The 'Gotta Get Thru This' hitmaker is launching a tech company to help artists release discarded recordings from the past, and he's hoping to unveil his ballad with the pop icon titled 'Thousand Life Times', which they worked on two decades ago.

He told the Daily Star newspaper's Wired column: "It really burns a hole in my heart, just sitting there unreleased. The fans would love it."

The 44-year-old singer has been inspired to start his company H00ks knowing how many unheard songs are sat "on hard drives" because the record labels didn't bother to release them.

He said: "There are hundreds and thousands of songs that are recorded and left on hard drives, hundreds of the best albums I have ever heard that record companies have just never released.

"And so what I am fascinated with right now is creating a system to get those unreleased songs released.

"Because the record companies don't care about them but the artists really do, and the fans do."

The idea behind Daniel's new project is to drop a 40-second "TikTok length" clip of an older, unreleased recording and see if it hooks fans.

He explained: "Then fans create videos for them blow them up on socials and then the artist knows, 'Oh actually this music that is unreleased is the hit as it's going viral."

The 'If You're Not The One' star rose up the charts in the early 2000s before turning his back on his singing career to focus on trying to "reverse climate change" with his Los Angeles farm.

However, Daniel - whose sister is 'Unwritten' hitmaker Natasha Bedingfield - recently returned to music and performed three UK shows, and he has reflected on the way the industry has changed.

Earleir this year, he told The Sun newspaper: "I don't think the charts matter at all now, to be honest.

"I think everything's to do with streaming and visibility and connection and subscribes and shares, so I'm not looking at the charts at all.

"It's really hard to get from zero to 60 right now for young artists. There are human being on this planet I think are some of the greatest musicians of all time that are starving right now."