Daniel Robert Goffey (born 7 February 1974) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the drummer and backing vocalist for
Supergrass. He briefly toured with
Babyshambles
Babyshambles were an English rock band established in London. The band was formed by Pete Doherty (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) during a hiatus from the Libertines. As of 2013 the band includes Mick Whitnall (lead guitar), Drew McConnell (bas ...
in 2010, following their drummer's departure.
Career
1990–1993: The Jennifers
Goffey was born on 7 February 1974 in
Eton, Berkshire
Eton ( ) is a town in Berkshire, England, on the opposite bank of the River Thames to Windsor, connected to it by Windsor Bridge. The civil parish, which also includes the village of Eton Wick two miles west of the town, had a population of 4 ...
, and started his music career as a child when he formed his first band, The Jubbly Spufflewubs, which consisted of his brother on guitar and friend David Mackay. He had no drums so had to accompany the others by hitting
chopsticks
Chopsticks ( or ; Pinyin: ''kuaizi'' or ''zhu'') are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks of Chinese origin that have been used as kitchen and eating utensils in most of East and Southeast Asia for over three millennia. They are held in the do ...
on
lunch boxes.
At age 10 he received a high hat and snare from his parents, prompting him to start his other band, The Fallopian Tubes. They made songs such as "My Wife Shut My Gonads in the Door", Goffey saying: "That one was about sexual frustration I seem to recall. So were all the others
ongs..". At
Wheatley Park School, east of
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, he became drummer for the four-piece
The Jennifers, which featured a 16-year-old
Gaz Coombes
Gaz Coombes (born 8 March 1976) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the English alternative rock band Supergrass. He first entered the music scene aged 14 as the lead singer of the ...
on vocals. The Jennifers began building a reputation in the Oxford
indie music
Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording a ...
scene and released one single in 1992 on
Nude Records
Nude Records is an independent record label, established in August 1991 in London. The label was set up and operated by Saul Galpern, who had previously worked with artists such as Simply Red, The Fall, Julian Cope, The Triffids, The Slits and ...
before they disbanded.
Allegedly, before the split, Goffey and Coombes had agreed to continue to work together in the future.
1993–2010: Supergrass
In 1993, Coombes introduced Goffey to his co-worker
Mick Quinn
Mick Quinn (born 17 December 1969) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as founding member of English rock band Supergrass. He is a permanent member of fellow Oxford band Swervedriver.
Career 1984–1993
Mick Quinn s ...
, who at the time was working at a local
Harvester; "I imposed on Mick's life. I imposed on him greatly," said Goffey. "He had a house, and I used to take people back and sleep with them on his sofa. That's how he built his foundation in this band. That's how I met him. I shagged too often on his sofa. But when we played together... we've still never been able to describe it in interviews. When we're in that room, we're all really similar. We know. We all have the same ideas. We're really quick. It just... happens."
The three of them soon started playing together and shortly after Theodore Supergrass, later just Supergrass, were formed. The band enjoyed a good start to their musical career with the release of their debut album ''
I Should Coco
''I Should Coco'' is the debut studio album by English alternative rock band Supergrass, released on 15 May 1995 by Parlophone. The title of the album is cockney rhyming slang for "I should think so".
Supergrass were formed in 1993 by Gaz Coom ...
'' (1995) which reached number one in the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...
. This good start continued with the release of the single "
Alright
Alright, All Right or Allwright may refer to:
Music Albums
* ''Alright!'' (album), a 2007 album by Bogdan Raczynski
* ''Alright'', a 2011 album by Jerry Williams
* ''All Right'', a 1982 album by Himiko Kikuchi
Songs
* "Alright" (Cast song)
* ...
", which peaked at number two in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
. Several albums later and Supergrass were still together, recording their next album, tentatively titled ''
Release the Drones
Supergrass are an English rock band formed in 1993 in Oxford. For the majority of the band's tenure, the line-up consisted of brothers Gaz (lead vocals, guitar) and Rob Coombes (keyboards), Mick Quinn (bass, backing vocals) and Danny Goffey ...
'', slated for release in May 2010. It remained unreleased and unfinished as, on 12 April 2010, the band announced that it was splitting up due to musical and creative differences. The group disbanded after four farewell gigs, the final one at La Cigale, Paris on 11 June 2010.
Danny's brother, Nic Goffey, who was also a part of The Jennifers, has directed most of Supergrass' music videos, along with his friend Dom. They work under the name
Dom and Nic
dom&nic is the working name of directors Nic Goffey and Dominic Hawley. They have been directing music videos and commercials since 1994.
