Today we’d like to introduce you to music artist/producer Daniel With The Balance.
Hi Daniel, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
First, it’s great to be here with Voyage Austin. Thanks so much for the invitation.
Looking back at my journey, I can see that it’s been shaped by a series of signs and events. A great example is the story of how I received my artist name. I was with a fantastic group of friends in the Redwoods on one of my life’s highlight adventures. We were having an excellent time, and my friend had brought some mushrooms, which I’d never experienced before. Something I’d been struggling with for a long time was a repressed sadness. I felt like tears were right behind my eyes, but I couldn’t quite cry. We ate the mushrooms, in the most beautiful place, but I still felt trapped in my mind, which I now identify as my ego. I left the group; I needed to go and face this myself. Finally, after wrestling with it for a long time, I put on music, which transformed the experience.
My neural pathways crossed with the psychedelics and I saw the music transposed onto the magnificent tapestry of the Redwoods. It was so amazing to see the sound all around me and be completely immersed in it. I went up on a hill and finally felt the repressed tears come to a crescendo. I needed to feel and release them. I needed to break through. I put on the song I had the deepest emotional connection with at the time, “Sixteen” by Chelsea Cutler. As soon as I heard it, a massive well of tears rushed through me in a powerful release that had been building for years. It was the stuck grief from losing my dad when I was young. I wept for the duration of the song and the song after that. By the time the songs finished, I’d released years and years of tears. I felt so refreshed and renewed. It was a gentle yet powerful ego death. After that breakthrough, I knew I was on my path.
We were exploring the redwoods the next day, having a fantastic time, and as I walked easily along a massive, fallen tree trunk, my friend pointed at me and said, “Ayy, it’s Daniel With The Balance.” Instantly, I knew the name was meant for me. It resonated so much because I had always been into balancing through parkour, and the spiritual implications of balance were coming into my life as well.
That experience with the mushrooms created an opening. I felt called to play festivals, and wanted to put myself in that environment. I was living in LA at the time, so I went to Coachella. While there, I micro-dosed mushrooms and ended up getting sick from a combination of the mushrooms and food poisoning. I spent a miserable night in my car, too sick to fall asleep, and sold my ticket in the morning to go back a day early. That was another life-changing shift. In hindsight, I recognize that the mushroom/food poisoning sickness was a “purge,” as it’s called in plant medicine. It was clearing out the old energetically and physically — making room for the new.
Back at my place in LA, while recovering, I read, “Way Of The Peaceful Warrior,” which I’d just discovered in the free library down the street. It’s basically about being a real-life Jedi through practicing spirituality, and it inspired me deeply. As a result, I started the transformative process of another book that was gifted to me, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying.” This book guides one through “tidying” their physical belongings by going through everything and asking with each item, “Does this spark joy?” It’s a spiritual process of fine-tuning our intuition and uncovering our True Self through releasing everything that isn’t aligned with who we really choose to be.
After the purging and tidying, I was committed to my spiritual journey, but I didn’t fully believe spirituality was real because I hadn’t fully experienced it yet. That’s why I started calling in ayahuasca — I needed conviction. I’d been following Spirit Science on YouTube for a while. They released this video called “Once in a lifetime opportunity in Costa Rica,” about an ayahuasca retreat called Rythmia. I took that as my sign and booked the trip.
Upon arriving at Rythmia, I knew I was in the right place. My first experience with Aya was super crazy and challenging. It took me walloping through my inner shadows, experiencing and transmuting all this inward and outward hatred stemming from my ancestors and general collective humanity. It purged through me and brought me to a major ego death. It was shaking me, physically and psychologically, trying to get me to let go of my mind. I was hanging on with all my conditioning, so afraid to “lose my mind” and go crazy. It shook me so hard I couldn’t hang on and I actually went out of my mind. Immediately, I felt this huge liberation. I felt so free and realized that being out of my mind isn’t a bad thing; it’s being controlled by and stuck in my mind that’s out of harmony.
My second experience with Aya was a spiritual rebirth. My awareness was taken back to perceiving one thing at a time. It showed me how complexity in the mind creates suffering, and simplicity creates peace. I was connecting with my reborn inner child with my Higher Self and Mother Aya as my loving guides. I was cracking up with my reborn two-year-old self in this beautiful inner journey.
My third experience was the peak. At the pinnacle, I was taken up on an elevator of light, experiencing a beautiful, intimate moment with my higher self. Then, I saw Earth from the outside and was told that the Universe is one being learning and evolving through experiencing itself. I was told how we’re going through a great shift at this time, from the old ways of separation, greed, and hatred to a new paradigm of harmony, love, and interconnectedness. I saw grids of peace spreading across the Earth. Communities forming and refusing to participate in the old ways of war and destruction and holding the peace. I saw these golden grids spreading across different parts of the Earth. For me, this was my real miracle, receiving this divine confirmation that I’m here to be a part of this Great Shift. Piecing this together with my calling to create and share music with a message, Aya activated me to my life’s mission.
