body almost.” At thirteen, Boyz II Men’s Cooleyhighharmony grabbed his attention, and he started dabbling in pop sounds. “That album taught me how to sing.”

Fast forward a few years: Merriweather dropped out of school and pursued his musical career. “The education system worldwide I think is flawed in so many ways. There were so many intelligent people I knew that were hopeless at school. It’s not there to craft creativity, it’s there to stifle it.” He adds, “It was also that I was getting into a lot of trouble. I was seventeen, I didn’t have any money, and I was definitely hanging out with the bad crowd. All those things created that kind of perfect storm to sort of drop out.”

Successful collaborations with DJ/producer Mark Ronson, such as the hit remake of The Smiths’ 1987 “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” (on Ronson’s Version album), didn’t go unnoticed within the music industry’s inner circles. For the past seven years, Merriweather has been skipping back and forth across the pond. “Since I met Mark Ronson, I would spend half my time in New York and half my time in Melbourne.”

Earlier this year, he released Love & War to glowing reviews and a number two spot on the UK charts. The first single, “Change,” features a meaningful appearance by Washington-born rapper Wale, giving his own upcoming debut albumAttention: Deficit a top spot on our watch list.

Filled with thought-provoking lyrics (and backed by the powerful funk/soul Dap Kings crew), Merriweather’s album deals mainly with matters of the heart. He particularly excels at voicing the angst of a torn heart. “Breaking up is that raw emotion of separating yourself from something that you thought was good. That happens in the world as well, that happens in politics,” explains the singer. “That emotion is probably the same emotion that we felt when we were being exiled from England, on the first convict ships to Australia, or the oppression of people all over the world because of the English empire and the atrocities they committed – not that it’s evil anymore. To me, relationships are microcosms of these situations.”

Far from claiming expertise on the matter, Merriweather maintains that he’s merely a realist who has been through “a couple of really, really bad breakups.” As a result, he explains that “a lot of those songs were about me trying to figure out where I stand myself, as far as trying to be better as a person or trying to be better in a relationship.”

Performing for the first time in Canada at the luscious W Montreal (the event was part of the Wonderlust Live series), Merriweather may very well have ignited new love connections. Guests of the intimate showcase fell for the easy charm of his musical performance and left hoping for a second rendezvous, butterflies in the stomach and all.