Photo courtesy of Harry Daniels.
Last week, a video emerged of a young man catching Barack Obama off guard in a crowded conference room to ask, “Can I sing for you?” The flustered former president agreed, but those of us who spend our idle time on the internet knew what was going on. Meet Harry Daniels, the 20-year old singer who continuously pops up at the most unlikely of times to serenade his favorite celebrities. Among his impressive roster of impromptu serenadees are the current president, Katy Perry, Jelly Roll, Chief Keef, Trippie Redd, Vinnie Hacker, Addison Rae, Dua Lipaand our latest cover star, Billie Eilish, to name just a few. For this week’s Search History, we slid into Daniels’ DMs to ask how he always manages to be in the right place at the right time, his stan account roots, and how he plans to leverage his viral fame into a recording career of his own.
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EMILY SANDSTROM: Hey! This is Emily with Interview.
HARRY DANIELS: HIIII. How are you?
SANDSTROM: Good, how are you? Thank you for taking the time to do this.
DANIELS: Omg I’m great thank you for even having me.
SANDSTROM: We are captivated by your singing over here.
DANIELS: YASSSS.
SANDSTROM: Let’s jump in. A/S/L?
DANIELS: 20/M/NY.
SANDSTROM: What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
DANIELS: I usually check my phone to see the time and make sure I have nowhere to be because I’m very prone to falling back asleep.
SANDSTROM: Relatable.
DANIELS: You get it. I’m like actually so bad about and it in a perfect world I’d get like 20 hours of sleep.
SANDSTROM: Tell me, what’s the song of the summer?
DANIELS: I’ve actually been listening to Blackout by Britney Spears on heavy rotation lately. I’m just not finding myself particularly gagged by any of the new **mainstream** releases. I guess in terms of 2024 I’m really into the new Charli, I keep revisiting “Sympathy is a knife.” I’m also really happy Tinashe’s having her moment rn with “Nasty.” It’s long overdue. Fountain Baby by Amaarae has also been on rotation but it’s not new.
SANDSTROM: Blackout is as good as it gets. Have you sung “Nasty” yet?
DANIELS: I just sang it to Tinashe which was pretty surreal. I’ve run into her like three or four times at this point but I’ve always wanted to deliver something of #quality content-wise for her because if there’s anyone who’s worth really making sure I do it right to give it the best chance of success for, it’s her. My dream celeb to sing to is Whoa Vicky. Tokyo Toni or Natalie Nunn or Bhad Bhabie are up there too tbh.
SANDSTROM: Wait, these are all so good. We need the Whoa Vicky vid badly.
DANIELS: J-Lo just followed me yesterday too I was freaking out from my Delta Economy seat. It felt like a throne.
SANDSTROM: AHHHH!!
DANIELS: Dude, it’s legit my dream collab. I need to utilize the reply feature.
SANDSTROM: Did we watch the J-Lo doc? What do we think? Say skip if you need to skip.
DANIELS: I watched the This Is Me… Now movie and I thought it was really enjoyable. It’s commendable that she felt empowered enough in her ideas to pursue them to the fullest extent in an era where a lot of people are kind of really into taking shortcuts. I haven’t seen the doc in full but I need to add it to my watchlist. I think a lot of the hate for her stems from misogyny because like okay a lot of people can be bitchy or rude or whatever tf. She doesn’t owe anyone anything.
SANDSTROM: What were your last three google searches?
DANIELS: Okay, I’ve been on incognito mode since 6th grade.
SANDSTROM: Smart man.
DANIELS: But my last three open tabs are the Marc Jacobs website, Ice Spice’s tour page, and micro-threading google images because I don’t get it.
SANDSTROM: Wait, what is micro-threading?
DANIELS: Apparently they tattoo ur brows or something. Idgi.
SANDSTROM: Ouch. Describe your private browsing persona in three words?
DANIELS: My private browsing persona is my regular browsing persona.
SANDSTROM: Say more.
DANIELS: I look up a lot of lyrics so musical. I look up a lot of memes so meme-y. And of course, private browsing is private browsing for a reason so lots-of-fun.
SANDSTROM: You’re taking your privacy seriously and I respect that. What’s your favorite celebrity feud rabbit hole?
DANIELS: Ermmmmmmmmmm. This is a tough one because I’m like, how do I put this without anyone’s fans acting like I just killed their cat or something.
SANDSTROM: HA.
DANIELS: My sister tried explaining all the lore behind the Drake and Kendrick beef but I don’t get it so I’m like girl.
SANDSTROM: Yeah I cannnnnot get into that one to save my life.
DANIELS: My friend sent me this screenshot of an Azealia Banks story @ing Doja Cat to tell her that they needed to DM and squash the beef so if that’s real then probably that. But it’s only my favorite because I love them both. I wouldn’t exactly call it my favorite. But two of my favorite people, per se.
SANDSTROM: Two messy icons. How many unread DMs do you have?
