The Work That Made Me: Dan Neale
Dan is managing director and music supervisor at Native Music. His background in agency production and then as an advertising composer led to him bringing those skills together and spending just over six years as Head of Music at RKCR/Y&R. In 2013 he set up leading music supervision company Native and has supervised projects for clients such as M&S, O2, British Airways, Lloyds Bank, BBC Sport, Lexus, McDonald’s, Coca Cola and many more.
The ad from my childhood that stays with me…
Dan> I was a child of the eighties, and it was a classic time for advertising. There are so many great ads from that time, from the surreal to the catchy, but the one ad that really stood out for me was from the early '90s. Tony Kaye’s Dunlop ad is of course a masterpiece, but at the time I was intrigued by it as I didn’t understand it. It has an outstanding soundtrack from the Velvet Underground too, which really elevates the visuals and creates the atmosphere, with that drone like quality and Lou Reed’s laid back lethargic vocal.
Dunlop - Tested For The Unexpected
The ad that made me want to get into the industry…
Dan> I didn’t set out to work in advertising, I hadn’t really considered it – I wanted to work with music somehow. I had recently finished a degree in Film and TV, and a close friend gave me a tip off that there was a job going at Grey London. I was very grateful for the chance and learned so much in a short space of time. This was 1999 and the standout ad of the time was the now famous Guinness surfer ad, which had come out the year before. I had already heard of Jonathan Glazer as he had directed the promo for Radiohead’s 'Street Spirit (Fade Out)'. There is behind the scenes footage for that promo, which I often think back to and take a lot of heart from, as even the great Jonathan Glazer doubted himself as he stood in a desert at 3am, filming dancers dressed as nuns bouncing on a trampoline.
Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)
The creative work that I keep revisiting…
Dan> There are very few things that I consistently re-visit, but Neil Young’s 'After the Goldrush' has been an ever present in my life ever since my teenage years. It is timeless to me.
My first professional project…
Dan> In advertising I was the production assistant on a Poligrip production (denture adhesive for those not in the know). I remember sitting in my first ever pre-production meeting and everyone talking about the type of seeds that would be on the bread roll for a loooong time, it was educational!
In music composition it was for a Galaxy Liaison advert. I was still a production assistant at the time, so submitted the track under a pseudonym as I didn’t want to unfairly influence their decision. I was amazed when I won the gig, and that gave me the confidence that I could work in the music area of advertising.
The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Dan> There are many, but as I have to pick one, it would have to be the 'Yes I Can' Paralympics spot. Guy Farley and Leland Music did an amazing job of a very complicated project, that could so easily have gone wrong. The result was outstanding, and I have enjoyed chatting to Guy (who we work with a lot) about the process involved.
We're The Superhumans | Rio Paralympics 2016
The creative project that changed my career…
Dan> I was very lucky to work on the BBC’s London 2012 campaign as an in-house music supervisor at Y&R. It was a huge project and really stretched my experience at that time, so it was thrilling and terrifying. We worked with Elbow, who absolutely nailed it with their composition, and I think that if people hear the theme today it still transports them back to the optimism we felt that summer. I set up Native in 2013, which I don’t think would have happened without that experience.
The work that I’m proudest of…
Dan> There have been many projects I am proud of for different reasons, but the early ones from Native’s formative years always hold a special place in my memory as they helped launch and establish the company’s reputation. So, I would say M&S Food’s use of 'Rather Be' by Clean Bandit, because it became so synonymous with the brand and for a time was something that other brands wanted to replicate. We had labels and publishers telling us it was the reference in lots of music briefs. Even after the account moved agencies and they replaced it with a new track, they clearly wanted to stay close to the DNA and framework that we had helped put in place, by doing things like seasonal re-works that were the original recording but with new layers. It’s rare you get the kind of sync that sets up a brand’s sonic strategy for the next six years or so, so I was proud to be part of that.
More recently, and for very different reasons, I have been very proud that Native were part of the Depzman: Life Cut Short work. It was an ambitious project conceived by Rory Peyton-Jones and Elliot Lee at McCann, and we re-created Depzman’s voice working with the artist T Roadz. It’s a tragic story, but hopefully via the Joshua Ribera Foundation’s work, spearheaded by his Mum Alison, it will help to get the anti-knife message out.
I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Dan> Haha, I can’t own up to that – there are a few, and you won’t find evidence that we worked on them.
