Meet Daniel Weidlein | Owner of BioSoul Music | Producer, Songwriter, Composer, Engineer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniel Weidlein and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
BioSoul Music is a place for personal storytelling, emotional excavation, and expansive sonic exploration through music. I have literally defined the term BioSoul as “the space where the physical and the spiritual meet.” This is the essence of what music making should be about. The term first was born out of a project with my dear friend and collaborator Ryan Amador when we were trying to come up with a term for the genre of music we were creating. It had elements of soul/neo-soul/r&b, but also had this organic element to it that we wanted to root in the natural, the human body, the dirt. Hence, BioSoul.

BioSoul is a production company and a boutique recording studio. My journey as a producer, songwriter, and musical guide has taken me through multiple houses of music and all over the country, but it was a dream to be afforded the option to build a space that was designed uniquely for BioSoul. It is a truly hybrid analog/digital playground filled with instruments that are ready to be called into recording action.

Sure, there is no shortage of options to find producers and studios in Los Angeles. But people have called on me to help them tell their stories and navigate their musical paths, and BioSoul felt like a calling rather than a choice.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I believe in the crooked path. I believe in saying yes. I have had a wildly inconsistent journey in my career—performing all over the world, music directing for theater and live performance, composing for film, serving as an elected official in Los Angeles, composing for my own ensembles, co-writing songs with other artists, arranging and orchestrating for a wide range of ensembles. It feels chaotic. Sometimes it’s hard to sum up my career and make it sound realistic or meaningful without sounding like I must not commit to things very well. But I believe all of these disparate experiences have informed how I formed, and how I run my business.

BioSoul Music is not a place to come clock in and clock out at. It’s a place of discovery. A place of personal growth. A place of healing. Music is a means to an end—a way to express what we don’t have words or gestures for. And it is an end in and of itself. The beautiful fruition of bottled emotions and unresolved stories. I want my business to be able to provide top-notch engineering and musical services to help artists, filmmakers, and storytellers achieve the highest quality recordings but also the most personal and evocative stories.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Food. Food. Food. I always take folks to Guisados. It’s the quintessential crossroads of authentic Mexican food with the laid back, unpretentious foodie vibes that are hard to find anywhere else. A trip to Thai Town is a must, as well as a visit to the Mercado La Paloma which is my all-time favorite version of a food court. I love taking walks or bike rides around the East Side and showing how much lovely park integration there is in our community—the LA River path, Silver Lake Reservoir and Echo Park lake, Hollenbeck Park. And then at night we have to go hear music. ETA in Highland Park is a personal favorite, but I also love taking folks to Disney Hall. We are lucky to have one of the world’s great music venues in our city here, and the programming matches the building!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’ve always craved mentorship, and always been a little too bullheadedly independent to truly fall into that kind of relationship. But my path has been paved by so many teachers, loved ones, and guides. It starts with my parents—they’re not musicians themselves, but they see the value of music and are lovers of live performance. They exposed me to so much diverse music at a young age, often just by taking advantage of free offerings of performances in our community, that helped inspire me at a young age. Lucky, the blind saxophonist that played on the corner of the walking mall in our town made a huge impression on me. I made my Mom rent live tour VHS tapes of James Taylor from the video store over and over and over, and she happily obliged. They made sure I had the resources to seek out lessons with great teachers in Colorado like Clare Church and John Gunther.

I then moved to Los Angeles and was inspired equally by great teachers like Bob Mintzer and John Daversa, as well as incredible peers like Amber Navran of Moonchild and Sam Hirsh. I moved to LA to be immersed in an ocean of great musicianship and dove in headfirst. Collaborations with friends like Ryan Amador, Kenton Chen, Lumi Jin, and so many others have enriched my life as well as informed my career. Sometimes I’m working for them. Sometimes I’m learning from them. No matter what, I’m always interested in their lives and their stories.

And of course I have to mention my wife, Divya Maus. Divya is an amazingly unique composer and storyteller. I have had the great honor of producing, music directing, and gently nudging her music for the last decade and I have learned more from her about my music and myself than anybody else.

Website: www.biosoulmusic.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biosoulmusic

Image Credits
Taryn Dudley Frank Hobbs