Drew Daniels: Fertility from Fire
By Mālielani Larish
Everything is perfect; everything is aligning, Drew Daniels thought to himself. Gazing at soft morning clouds framing a gold-dazzled ocean, he gently rocked his baby girl to the rhythm of cane grass dancing in the wind. Two years prior, he had liquidated his assets to realize a long-sought dream of moving to Hawai‘i with his soulmate. They purchased a piece of land within an intentional farming community where Drew built an off-grid cabin with the help of a close friend. Working with his farming hui (community), Drew cultivated a food forest and was just starting to enjoy the ample rewards of his labors.
The peaceful oasis where Drew spent many happy hours playing in the garden with his daughter transformed irreversibly during the summer of 2018. As Kīlauea’s Fissure Eight eruption advanced towards his backyard, days began to feel like weeks as fumes, gas explosions, and lava curtains ravaged the surrounding landscape.
The loss, distress, and resilient hopefulness experienced by his community during the eruption ignited a creative flow within Drew that has culminated in his first solo album, Fertility from Fire, which is due out in early 2020. As the former lead singer for East Coast reggae rockers Tsunami Rising, Drew Daniels is a seasoned musician whose meaningful lyrics reverberate through fusions of punk, folk, reggae, hip hop, blues, and soul.
Our New Life
To help him process the surreal drama overwhelming his senses, Drew wrote a song of hope entitled “Our New Life.” “I wrote it as therapy, really,” Drew reflects.
Many Puna residents affected by the lava found a message of inspiration and healing within Drew’s lyrics. “If we go with the flow, I know we’re going to be alright,” Drew sings in “Our New Life.”
No longer eating or sleeping, with gas masks at the ready, Drew prepared to evacuate his family. His mother graciously offered to pay for a hotel room in Kona that would accept their pets, and soon the family found themselves scrolling through social media next to a sun-dappled pool, anxiously checking for updates.
The fresh air and Kona sunshine could not lift the gloom weighing on Drew’s family. Hiding in their hotel room, the family passed the time crying together, ordering take-out, and constantly wondering, “Did our house get taken yet?”
At the time, Drew was recording a song for his cousin’s wedding with producer Michael Surprenant of Mana Music Studio. He was also helping co-write the album of fellow Puna resident Sarah Bethany. After hearing Drew perform “Our New Life,” Michael insisted on recording it. The day after Drew recorded the song, on May 31, 2018, Drew received the news: his beautiful two-story home was entombed under 30 feet of lava. The lava flow claimed one-third of the intentional community where Drew had envisioned living a sustainable and serene life.
The trauma of witnessing his community transform dramatically within just a few months engulfed Drew’s heart with anger, sadness, fear, and confusion. At one point he wondered if he should leave the island altogether. However, after checking in with his intuition and talking to an uncle about it, he realized that he still felt welcome here.
Paralleling and intertwining these exhausting feelings, Drew experienced extreme gratitude, ambition, and hope. Friends in Philadelphia and New Jersey organized fundraising events to help support Drew financially, and more than 250 people contributed to the family’s GoFundMe campaign.
A Choir of Resilient Voices
Firmly believing in the power of music to transmute energies that may be considered negative into something positive, Drew resolved to channel the tumultuous energies from the previous year into a symbol of strength for his community. On the one-year anniversary of the day he lost his home, Drew released an anthem of empowerment entitled “Get Back Up.”
“May 31 is a day that the Universe is really trying to get me to recognize everything,” Drew observes, adding that his father had passed away eight years earlier on May 31.
Drew made a video request calling for “a choir of resilient voices” to record themselves singing the chorus of “Get Back Up”. Over 50 people submitted their recordings, including a parent and child duet, a husband and wife duet, and individuals from as far away as Germany, Mali, and Argentina. Michael Surprenant skillfully mixed the chorus into the track.
