I sat down with Miami-based songwriter Dave Daniels, whose music captures the restless rhythm and constant change of the city he calls home.
Born and raised in Miami, he is deeply Floridian: his grandparents moved here in 1945 and his father is “a true Florida history nerd”; that could explain why Dave loves the state so much, but he admits he didn’t always understand it. “Wherever we’re from, I think there comes a point where people wanna leave, it’s that Joseph Campbell thing where we have to leave, and some people don’t come back – but if you eventually do come back – you embrace where you’re from. I had all these ideas about what Miami was” he recalls. “But once I started reconnecting — with the people, the neighborhoods, the sound — I realized I was wrong.”
Dave Daniels was a sort of drifter for a while, reinventing himself at every place he went, a Dylanesque kind of voyager through the Deep South, playing over 100 shows annually around the US for 15 years, before returning to Miami. He then made a pact with himself:
“I needed to make a new covenant. I was beat up. I almost didn’t make it. I stepped away from music for a decade. I allowed myself to be a civilian, you know? Have a life. I went fishing a lot. I began teaching. I fell in love, bought a house. But something was missing. And the fish stopped biting, I guess.”
His new album The Cost of Living is a rock, folk and pop meditation on renewal and the cost (and gains) of starting over, personally, geographically, financially, romantically. “I didn’t know what to do with my life by the time the pandemic was over. My personal life – and the world itself – had been totally shaken and shifted. I needed the music again – just to connect with people,” Dave says. “To make sense of who I was, really.”
Since 2021, Daniels has reemerged as a recording artist, performer and podcaster. “I started livestreaming in the pandemic. Imagine that! The kid that wanted to be Bob Dylan – playing coffeeshops, barn dances, the side of the road, wherever – livestreaming – but it turned out to be a healthy way to connect & to give back to the music community that helped raise me.” Daniels now hosts an international songwriter’s round every Tuesday night on Volume.com.
His need to write again has recently shaped a new song “Mayaimi,” which is the historical name of Lake Okeechobee meaning big water– and is part of his upcoming album. The track — recorded with a string quartet – will be released on Christmas Day and is a tribute to Miami’s history and the 100-year anniversary of the Freedom Tower. It is a song that reflects on the story of the major migration waves that have shaped the city: post–World War II arrivals, Cubans seeking political asylum, and the influx of new residents after the pandemic.
“Miami’s always changing,” he says. “That’s what makes it beautiful. Every person is part of the Miami story. All of us.”
Dave’s upcoming album, The Cost of Living, opens with four powerful singles. The first, “Willy,” arrives October 31, with an exclusive music video premiere shared alongside this article. Then comes “Some Light” on November 21, “Mayaimi” on Dec. 25th, and “Cost of Living” Jan 30th— the luminous closing to side one of the album that pays homage to both the city that raised him and the one he continues to rediscover.
Like Miami itself, Dave’s music is alive — layered, emotional, and always evolving.
To learn more about music releases, livestreams and shows, follow Dave Daniels on IG: @davedanielsmusic.