They have won numerous awards for their work, including the Gold Lion at the 1999 Cannes International Adv ...
. They have joked on the ''
Supergrass Is 10
''Supergrass Is 10'' is a compilation album celebrating the first 10 years of the band Supergrass. It includes singles from their first release, " Caught by the Fuzz" (1994), to their then latest release, " Kiss of Life" (2004).
The compilatio ...
'' DVD about nearly killing the band on several occasions while filming music videos.
Other projects
Goffey embarked on a solo project in 2006 using the pseudonym "Van Goffey", a name based on the artist
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
. He released tracks via MySpace in August 2006, the first three being "Crack House Blues", "I Feel so Gaye" and "Natalie Loves the F". He was also a drummer for the collective of musicians called Twisted X who released a charity football song called "Born in England" which charted at number 8 in the
UK Singles Charts
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top- ...
in 2004.
In 2004, he joined other musicians including
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
to record a Christmas charity single called "
Do They Know It's Christmas?
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup assembled by Geldof and Ure consisting of pop ...
" which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart.
Goffey appeared with Supergrass on a '
Top Gear
Top Gear may refer to:
* "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission
Television
* ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme
* ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...
of the Pops' special programme for
Comic Relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.
Definition
Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...
2007. The band played "
Richard III" with
Ade Edmondson
Adrian Charles Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series '' The Young Ones'' (1 ...
on second guitar.
In 2007 and 2008, while Supergrass bandmate
Mick Quinn
Mick Quinn (born 17 December 1969) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as founding member of English rock band Supergrass. He is a permanent member of fellow Oxford band Swervedriver.
Career 1984–1993
Mick Quinn s ...
was suffering from broken
heel and
vertebrae
The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates, Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristi ...
, Danny and
Gaz Coombes
Gaz Coombes (born 8 March 1976) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the English alternative rock band Supergrass. He first entered the music scene aged 14 as the lead singer of the ...
went on a short tour of the country playing at small venues as the Diamond Hoo Ha Men. The tour was captured on film for a
Rockumentary
A concert film, or concert movie, is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian.
Early history
Th ...
called Glange Fever, released in 2008.
Goffey and
Gaz Coombes
Gaz Coombes (born 8 March 1976) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the English alternative rock band Supergrass. He first entered the music scene aged 14 as the lead singer of the ...
joined other musicians including
Paul Weller
Paul John Weller (born John William Weller; 25 May 1958) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Weller achieved fame with the punk rock/ new wave/mod revival band the Jam (1972–1982). He had further success with the blue-eyed soul mu ...
to record a charity single called "Consequences" for the charity Crisis. The idea for the song came from Danny and his girlfriend,
Pearl Lowe, who is an ambassador for the Crisis charity. Their idea was to record a song in the same way that a person would play the game
Consequences
Consequence may refer to:
* Logical consequence, also known as a ''consequence relation'', or ''entailment''
* In operant conditioning, a result of some behavior
* Consequentialism, a theory in philosophy in which the morality of an act is determi ...
. A live event took place at the
Roundhouse in London on 2 March 2008.
On 7 March 2008, Goffey accompanied politician
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
in a bid to try to save the post office near where he had grown up in
Forest Hill, at Stanton St. John,
Oxfordshire. Goffey commented; "I used to buy
sweets
Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English, New Zealand English), is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, called ''sugar confectionery'', encompasses any sweet confection, i ...
and cigarettes there and I want my family to be able to continue that tradition."
On 19 March 2008, the Diamond Hoo Ha Men played a gig on London's
South Bank (having to change from the originally planned
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
due to crowd control problems) to raise money for Crisis, offering a free ticket to their
London Astoria
The London Astoria was a music venue at 157 Charing Cross Road, in London, England.
Originally a warehouse during the 1920s, the building became a cinema and ballroom. It was converted for use as a theatre in the 1970s. After further develop ...
show to whoever donated the most money. They were watched by around 75 spectators, having previously announced the busking session on radio station
Xfm London
Radio X is a British National commercial radio station focused on alternative music, primarily indie rock, and owned by Global. Radio X launched in 1989 as a pirate radio station, a licensed London-wide station in 1997 and nationally in 2015 ...
. This was filmed for the
BBC 2 programme,
The Culture Show
''The Culture Show'' is a British magazine programme about books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts. The show was broadcast weekly on BBC Two between 2004 and 2015.
Early history
Launched in November 2004, t ...
.
