Dan Wilson is best known as the lead singer and songwriter of the alternative rock band Semisonic. Their late-90's release Feeling Strangely Fine was the focus of both critical acclaim and commercial success in the US as well as the UK, yielding the massive transcontinental hit "Closing Time" and the UK smash "Secret Smile."

Dan's musical past also finds him as a member of the alternative folk-rock band Trip Shakespeare, whose flowery yet earthy psychedelic tracks are still sought out by collectors around the world.

Wilson recently produced his first solo album Free Life, a work helmed by legendary producer Rick Rubin. As the record awaits release on Rubin's American Recordings label, Wilson has become an in-demand producer and songwriter, lending his talents to artists including Jason Mraz, The Dixie Chicks, Mike Doughty, Michelle Branch, and Rachel Yamagata, among others.

"I've always loved songwriting that sounded like truth," says Wilson, "like first-person confessions, like confidences whispered in your ear. Even if I'm willing to tinker with reality and my own history, I want the song to feel true."

More than ever before, Wilson has achieved this goal on Free Life, which serves to culminate one stage of his career and initiate the next, as if he were living out the memorable payoff of his song "Closing Time" - "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." There's no doubting the truth of that.

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