Originally from St. Louis Missouri where he played in the punk rock band The Strikers, Dan Wool is a San Francisco, California, based composer and sound designer who has worked in New York, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City and Anhui China creating scores for broadcast television projects, multichannel-audio theme park installations and more than 35 feature films, including seven films for celebrated cult filmmaker Alex Cox (director of Repo Man, Sid & Nancy). He first gained notoriety as the principal composer in the soundtrack-group Pray for Rain (original members Gary Brown, Paul Trupin, James Woody). From 2010 to 2021 Dan collaborated with filmmaker and legendary special effects artist Phil Tippett to create the score for Tippett’s epic stop-motion feature film, Mad God. Dan has also worked extensively creating sound and music for international and domestic advertising and sound branding and also as sound-designer for short films and documentaries, including several for the BBC and Channel 4 (UK). As a music producer, and engineer, Dan has collaborated with international artists such as Bernie Worrell (Parliament-Funkadelic), Philip Chevron and James Fearnley (The Pogues); Debra Harry (Blondie); and many Bay-Area artists, including All My Pretty Ones, Meredith Axelrod, essence, The Glowing Stars, Indianna Hale, Joe Lewis, The Mermen and Kally Price.
In the Arts, Dan has created scores and sound-design compositions for The Architecture and Design Museum (A+D Museum), Los Angeles, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery Dance (Sketch Series), AXIS Dance Company, Liss Fain Dance, RAWdance, choreographer Sonsherée Giles, choreographer Alice Sheppard and Ballet de la Compasión. In 2018 his music and sound design work for Phil Tippett and Lucy Raven’s experimental film OUT THERE screened at MoMA (NYC). He has also worked as a sound engineer and sound-designer on dance-compositions with composer Beth Custer (Joe Goode, Jo Kreiter), composer Rob Reich (Circus Bella, Gaucho, Tin Hat). Dan has performed in composer Jem Finer’s “Longplayer” installation, sponsored by the Longnow Foundation at YBCA. For the years 2015 thru 2018 Dan was engaged by the U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swimming Team for ongoing composition and musical services.
In 2023 Dan was nominated for an Annie Award (International Animation Society Award) for Best Music In An Animated Feature Film for his score for Phil Tippett’s Mad God. Dan has twice been nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie Award), in 2017 for his work with Liss Fain Dance, and in 2013 for his work with AXIS Dance Company. In 2014 Dan received an award from Bay Area Dance Watch (Blessay Award) for “Best Dance Soundtrack”