Daniel Lenz
Daniel Lenz, the co-founder of both Psykosonik and Hednoize has finally released his debut solo album - Stuck In A Dream.
Over the last few years Daniel has been creating tracks for Film, Television , Advertising and Video Games. (Charlie’s Angels, Saw IV, Beowulf, Love Guru, The Ruins, “Burn Notice”, “Mad Men”, “CSI” and many others.)
Stuck In A Dream is a collection of the best tracks written during that period - all remixed and remastered to slam in your face!
Born and raised in Minneapolis, MN, producer, programmer, songwriter and Platinum-selling recording artist Daniel Lenz's first recording experience was at seven years old. "I remember listening to the radio with my little tape recorder and microphone. I would record songs I liked and then edit them into a new song, but so the lyrics made sense," he recalls. A few years later a broken leg and a nine month recovery period would lead to his first steps into the world of writing his own music: "My parents bought me a guitar to give me something to do and the rest is history. I was really into sports before that, but after i got the guitar i was in my room practicing all the time," Daniel says. Years and hundreds of tracks later, Daniel Lenz is still recording songs and writing music, albeit with the likes of Alice Cooper, Xzibit and Kool Keith.
Daniel's foray into music blossomed into a full on career when he began DJing at clubs in Minneapolis in the early 1990's. Rapidly becoming the headliner at clubs like Prince's Glam Slam, he was exposed to much more than the rock he listened to in his younger years, and so began his love affair with electronic music. Soon he had purchased a computer and a sampler and was spinning his own work. In a short period of time he had become a producer, programmer and a songwriter and was signed to the venerable Wax Trax! Records in Chicago as Psykosonik, along with producer and songwriter Paul Sebastien. Daniel's obsession with creating music mirrored a passion for technology to create it, and during the course of recording the Psykosonik albums they became one of the first American electronic outfits to utilize the early internet to record their music remotely, nearly a decade before the arrival of broadband transfer speeds.
Psykosonik's two alternately supercharged and introspective albums, Psykosonik and Unlearn, spoke to fans of rave, techno & IDM, as well as pop and rock fans alike as Daniel and Paul forged a union of beat-oriented electronica, hooky melodies and classic pop song structure. In the end the two albums spawned four singles hitting the top 20 on Billboard's dance chart. One of the singles, "Unlearn," received a Platinum award for its inclusion on the Mortal Kombat Soundtrack release.
Never one to rest on his laurels sonically, Daniel subsequently teamed up with producer, programmer and songwriter Brent Daniels (aka Free) for the Hednoize project, 180 degrees away from Psykosonik in sound, mood and energy. The team moved to Los Angeles and assembled a dual studio setup to experiment with new methods of software-based sound design for Hednoize's sound of alt rock, electronica and industrial pop. The resulting Wax Trax!/TVT Records release, Searching For The End, was an amazingly well crafted release that also provided them the opportunity to work with Charlie Clouser (Nine Inch Nails, Saw, "Numb3rs") who provided programming for one of the album's tracks. The title of this moody and engaging record bespoke (for a time) the seemingly never-ending process of experimentation, as the team designed new and different digital instrumentation and alien sonic landscapes to drape over the rock framework. In the end, the Hednoize project helped Daniel and Free break new sonic ground in sound design and electronic music production, and the LP garnered rave critical reviews.
Songs from Daniel's Pyskosonik and Hednoize releases began seeing success as licenses in multiple feature films including Mortal Kombat, Charlie's Angels, Scary Movie 2, 3000 Miles To Graceland, and Homegrown, and TV shows like "La Femme Nikita.". And Daniel's production skills grew in parallel with a desire to make music on his own terms. Extracting himself from frustrating record label confines in 2000, Daniel began using his formidable chops to produce solo tracks spanning all genres of electronic music for use in television (CSI: Miami, Alias, The Ghost Whisperer, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Mad Men) film (Daredevil, New York Minute, Stealth, 13 Going On 30, Halloween:Resurrection, The Lake House, The Love Guru) as well as a myriad of trailers (Beowulf, Saw V, The Ruins), national television commercials (Nike, Rolex, Gatorade) and video games (Crackdown, Moto GP).
Through these commercial ventures, doors began to open for Daniel to collaborate with other high profile artists, such as producing and programming a track for Dodge featuring Kool Keith (Ultramagnetic MC's, Prodigy), and co-writing and producing the song "Stand" with Alice Cooper and Xzibit for the Official Athens 2004 Olympics album, "Unity 2004”, and also appearing on Alice’s album “Dirty Diamonds”.
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