Dan Lancaster is an English record producer and songwriter. He is best known for his mixing and production work in contemporary rock music, and has worked with prominent global acts such as Blink-182, 5 Seconds Of Summer, Bring Me the Horizon, One OK Rock, The Warning, Lower Than Atlantis, Don Broco, Muse, A Day to Remember, Three Days Grace and The City Divided.
He is a three-time Grammy nominee for his work with Bring Me the Horizon and Blink-182, and he has twice been nominated for "Best Producer" at the Heavy Music Awards.
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Background and career beginnings
Lancaster is a self-taught producer and learnt by practising using a small Pro Tools production rig in his own home.
Lancaster's career in music began as the lead singer and guitarist of post-hardcore band Proceed. The band frequently toured the UK and Europe and were friends and frequent performers with UK rock band Don Broco. The band released an EP in June 2010 titled 'Curious Electric' before bassist Tom Doyle eventually left the group to join Don Broco when their former bassist, Luke Rayner, parted ways with the group in 2012.
Lancaster has cited Proceed as the inspiration behind his career in production, as he began self-producing their material which eventually led to producing for other artists. Speaking to BIMM, Lancaster stated: "I developed a skill because I had to. I invested in some [production] equipment initially just to make my own stuff sound better, and then some other people came in and said 'Hey, why don't you help us make a song?'. And then 4 years went past, I was quite deep into it, and my career was set."
Production and mixing career
Lancaster's early work in production and mixing included records for Lower Than Atlantis, Oceans Ate Alaska and Mallory Knox.
In 2012, Lancaster worked with Don Broco, co-writing, producing and mixing their debut full-length album Priorities. The album peaked at #25 on the UK Album Charts, marking Lancaster's first UK Top 40 album.
In 2013 he produced, co-wrote, and mixed Lower Than Atlantis' eponymously titled fourth album, which peaked at #16 in the UK Albums Chart. The following year, he worked with Mike Duce from Lower Than Atlantis to co-write and produce the song "Heartache on the Big Screen" for 5 Seconds of Summer, a B-Side to their breakout single "She Looks So Perfect".
In 2015, Lancaster contributed production, co-writing and mixing to Don Broco's second album Automatic, obtaining his first UK Top 10 album as a producer in the process when the album peaked at #6 on the UK Album Charts. Significantly, this year gave Lancaster his big break when he was chosen to mix Bring Me the Horizon's fifth album That's the Spirit via a blind mix shoot-out. The album reached #2 in both the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200 when released in September 2015, while reaching number one in Australia and Canada amongst other countries.
The success of this album lead to Lancaster starting to collaborate with acts from outside the UK. He contributed mixing to Blink-182's seventh album, California (July 2016), which reached number one in both the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200, and is certified Gold in Australia, the United States and United Kingdom. Lancaster received his first Grammy Award nomination for his work on California when it was nominated for "Best Rock Album" at the 2017 Awards. Just a couple of months afterwards, he then worked with Japanese band One OK Rock for their single "Taking Off" as well as other tracks on their album "Ambitions", which reached #1 on the Weekly Oricon Albums Chart, bringing with it Lancaster's third album to go number one in at least one country, and his first number one in Japan.
Between 2016 and 2017, Lancaster worked with a number of artists, branching out into more mainstream music than his traditional clients in rock music. He co-wrote and produced Nina Nesbitt's "Chewing Gum" single from her Modern Love EP (2016), then contributed production to the Good Charlotte albumYouth Authority (2016), as well as co-writing and producing three tracks for Fenech-Soler's third album Zilla (2017).
Solo work
Since the end of his previous project with post-hardcore band Proceed in 2012, Lancaster began posting clips of his own solo music on his Instagram in 2016. After multiple clips of teaser footage for new music, Lancaster released his debut solo single "Move A Mountain" in August 2018 via Raw Kingdom with support from AWAL. The track received a positive critical reception from Rock Sound and Kerrang! amongst others, with Robin Murray of Clash writing: "It's an expertly pieced together track, with the songwriter using the full force of his experience and expertise. The start of something new, something special."
Lancaster followed "Move a Mountain" with single "Wild Life" in September 2018, before his debut solo headline show at Oslo in London in October 2018. In May 2019, Lancaster embarked on his first tours as a solo artist. He supported Lower Than Atlantis' on their farewell UK tour, with performances at Manchester Academy, Birmingham O2 Academy and Brixton Academy in London. At the Birmingham leg of the tour, Lancaster was brought in by the group to be their emergency stand-in vocalist for the show, after singer Mike Duce had lost his voice at the show in Manchester the night before.
Lancaster followed this tour immediately by supporting long-term collaborators One OK Rock in mainland Europe on their May 2019 tour with fellow support act Anteros. Lancaster often appeared on stage with the band during their performances to perform songs he'd co-written with the group, such as "Taking Off". In June 2019 Lancaster released a double-single, "I Tried" and "Phases", followed by the release of "Stay Away" in July 2019. In May 2021, Lancaster signed a publishing deal with BMG, to allow him to continue to write and produce for other artists as well as continue to work on his own music.
Discography
*With Proceed