DANIEL KNOX

Night strolls and Star Trek with the singer/projectionist

DANIEL Knox walks the streets of Chicago at night, taking photos and savouring the mood. “I cut an imposing figure, so no-one really threatens me,” says the singer. “The city is best from 2am to 5am when people are asleep. The birds, rats and skunks all come out. You hear sounds from far away that are hidden in the daytime.”

Knox’s nocturnal patrols seep into his dark, humorous music, which, following last year’s Chasescene, takes a more malevolent turn on the purple sprawl of I Had A Wonderful Time. “These are my most positive songs,” says Knox, who works as a cinema projectionist. “There’s some misery but it isn’t mine. I tried to write like a camera, which is to say objectively.” For his new LP, Knox absorbed Star Trek audiobooks and Madonna’s ’80s power-ballads. “I use those songs as a mental baseline when I’m beginning or ending something new.”

As for the titular wonderful time, he says: “I used to go to school dressed as Groucho Marx. I stole cigars and smoked them in my tree house. I demanded my schoolmates call me Groucho Knox. But I was 13 and nobody gave a shit. Groucho Marx once said, ‘I’ve had a wonderful time but this wasn’t it.’ It’s not meant sarcastically though, not by me.”