Attracting Positive Energy
The production of the “Get Back Up” music video united the community in a life-affirming way. The video captures a bird’s-eye view of Drew on the massive skeleton of a burned tree that divides the new lava frontier from untouched jungle. Drew and his friends layered limbs from this tree with soil and mulch to create biomass-rich beds that will serve to regenerate the site of their former home. After the work party, the crew shared songs, food, drink, and hugs around a fire. Island Naturals, Irie Hawai‘i, Mehana Brewing, Coalatree, and Naked Hippie Brew helped feed, hydrate, and style the music video crew.
Because Drew believes that people experience the greatest psychological growth at their “growing edges,” he intentionally infused the “Get Back Up” music video with the symbolism of the edge effect. In ecology, edge communities where two adjacent ecosystems overlap often host a greater diversity and density of organisms. Likewise, Drew feels that humans experience the greatest growth at their edges, where they can step into a zone of discomfort to explore the new and then return to a haven of familiarity to integrate and process what they’ve learned. The video invites the viewer to contemplate the majesty of the transformed landscape, with its stark contrast between jagged ‘a‘a lava and lush, intact forest.
Drew says that the production of “Get Back Up” heralded “a big surge of good, positive energy.” That uplifting energy attracted a new blessing into Drew’s life: he won tickets to participate in the three-day Hawai‘i Songwriting Festival, where one of his songs won second place. He performed at the festival’s crowning Hitmaker’s concert alongside Kenny Loggins and other music industry greats from Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York.
Within the same week, Drew’s enthusiasm surged even higher when he learned that he had been accepted into the Creative Labs Hawai‘i Songwriting Immersive Program. During the five-day program, Drew was paired with a new singer and producer every day. He worked with critically-acclaimed musicians like Lisa Harriton, who toured as a keyboardist and back-up vocalist for The Smashing Pumpkins, and Chance Peña, who starred on the hit TV show The Voice. As the songwriter for each team, he received briefs from a music supervisor instructing him to write a song for a specific scene in a film, TV show, or commercial. His teams wrote and recorded four songs in three days, and then listened to the results over dinner on the final day. Drew continues to benefit from a Creative Labs mentor from whom he can receive feedback and professional advice throughout the year.
To keep that tide of optimism flowing, Drew already plans to cultivate a positive project as May 31, 2020 approaches.
Life Passion
Drew spent nine years as the lead singer for Tsunami Rising, touring the US continent several times, releasing three albums, and even touring Ireland. Through the music, Drew was able to channel angsty and aggressive emotions regarding big-picture socio-political issues into songs and shows. As a teen, Drew was first attracted to the ska scene in hole-in-the-wall clubs and church basements in Philadelphia due to its messages of unity and anti-racism.
With his upcoming solo album, Drew writes about personal topics, which still carry universal themes that can resonate with every listener. Ripe with emotion, his expressive voice easily adapts to edgy punk, tender folk, righteous reggae, penetrating rap, and deep soul. Permaculture-inspired images and hard-earned wisdom infuse his lyrics. In his reggae song “Fertility from Fire,” Drew’s irie voice intones: “Let all energy that don’t serve you keep burning…burn them all away—compost components that become uncomplimentary. Identify what makes you stronger, live with this intention. What we do to others we do to our self too, so build up self and each other to higher value. From a fire comes fertility; we plant a more positive seed.”
Never Stop Practicing
Drew’s advice for aspiring artists? The same advice that he gives to himself: “Practice, and never stop practicing…if you really want it and you’re practicing all the time, then you will naturally find that vein that best serves what you need to be.”
He believes that you don’t have to abandon your childhood dreams. However, he acknowledges that sometimes you need to let those dreams simmer on the backburner while taking advantage of other opportunities. Drew has mastered the art of continually returning to his life passion of creating and sharing music. Not only does Drew play at festivals, restaurants, and bars, he also hosts open mics and plays at school fundraisers.
“Everything that felt solid has shifted dramatically, but we’re still going,” Drew says. “Trusting the flow is the lesson that I’m taking from all of this.” ❖
For more information: drewdanielsmusic.com
