Former Yell! star Daniel James never thought he’d sing again after the group’s abrupt 1991 split – but now he’s back with a new solo single and a “handful of new songs” written over the past 12 months.

The singer was one half of the pop duo, alongside Paul Varney, and scored a massive chart hit with 1990’s Instant Replay. However, the group’s fortunes turned and, less than a year later, the pair parted ways, with Daniel believing he’d never sing again.

Flash forward to 2020, however, and after finding himself alone in lockdown amid the pandemic, Daniel began to write again, with his first self-penned tune in 30 years, Set Your Spirit Free, out now.

Speaking exclusively to Retro Pop, the star admits he never planned to write new music, explaining: “I genuinely didn’t think that we’d be doing this, you know, I didn’t set out to do it. And I didn’t actually think I’d sing again.”

Revealing the song was written over three nights when he’d “go for walks late at night through parts of London that I’ve never been to before,” Daniel says the single was inspired by the separation of families from their loved ones amid the pandemic.

“I was just out walking and thinking about all these thoughts going round my head, and the words just came into my mouth,” he recalls. “On the first night I hadn’t taken my phone with me, so I raced home, grabbed my phone and put the framework for two verses down. I didn’t have a chorus or anything – it was just my thoughts about our emotions in lockdown.

“The next night, I took the phone this time, I had the verses in my head and I just thought, ‘We’ve got to be uplifted at some point… they’ve got to set our spirits free.’ That’s when the chorus came.

“On the third night, I wanted to be a bit more reflective, a bit more descriptive about about what was happening, so the middle eight is more concerned about that.”

He adds: “Set Your Spirit Free is just about my thoughts during lockdown and the hope that, when come out of lockdown, our spirits will be set free and we can just live again.”

And as the song continues to be a radio hit, debuting in the Top 30 on Nation Radio’s Heritage Chart, Daniel’s already looking to the future, with a follow-up release planned for August.

“I’ve managed to write a handful of songs during lockdown,” he confirms. “I’m thinking of another single coming out in August maybe called Do You Remember Me, which is much more sunny and uplifting.”