Interview with Songwriter Daniel Granado on EP 'Beautiful Winners'

Interview with songwriter Daniel Granado

MuzicNotez: What motivated you to start creating music? What age did you begin?

DANIEL GRANADO: I began writing poems at 12 or 13 because I felt the need to tell and express things and my feelings, both the outer ones (I consider myself a great observer) and my own inner ones. I began writing songs at 14 or 15, and I have always tried the lyrics of my song to be poetry, as I began writing poems.

I am from Spain, but I love English language. So I studied English Language & Philology at University for the five years of my degree and I became a teacher of English language. That´s the reason why my poems and my songs are written both in English and in Spanish. I would say I feel even more relaxed, comfortable and let´s say more `at home´ writing and singing in English rather than in Spanish. In fact, all my last songs from 2014 til now are written in English, not in Spanish.

In 1989, when I was just 15, I made my way to the Final of a New Talent Contest for songwriters in Málaga.. Iin 1998 I was selected by my hometown Town Hall to lead the record ‘Songwriters Cádiz´98’, produced and published by the Town Hall itself.

In 2002 I was awarded an Honorable Mention (9th position) at the II ‘Internetional’ Song Contest of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands), competing against hundreds of songwriters from all over the world.

Lately, in 2023, the jury of the international creators Website (music, literature, arts…) www.safecreative.org awarded one of my last published songs, `Beautiful Winner´, as Best Song of the Month (October 2023) and, though finally I have not been the winner, they also nominated three of my songs to be Song Of The Year 2023. The jury also awarded four of my last new songs as Song Of The Week during 2023.

SafeCreative.org/creators/danielgranado
TikTok: @daniel_granado
YouTube.com/@daniel_granado

MuzicNotez: Who were your musical influences, idols, or bands growing up that have helped mold you into the musician you are today? Or helped mold the music that you create?

DANIEL GRANADO: My main influence is and has always been Leonard Cohen. I was 15 the first time I listened to him (it was on a Spanish TV night show where he was promoting his 1988 album I´m Your Man, and he sang First We Take Manhattan and Take This Waltz). Next morning I bought the album, and that´s how it all began…
Fortunately, I was blessed enough to meet him in 1993 after his The Future Tour concert in Madrid and we talked for a little while. My dream came true!

I know there is much of Cohen in my poetry writing and in my songwriting (and even in my voice, but that´s something I can´t be blamed for…”I was born like this…” , as Cohen sang in `Tower Of Song´ hahaha).

In fact, besides writing my own songs, I play spanish and acoustic guitars and am `the voice of Leonard Cohen´ at a Tribute Band with which we have been touring throughout Spain and the Canary Islands for nine years now. One of our concerts was at the very Leonard Cohen´s Cátedra at Oviedo (Asturias) University, which was founded with the money Cohen was awarded with when he won the Prince of Asturias Prize of Lyrics, money he donated to the University to create the Leonard Cohen´s Cátedra to promote poetry, music and culture.

MuzicNotez: What’s the ultimate goal you want your music to achieve, or for you to achieve in your career as a musician? Any particular message you wish to send?

DANIEL GRANADO: I would love to earn a life working as a writer, songwriter and singer. I´m not talking about becoming extremely famous, just making a living would be ok. And even I wouldn´t mind not recording or singing my songs myself. It would be a wonderful and great chance for me just if other artists and singers sing and record my songs, I mean, writing for other singers keeping myself `hidden behind the scene and the stage´ and other singers recording and live-performing my songs during their concerts and tours.

MuzicNotez: What’s the latest release of yours? Tell us about it.

DANIEL GRANADO: Though not the whole stuff is finished yet (some of the songs are still in the process of recording, mixing and mastering) my latest work (2023/24) is an E.P. called ´Beautiful Winners´. I wrote some new songs last year (`Everyone Can Kiss´, `Right Now´, `On Fire´, `Gonna Explode´, À Fairy Tale´ and `Beautiful WInner´ (notice the singular, whereas the E.P. title is `Beautiful Winners´ (plural) which, as I said before, was awarded Song Of The Month (October 2023) by the jury of the international creators Website www.safecreative.org.
For the recording of this E.P. I´ve got the great and incomparable collaboration of great musicians such as Alessandra Eggert (from Germany) (vocals & background vocals); Yantho Schonkeren (from Belgium) (sax) and Ramiro González (from Spain) (piano, strings and production). And also Mario G. Alberni mastering all the stuff, who was awarded with a Grammy in mastering (www.kadifornia.com).

At first glance, the songs in `Beautiful Winners´ may seem to be charged with hopelessness, sorrow, despair…but it is just the other way round…the message is that, among all these things that sorround us, we´ve got to be and we ARE the Beautiful Winners.

The songs in the E.P; deal with different topics: Natural disasters, wars, revolts and the social commotion we all are experiencing nowadays (`Gonna Explode´ is an example of this and reminds of the song `The Future´ by Cohen); sense of loss, human both good and bad feelings and behaviours (`Everyone Can Kiss´, `A Fairy Tale´); and, obviously, love (`Right Now´, `On Fire´). But all these different topics, feelings and events are connected, ´cause we´ve got to share our lives with all of them and taking love as “the only engine of survival” (as Cohen once wrote), we all must keep on living to become the Beautiful Winners.

Leonard Cohen´s second novel was called `Beautiful Losers´, but we do not want to be losers, we want and must be winners, everyone in their own and different way, so I´ve borrowed the title of his novel and put it upside down…

On the 29th of December 2023 I was broadcasted a full-length one-hour radio interview to introduce my new E.P. `Beautiful Winners´ and also revisit some of my oldest songs. You can listen to the full interview (in Spanish) and some of my new and old songs at my Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/@daniel_granado