Jeff Daniels records songs for Daytrotter.com

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By David Burke | Friday, May 2, 2008 5:58 AM CDT | () comments

Actor/singer/songwriter Jeff Daniels warms up before his Daytrotter.com recording session Thursday afternoon at Futureappletree Studio One in Rock Island. Daniels later performed at Circa ‘21 Dinner Playhouse. (Elisa Petersen/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

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Jeff Daniels looked up as he was tuning his guitar Thursday afternoon to see a newspaper photographer and videographer chronicling his every move.

“Who am I, Neil Diamond?” the actor-turned-singer cracked before beginning his recording session at the Daytrotter.com studios in Rock Island.

Daniels, known best for a range of movie roles from “Terms of Endearment” to “Dumb and Dumber,” performed Thursday night at Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse in downtown Rock Island after spending about an hour in the afternoon recording four of his songs.

“The people around me, the guy who helps the independent (record) label that I’ve kind of created, knew of Daytrotter and said it was definitely something I should do,” he said. “That was all I needed.”

Daytrotter records acts on analog tape in a vintage recording studio and posts them on its Web site.

“It’s very nice, very old school,” Daniels said. “It’s got that old recording school feel.”

While Daytrotter has made its name by recording rising, independent music acts, founder Sean Moeller said having Daniels visit was a chance to branch out.

“I think it’s going to look cool up there alongside all the other things we do,” he said. “It’s like a collection. It’s discriminatory but still non-discriminatory.”

However, he added, “I don’t think we’ll get too many actors in here.”

The four songs that were recorded will be posted on the Daytrotter site in the next few weeks. All are original songs by Daniels, who has recorded three albums. (The CDs and the albums all benefit his nonprofit Purple Rose Theatre in Daniels’ hometown of Chelsea, Mich.)

One song is “The Dirty Harry Blues,” about Daniels’ experiences working with Clint Eastwood on the 2002 crime drama “Blood Work.”

“Clint is one of the nicest people in the business,” Daniels said. “He’s so low-key and the opposite of Dirty Harry — generous and sweet. He’s a joy to work with. But when you put a gun in his hand and you’re at the other end of it, it’s a notch on any actor’s career. I don’t care what they say.”

Another song is “Are You as Excited (About Me as I Am)?,” a satire about a celebrity who lets fame go to his head.

That, he said, sprang from a nightmarish experience at the Golden Globe Awards.

“You can get injured on the red carpet, whether it’s an elbow from a television star or someone who’s trying to get to the ‘Entertainment Tonight’ microphone before you do,” he said. “You could lose an eye.

“The trap is believing that everyone is as interested and excited and as plugged in to you as you think you are, or as your publicist tells you you are,” he continued. “They aren’t. That’s the big surprise at the end of the night.”

The 53-year-old actor said he is amazed at the audacity of some young Hollywood stars.

“I look at them and go, ‘You haven’t done anything. You don’t know anything,’ ” he said of their demands. “When you’ve worked with the Clints and the Meryls and the Jacks — they don’t do that kind of thing.”

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.