Dan Croll

Few debut singles travel as far from their point of origin as Dan Croll's 'From Nowhere', a song that has ended up sitting somewhere between indie pop, folktronica and 1970s-style soft rock. Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, the English singer-songwriter has a catalogue that also reaches into indie folk, folk-pop and rock, with an ear for warm, retro R&B. Listening back, the range of influences is easier to hear than to describe.

Croll left Newcastle-under-Lyme for Liverpool at 18 to study at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, where he won the Musicians' Benevolent Fund's Songwriter of the Year award and was one of eight students chosen for a one-to-one with Sir Paul McCartney, the subject of his 2020 song 'Yesterday'. 'From Nowhere' followed in September 2012, spending three days at the top of the Hype Machine popular chart and reaching number 36 on Billboard's Alternative chart in the US. Sweet Disarray arrived in 2014, followed by Emerging Adulthood in 2017, Grand Plan in 2020, the EP On Top in 2021 and Fools in 2023.