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Dan Sultan: Thinking outside the box and genre in his music
Singer, songwriter, actor. Alternative rock, blues and children’s music. Australia’s Dan Sultan is a man of many disciples, but he also doesn’t want to be boxed in by a label.
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Man of music: Australian singer-songwriter Dan Sultan shares his experience in writing songs to masterclass participants at the Australian Embassy, South Jakarta. (JP/Dionnasius Aditya )
Daniel Leo Sultan is a man of many talents.
Born to a father of Irish descent and an Indigenous Australian mother of the Arrernte and Gurindji people, he spent much of his childhood in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.
Sultan played the guitar at 4 and wrote his first song at just 10 years old.
By the age of 17, he returned to suburbia and began singing in local pubs. A chance meeting with guitarist Scott Wilson at a pub’s karaoke night in 2000 started Sultan’s song-writing journey, launching his first album Homemade Biscuits in 2006.
Flash forward to 2019, and Sultan is an award-winning musician who has been likened to rock and roll legend Elvis Presley by some.
“Music is something I’m very passionate about; it’s something that I’ve always done. To then take the next stop or to go into the industry, to [have it] as my job, is very natural,” Sultan told The Jakarta Post on Dec. 12 after wrapping up a masterclass on song-writing held as part of the Australian Embassy’s Australia Connect program, highlighting the country’s burgeoning creative scene.
Not only had he been fresh off another gig in Yogyakarta, but he had also collected an ARIA Award for Best Children’s Album with his latest release Nali & Friends a week earlier.
