David Karsten Daniels is, to paraphrase a line that a certain Mr. Starr long ago made cliché, getting by with a little help from his friends. After releasing three albums relying on his individual talent alone, he enlisted the help of nearly twenty comrades in the making of Sharp Teeth, his fourth album and his first for Fat Cat Records. And while it is not his debut, it does reflect a new approach.

“Whenever there was something that I needed like a horn part or a string section, I don’t play those things, so I just pulled other people in from the collective or old friends from other cities. The arrangements are pretty layered. At the end I counted everybody up and there were almost 20 people on the record.”

“The collective” is the Bu Hanan Collective, a local group of musicians in his home of Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, which serves as musical assistance and a support system. “It’s just a group of people who all play on each other’s records and play in each other’s bands, and all the bands are pretty amorphous. If all of the bands in that collective got in one 15 passenger van we could probably fit everyone in it and play four totally different sets.” If it sounds a little bit like Omaha’s Saddle Creek scene, that’s not an unfair comparison. However, it isn’t an attempt to replicate the commercial success of Omaha’s indie darlings, and don’t look to David as some kind of Conor Oberst-type ringleader. The influence that the collective has on him and his music is unmistakable, and he’s happy to make sure that everyone plays an important role.

“I look at what each of us was doing before we were helping each other out, and it just can’t be compared to what we’re able to accomplish now.”

Sharp Teeth contains themes that clearly deal with humanity and interaction, which Daniels elaborated on. “At the time of writing those songs — and granted I wrote those songs two to two and a half years ago, so I think that’s something to keep in mind. Whenever you hear an album, the person who made it isn’t necessarily in that place, but that was a pretty dark time in my life. At that time I had a pretty pessimistic view on life, that basically people are selfish and can be good to one another, but if things get bad [they] will essentially look out for themselves. I think that’s sort of what the album and especially the last track are about. At the end you live and you love but you just survive.” Two years after the composition of Sharp Teeth, it certainly seems as if Daniels is surviving, and defying his previous mistrust of human nature with an outlook on life that relies heavily on those closest to him. Still, after finally finding a home on Fat Cat, he is excited to bring the songs to those who haven’t heard them yet.

“Once it gets to the music part, once the lyrics are done and I’m working on the arrangements and playing in the band and having fun with having different people come in and play different parts, I don’t really think about the words anymore. I don’t feel like the songs are for me, I feel like the songs are for other people to experience for the first time. And it’s not bumming me out to be playing these songs. I don’t really think about them in a very specific way about what I’m actually saying, which doesn’t mean I don’t mean it, I just don’t mean it any more. It’s not for me right now in my life. There have been certain albums which have been really useful for me, really cathartic to have heard in certain times of my life and I hope Sharp Teeth will be that for other people, but we’re just really enjoying making a lot of noise, so it’s fine to play these songs. Right now I’m trying to write an album about my grandparents. You know, you just work on something and then you leave it and move on to the next thing.”

Though he talks of moving on, it’s unlikely that David will change the method of writing beyond the location. Soft-spoken and occasionally trailing off or losing his train of thought, he spoke romantically about the Midwest and what it offers. “Today we were driving through Iowa looking at the rolling cornfields and the different silos. I imagine if you’re from Iowa you get really tired of it, but being out on the east coast and it being pretty much just trees we were loving it. And I always talk about moving out to Kansas or Wyoming and just trying to do an album and renting a house where you could see in all directions and…I don’t know…yeah.”

With that unfinished thought, we moved on and he left me to draw my own conclusions on the subject. But whether or not Daniels ever does make it out to the vast expansive Midwest for a more permanent stay, we can safely assume one thing: he won’t be doing it without the help of his friends.

David Karsten Daniels Official Site
Fat Cat Records