Personal life Daniel Paul Merriweather was born the eldest of three boys to teacher parents, and grew up in the Melbourne suburb of
Sassafras in the
Dandenong Ranges. Both his parents are teachers and he has two brothers. His maternal grandfather,
Ted Ellis, was also an
Australian rules footballer for
North Melbourne and
Footscray, while Daniel is an
Essendon supporter. Merriweather attended
Billanook College,
Blackburn High School, and
Swinburne Senior Secondary College (for year 11) and left school when he was aged 17. His musical education began with violin lessons at the age of four; he started guitar at age 13; Merriweather indicated in 2009 that he planned another tattoo for his back – a 100-word excerpt from the last verse of the poem "
Jim Jones", quoted in
Robert Hughes' book
The Fatal Shore, which includes "For night and day ... we toil and toil". He signed with the local label,
Marlin Records, which led to work with
Mark Ronson, a United Kingdom DJ and guitarist, on the latter's debut album,
Here Comes the Fuzz, ("She's Got Me" and "NYC Rules") in September 2003. Merriweather signed with Ronson's label,
Allido Records, and worked on his debut solo single, "City Rules", as a revised version of "NYC Rules". It was produced by Ronson and featured raps from New York MC
Saigon and was issued in early 2004. Other musicians on the single are
?uestlove,
The Black Eyed Peas' horn section and members of
Beck's backing band. He received an
ARIA Award nomination for "City Rules" in the
Best Urban Release category at the
2004 ceremony. "She's Got Me" was released as Merriweather's second single. While neither charted on the ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart, both became favourites in clubs and urban music circles. "City Rules" won the Most Performed Dance Work category at the
APRA Awards of 2005 and "She's Got Me" won the Best Urban Release category at the
ARIA Music Awards of 2005. "City Rules" obtained some airplay on the major Australian commercial radio stations
FOX FM (Melbourne)/
2Day FM and
B105. In 2005, he co-wrote and co-produced much of
Phrase's debut album
Talk with Force, also lending vocals to three tracks including the single "Catch Phrase". In March 2006,
Undercover News reported that Merriweather was recording his debut album,
The Fifth Season, with Ronson producing. In early 2007, Ronson featured Merriweather's lead vocals on a cover version of
The Smiths' song "
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" released as "
Stop Me". It was
re-composed with additional lyrics from the song "
You Keep Me Hangin' On" by
The Supremes. Merriweather admitted in an interview with
The Guardian that he was not familiar with the Smiths song prior to recording the revised version: "Mark said, 'I want you to sing on this - it's my favourite Smiths song', so I listened to it. I'd heard it once before, but I was never a Smiths fan. But I thought it was beautiful". It was issued as a single in April on
Columbia Records and appeared on Ronson's studio album
Version that same month. It was a commercial success in Ronson's native United Kingdom, where it reached number two on the
UK Singles Chart. It peaked in the top 40 on the
Swiss and
Italian Singles Charts. It was preceded by the singles "
Change" (February) and "
Red" (May), which both made the top 10 on the UK Singles Chart. "Change" appeared in the top 10 on the Swiss Singles Top 75. While "Red" was a top 10 hit on the
Danish and
Irish Singles Charts. On the ARIA Albums Chart,
Love & War reached the top 40 and "Change" peaked in the top 50 on the related singles chart. Merriweather was featured on Australian hip-hop artist
Urthboy's single, "
Naïve Bravado", in 2012. In that same year, Merriweather featured on hip-hop outfit
Diafrix's single, "Simple Man". In 2013, Australian-American rap group
Bliss N Eso worked with Merriweather on the track "
Can't Get Rid of This Feeling". He appeared with DJ
Mark Ronson in
Glastonbury 2015 singing an earlier hit "
Stop Me". Merriweather cites
Stevie Wonder,
Prince,
Jeff Buckley and
Herbie Hancock as his major influences. In November 2019, Daniel announced his first single for ten years titled 'Everything I Need', with talks of an album in the works. On 3 April 2020 Merriweather released 'Rain'. In February of the same year, he released single ‘Paradise’. Merriweather played a couple of sold out London gigs too. In 2025, Merriweather appeared on several tracks on the
Gary Bartz all-covers album,
The Eternal Tenure of Sound: Damage Control. In 2026, Merriweather released his sophomore album,
New Sincerity. ==Tours==