Goffey appeared as a contestant in the sixth series of ''
Celebrity Masterchef
''MasterChef'' is a competitive cooking reality show produced by Endemol Shine UK and Banijay and broadcast in 60 countries around the world. In the UK, it is produced by the BBC. The show initially ran from 1990 to 2001 and was revived in 2 ...
'' on BBC One, in which he reached the semi-finals.
As "Vangoffey", he released solo albums ''Take Your Jacket Off & Get into It'' in 2015 and ''Schtick'' 2018.
Personal life
Goffey is the son of
Chris Goffey
Christopher Robert Goffey (born 17 October 1945)Debrett's
is an English journalist and tel ...
, motoring journalist and ex-presenter of ''
Top Gear
Top Gear may refer to:
* "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission
Television
* ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme
* ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...
'', and his mother is an ex-
Labour Party councillor.
His brother is Nic Goffey, of the
directing partnership
Dom and Nic
dom&nic is the working name of directors Nic Goffey and Dominic Hawley. They have been directing music videos and commercials since 1994.
They have won numerous awards for their work, including the Gold Lion at the 1999 Cannes International Adv ...
.
Goffey lived in
Berkshire up until the age of 13, at which point his family relocated to the
Oxfordshire village of
Forest Hill, approximately 4.5 miles east of Oxford. He began to attend nearby
Wheatley Park School, where he met
Gaz Coombes
Gaz Coombes (born 8 March 1976) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the English alternative rock band Supergrass. He first entered the music scene aged 14 as the lead singer of the ...
, two years his junior, on the playing fields of Wheatley School and asked him to form a band with him (The Jennifers). In 1993 (after The Jennifers had separated), he and Coombes began to share a house on
Cowley Road
__NOTOC__
Cowley Road is an arterial road in the city of Oxford, England, running southeast from near the city centre at The Plain near Magdalen Bridge, through the inner city area of East Oxford, and to the industrial suburb of Cowley. The ...
in east Oxford, and Goffey later managed to complete his
A-levels
The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...
at
Henley College in
Henley-upon-Thames
Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buc ...
. Goffey also worked as a
catering assistant in a school at this time.
During the recording of ''
In It for the Money
''In It for the Money'' is the second studio album by English alternative rock band Supergrass, released in 1997. '' NME'' called it "more fun than watching a wombat in a washing machine" and named it the 10th best album of the year. In 1998, ' ...
'', Goffey moved out of his and Coombes's house to live in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
with his partner, and singer in the band
Powder
A powder is a dry, bulk solid composed of many very fine particles that may flow freely when shaken or tilted. Powders are a special sub-class of granular materials, although the terms ''powder'' and '' granular'' are sometimes used to distin ...
,
Pearl Lowe. This introduced Goffey to Lowe's social circle of celebrities such as
Liam Gallagher
William John Paul Gallagher (born 21 September 1972) is an English singer and songwriter. He achieved fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band Oasis from 1991 to 2009, and later fronted the rock band Beady Eye from 2009 to 2014, before starti ...
and
Kate Moss, and led to a surge of appearances of him in the
tabloids. During this time, tensions within Supergrass began to increase, with Goffey often stalling recording of the album in
Sawmills Studio
Sawmills Studios, founded in 1974 by record producer Tony Cox, is a recording studio near Golant on the banks of the River Fowey in Cornwall.
The studio building is located on its own tidal creek on the banks of the Fowey. Sawmills was one ...
, Cornwall by returning to London to record with his second band,
Lodger, of which Lowe was also a member. The lyrics for "
Going Out" were also causing arguments, as Goffey presumed that Coombes had written them about the column inches he and Lowe had been achieving.
After being together for over thirteen years, Goffey and Lowe married on 4 December 2008, in a small chapel at
Babington House, near their home in
Frome
Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...
,
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, where they live with their two sons, Alfie Lennon and Frankie, and daughter, Betty. They spent their honeymoon on the island of
Tobago
Tobago () is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger island of Trini ...
. Lowe was expecting another baby, due in autumn 2010, however it was announced by Goffey in May 2010 that Lowe had suffered a miscarriage.
Discography
Studio Albums
; Vangoffey
*''Take Your Jacket Off & Get into It'' (2015)
(Distiller Records)
; Danny Goffey
*''Schtick'' (2018)
(Distiller Records)
*''Bryan Moone's Discopunk'' (2022)
(Distiller Records)
See also
*
Supergrass discography
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goffey, Danny
1974 births
Living people
Babyshambles members
British male drummers
Britpop musicians
English male guitarists
English multi-instrumentalists
English rock drummers
English rock guitarists
English songwriters
People from Eton, Berkshire
Supergrass members