Back in LA, after this life-changing transformation, I watched the movie “Thrive,” which Rythmia gifted to everyone at the retreat. It asks the question why, when nature is built to thrive, is humanity in so much suffering? It follows the money through the corporations with corrupt motivations, to media with monetary incentives to promote these corporations, to the governments that enforce it and shows how the world got kind of turned upside down. Watching the movie, I knew I was called to participate in this shift.
And, I remembered that name, Daniel With The Balance. I saw how it symbolizes harmonizing and unifying, representing this shift in consciousness. I was like, “This is it! This is my Artist name.” This is my mission and what I aspire to be. I changed my Instagram handle to @danielwiththebalance at that moment. And within a few days, I committed to Daniel With The Balance as my artist name. Later, my decision was tested. My mentor said he felt that name might seem pretentious. He suggested I choose a name with more humility. I took his advice for a year and switched back to my given name. But, it felt wrong to me and with the help of friends and plant medicine I came back to a clear conviction about Daniel With The Balance. To me, “With The Balance” isn’t saying that I am “the balance”. It’s saying I’m with that which is the balance. I support it. I represent it. I uplift it. That’s what it means to me.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The main challenge of my life has been losing my dad when I was 11. We were skiing in the mountains on different paths. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I tried calling him, but the medical staff picked up and told me to come to the medical center. When I got there, they told me he had passed. That moment ripped my life in half and led to many of the challenges I’ve faced.
I said something interesting at that moment. I was furious at first. It felt like such a dry delivery for such devastating news, and I was super shocked with grief and rage. But the next thing I said was, “This is going to make a great song someday.” Recently, I was recording this song, “Where’d You Go,” and started crying because it’s about my dad. And then I remembered saying that and realized this is the song I was predicting (at least one of them). Losing my dad when I was young has been a really big challenge that led to some codependency later on. I think it made me vulnerable to a narcissistic relationship when I lived in LA. It lasted about a year and a half. It was this crazy psychological rollercoaster mindfuck. Finally, with the help of a friend, I saw what was going on and got out of it. When I realized what had been happening, it was like removing the wool from in front of my eyes and finally seeing clearly. In doing so, life felt more real than ever and sent me searching within to find what had made me vulnerable and attracted me to that situation. I wondered why it had felt acceptable to be in a relationship that was so dysfunctional and where I was left in the aftermath of that crazy experience. During that time, I was connecting with The Green Friend, aka Ganja, as a spiritual ally. I went within and started discovering my intuition. I was having these spiritual glimpses and discovering my inner guidance. That also shifted me musically because, up to that point, I’d just been trying to create the biggest hits. Then, something inside started guiding me to share meaningful messages in my music to uplift and spread harmony, unity, and love. That’s what shifted me into greater clarity and alignment with my mission.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m an artist, producer, teacher, guide, DJ, and playlist curator specializing in spiritual and conscious music for the new paradigm of harmony that’s spreading across the Earth. I’m known for bringing a pop sensibility to a blend of spiritual, emo, and EDM. My goal is to help conscious music reach a wider audience through cross-over appeal.
I’m sharing the Shift by uplifting other artists with a conscious message through producing, mixing, revibing, coaching, teaching, artist development, and curating some prominent spiritual Spotify playlists such as Spiritual Awakening Music and Spiritual Pop Music. I’m sharing my music medicine live at festivals, including High Vibe Fest, PlayThink, and Austin’s Medicine For The People. As a DJ, I weave together spiritual and medicine music with high-vibe electronic music, going through a journey of emotions and feelings from heavy ecstatic bass to blissfully soothing sound healing. I interweave my sets with talking from spiritual teachers such as Matt Kahn and Ram Dass, as well as uplifting messages in the lyrics.
I’m also creating a mixing course right now, my first of many courses. Currently, I’m expanding into much more mixing, producing, and artist development coaching. I’ve been teaching at the Producer Dojo, Ill Gates’s online school, for several years, and now expanding to a broader audience.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I moved to Austin just over a month ago, and I’m living at this awesome place on the outskirts. Lots of artists come through and stay there, and they host lots of events. The environment facilitates creativity. It’s a big house and property; I’m staying in one of the trailers with access to the house as well. I’m feeling so blessed and thankful to be here. It’s a thriving community that feels the most like a family of any I’ve ever encountered.
What brought me to Austin is the community. As a conscious artist, the amount of musicians and artist friends I have here, specifically from the High Vibe Records tribe, makes it a fantastic place to be and create. There’s so much spiritual community and so many events as well. Over the time I’ve spent here, I’ve felt like I’m living in a dream with amazing people and accelerated growth and energy happening all the time. The community is uplifting and nourishing and makes life feel amazing. A top value of mine is community.
Between music, spirituality, and community, it had to be Austin for me.
Services:
- Artist Guidance and Coaching
- Music Production Lessons
- Mixing
- Music Production
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/danielwiththebalance
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielwiththebalance
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielWithTheBalance
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/danielwiththebalance
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1jbgs2NTz3J91luowNKJY8?si=WTluYBrWTkSPg2Ht3edd3g
