DANIEL ELLSWORTH & THE GREAT LAKES
✦
DARKMINDS
✦
DANIEL ELLSWORTH
✦
LAKE GIRLFRIEND
✦
CHAOS EMERALDS
✦
DANIEL ELLSWORTH & THE GREAT LAKES ✦ DARKMINDS ✦ DANIEL ELLSWORTH ✦ LAKE GIRLFRIEND ✦ CHAOS EMERALDS ✦
WELCOME TO BACKFIRE!
BACKFIRE! PUBLISHING IS THE CREATIVE HUB OF DANIEL ELLSWORTH, FEATURING HIS DIVERSE PROJECTS LIKE POP/HIP-HOP DUO DARKMINDS (WITH CHRISTOPHER "C4" UMANA), INDIE ROCK TRIO DANIEL ELLSWORTH & THE GREAT LAKES, ELECTRO-POP DUO CHAOS EMERALDS (WITH KYLE ANDREWS), AND QUIRKY INDIE POP-DUO LAKE GIRLFRIEND (WITH AMANDA BANTUG). IT ALSO SHOWCASES HIS EXTENSIVE WORK AS A PRODUCER, SONGWRITER, COMPOSER, AND ARTIST.
SONGS FROM BACKFIRE! PUBLISHING HAVE REACHED AUDIENCES AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH SYNCS IN ADS FOR BIG NAMES LIKE APPLE, GOOGLE, CAN-AM, MLB, DIGNITY HEALTH, NFL, COMCAST, PGA TOUR, VH1, KT CORPORATION, AND GQ SPORTS. YOU'LL ALSO HEAR THEIR MUSIC IN MOVIES AND SHOWS ON NETFLIX, DISNEY+, HBO MAX, ABC, NBC, CBS, MTV, THE CW, AND FOX.
BACKFIRE! PUBLISHING IS PROUDLY REPRESENTED GLOBALLY BY TERRORBIRD MEDIA.
MEET THE ARTISTS!
In January 2019 Daniel Ellsworth (Daniel Ellsworth + The Great Lakes, Chaos Emeralds) was paired with Christopher “C4 “ Umana (Big Sean, Trey Songz, Kelly Rowland) for a songwriting session in Los Angeles, and the two artists immediately clicked, soon forming collaborative pop hip-hop- duo DARKMINDS. Blending Ellsworth’s bold pop hooks and cheerful falsetto with C4’s modern hip-hop beats and sleek production, the pair have released two albums, multiple singles, and two EP's, landing features in nationwide ads for Apple, Can-Am, MLB, PGA Tour, Vh1, KT Corporation, and GQ Sports as well as movies and shows on Netflix, Disney+, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX. Their song "Ready Let's Go" has been streamed millions of times and has been used in over 400k Instagram Reels.
2024 will the bring the release of more new music as DARKMINDS continues to push boundaries and blur the lines of genre. American Songwriter says: “…the music of DARKMINDS is so enchanting and infectiously warm that it can make even the darkest of rainstorms feel like a sunny day on the beach.” With every new release, DARKMINDS continues to make genre-bending songs that span across pop, hip-hop, soul, rock, and r&b.
darkminds
daniel ellsworth & the great lakes
Strange days have found us. For indie rock trio, Daniel Ellsworth + The Great Lakes, they know that all too well. Formed in Nashville but now peppered across the country, connected by satellite, fibers, and vibes, the band is known for their high-energy live performances, introspective lyrics, and a touch of something familiar that you can’t quite pin down every time you hear it.