DANIELS: I’m pretty sure Instagram stopped counting all the ones older than 7 days or something so currently 14… 1,215 unread texts tho.
SANDSTROM: Who’s blowing up ur phone? What do they need?
DANIELS: I wouldn’t know, they’re all unread. BTW, if I don’t open ur DM it’s okay but if u don’t open mine ur f*cked up.
SANDSTROM: Totally fair. Have you figured out the dance to “Karma” yet?
DANIELS: I’m stiffer than a dick so no. But I love her.
SANDSTROM: Tell me about your stan account roots. And who’s running the best stan account these days?
DANIELS: It all started with a Demi Lovato fanpage but it was really boring because all I’d do is RT things to help her get votes for the Teen Choice Awards. It evolved tho and then my brain rotted so bad that I evolved into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jqLa8aMcIE
SANDSTROM: Oh, is this is your YouTube account?
DANIELS: No, that vid is me tho.
SANDSTROM: STOP.
DANIELS: I’m in the blue jacket.
SANDSTROM: How old were you?
DANIELS: 13
SANDSTROM: You’re so real for this.
DANIELS: You get it…
SANDSTROM: Where were you in the video?
DANIELS: Outside a Camila Cabello fan event.
SANDSTROM: Oh my.
DANIELS: I stan everyone I’m a pop culture junkie. I don’t have a particular account that I go to re: best account on stan Twitter but I like to read the Pop Crave reply section arguments a lot.
SANDSTROM: Oh yeah, really good.
DANIELS: Onika burgers.
SANDSTROM: What’s the strangest DM you’ve received?
DANIELS: Jason Derulo dm’d me “Hey bro” or something one time and then when I replied I never heard back. Wasn’t strange in terms of him saying anything weird but strange as in I was ctfu when I saw it. He prob wanted me to sing to him. I never posted it but I played Kazoo for him once.
SANDSTROM: Kazoo! Did it go well?
DANIELS: But he had a DJ and it was like so loud he couldn’t hear my lovely playing. YES HE WAS SO NICE.
SANDSTROM: AWWWW.
DANIELS: He gave me advice after he was like READ MY BOOK and gave me a chapter to read. I feel like sometimes people don’t know I’m trolling which makes it so much f*cking better
SANDSTROM: Totally. Did you read it?
DANIELS:
SANDSTROM: How are you finding the celebs that you serenade?
DANIELS: Every scenario is different tbh. I got my start at a CD signing for Sabrina Carpenter and it’s sort of evolved into so many different things now. It’s funny that I paid to make TikToks and now I make a living off of it.
SANDSTROM: The internet is utopian.
DANIELS: I feel like it’s dystopian, tbh. Anonymity leads to people being evil.
SANDSTROM: Maybe just utopian in terms of how silly it can get. Do you get a lot of hate?
DANIELS: Yes, but I also get a lot of love.
SANDSTROM: Yeah. So its worth it?
DANIELS: I mean, what’s a hate comment gonna do. I’m not gonna stop pursuing my dreams because some anonymous weirdo from Iowa who gets shoved into lockers is taking it out on me by calling me an unfunny f… twink. It’s me or them. I choose me.
SANDSTROM: Yesssssss. And now you’re making your own music, right? Tell me about that.
DANIELS: I actually started all of this because I wanted to do music in the first place and I have another sister Sam who’s also actively been pursuing it since she was super young but unfortunately the way the business is set up it’s become a built-in requirement that you have a social media following first before you actually have to be talented so I watched her get denial after denial after denial which broke my heart but also taught me what I was going up against… I’ve been writing my own songs since I was like 3 or 4 and producing them since I was 12 or 13 but so have a lot of people so I just sorta flipped the whole thing on it’s head and reverse engineered it. I got the following first and decided I’ll prove I’m talented second rather than the other way around. I’d say my 4 biggest inspirations are Cashmere Cat, Charli XCX, Doja Cat, and Travis Scott so I feel like that’s a pretty good gauge of where i’m at sonically.
SANDSTROM: That’s a smart way of going about it.
DANIELS: It was a survival tactic. I’m not capable of doing anything else but entertaining people.
SANDSTROM: Love!! Now that you’re releasing music, who do you want singing to you?
DANIELS: My fans. Perhaps singing to each other will be our always.
SANDSTROM: I love that. Okay, we’re almost at the end. Have you figured out what “That’s that me espresso” means yet?
DANIELS:
SANDSTROM: OMG. What does your TikTok FYP look like?
DANIELS: I keep getting a lot of stuff re: Brat by Charli XCX because of the release, I feel like it’s the pretty standard stuff. I’m really big on Reels rn too because you legit never know what you’re gonna get.
SANDSTROM: Yeah. Reels kind of feels like early internet. It’s like half Sephora hauls/half someone bleeding out in a basem*nt, kinda like snuff stuff.
DANIELS: That’s sorta the charm.