Now it’s 2024, and DE+TGL is back with High Life – a record written throughout 2019-2022 and recorded in Los Angeles, CA, engineered, co-produced, and mixed by Justin Glasco (known for work with Paris Paloma, Brett Dennen, The Lone Bellow). It’s an existential 7 song journey about change, resistance, love, regret, and recognition of our shared humanity. “We’re figuring out what this era of the band is” says lead singer Daniel Ellsworth. “With three of us now, we’re shifting how we write, how we record, and feeling more free than we ever have to experiment with what those processes look like.” Released on February 16, 2024, it’s a new record for a new chapter. No regrets, just the high life.
chaos emeralds
Known for soaring melodies and spellbinding synthesizers, Nashville-born electropop duo Chaos Emeralds - comprised of Kyle Andrews and Daniel Ellsworth - pair feather-light falsetto with driving, electronic beats to conjure the woozy energy of summer love, glittering dance parties, and modern, existential freedom. There’s a captivating cleanliness to their sound, reminiscent of European electropop acts like Phoenix and M83, but distorted and enriched by the combined virtuosity of Ellsworth’s classical piano and Andrews’s slick production.
Chaos Emeralds’ music feels both hyper-familiar and brand-spanking-new: pure pop melodies made sleek and surprising, cinematic swells that just keep expanding, and a pure intensity that’s hard to shake, even long after the tracks fade. With the 2022 release of their sophomore album II, Chaos Emeralds solidify their standing as lovable, hyper-creative hitmakers at the forefront of the indie-electropop scene.
daniel ellsworth
Daniel Ellsworth is a prolific Los Angeles based songwriter, producer, & multi-instrumentalist whose style falls somewhere between buoyant pop, indie rock, & hip-hop—think Brian Wilson meets Pharrell Williams. Named one of The Next 90 People Shaping The Future by Esquire Magazine in 2023, he is an independent composer known for crafting inventive melodic hooks across multiple genres and projects. He’s currently releasing his solo debut, I HAVE / NO CLUE / WHAT / I’M DOING, a stunning, idiosyncratic pop collection that reveals his range and depth in four unique EPs.
Ellsworth cut his teeth in Nashville producing, co-writing, and fronting local favorite Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes, formed in 2010. DE+TGL released three acclaimed full-length indie-rock albums as well as singles and EPs praised by Billboard, Esquire, Earmilk, Parade, and Paste. Their newest album, a sampling of fresh, evocative synth-pop, released February of 2024.
Ellsworth is also actively releasing music with his projects DARKMINDS, Chaos Emeralds, and Lake Girlfriend as well as producing and writing with a diverse, rotating cast of artists and songwriters.
Formed over their mutual love for pop music, yacht rock, and casio keyboard saxophones, Lake Girlfriend is the new collaboration of Bantug and Daniel Ellsworth. Bantug is producer and artist Amanda Bantug. She has opened for bands like Soccer Mommy, Halfnoise, and Men I Trust and one time Sheryl Crow tweeted about her. Daniel is from indie rock band Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes and has numerous other projects, including pop/hip-hop duo DARKMINDS and electro pop duo Chaos Emeralds. He writes and produces with many other artists and has had many song placements on television. Sheryl Crow has never tweeted about him.
After meeting while playing on the same bill in Nashville in 2018, they both became fans of each other’s music. Daniel moved to LA after 15 years in Nashville to pursue new opportunities in production and songwriting. Not far behind, Amanda had an itch to leave Nashville and continue her career in LA. They connected and as they kept writing over the course of a year, they realized they loved everything they were making together and had accidentally made an EP. Equal parts indie pop, soft-rock, and self-help, their debut EP Notes To Self released April 25th, 2023. Following in the footsteps of their debut EP, Lake Girlfriend released the two song EP Burn/Dead End on March 19th, 2024. Inspired by Dire Straits, psychedelics, and sadness - it's about dropping all of the things that drag you down and getting out before everything burns down.
lake girlfriend
collaborators
Backfire! Publishing has worked with a wide array of additional collaborators, co-writing and co-producing alongside heaps of incredibly talented humans like Kyle Andrews, Molly Burch, J.E. Sunde, Jamra, Avi Kaplan, Leah Nobel, Yoni Wolf, deadmen, Tim Perry, Jordan Blackmon, Greg “Killah” Cortez, Mark Rudin, Jake Bowman, Malena Cadiz, Justin Glasco, Kimya Dawson, Julia Steiner, Keelan Donovan, Sedona, Mark Stoney, Spencer Ludwig, Chris Farren, Sean Bonnette, Anjimile, Marissa Nadler, Oceanator, and many more!
