Meet Julia Wahle of SIIX Trailer Music and Sound in Silver Lake

Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Wahle.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Growing up in a small village in Germany, I already knew that I wanted to work in music and to have my own company, so at the age of nineteen, I decided to move to London to study Music Business at London Metropolitan University. Studying music was great, but living in London was the best thing that could have happened to me. The thriving music scene in London was even better than what I expected. Every night I went to another gig and saw another amazing artist or band playing, went to jam sessions, did some busking and most importantly met many like-minded people who are now some of my best friends including Lorenzo, my business partner at SIIX.

During my studies, I did a handful of internships at different music companies such as Polydor Records, trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do within the music industry. Right after I graduated, I moved to NYC where I got a job working for Instant Records which happened to be the in-house record label of The Orchard. I was doing A&R at the time but shared the same office with the sync department where I would run into Jim Leavitt who introduced me to the world of sync. The sync team really took me under their wing and showed me everything I wanted to know from licensing, negotiation, pitching music for briefs and copyright. Soon after, I moved back to London where I got a job at a trailer music library called Elephant Music. Before getting this job, I honestly had no idea that this area of the music industry even existed. With my work in sync, I had become familiar with music for films, television and advertising but movie trailers? That was new and very exciting to me. It’s an art form in itself. Very niche. This was the first time I had that undeniable feeling of “this is what I want to do”. So I called my friend Lorenzo and told him, “I’ve got an idea”. Soon after we started our own company, SIIX Trailer Music and Sound.

It would be more than a year of organization, meetings, hard work and long nights before we landed our first gig for the trailer for Assassins Creed. Since then, we’ve worked on 80+ theatrical marketing campaigns for box-office successes such as Wonder Woman 1984, Tenet, Hamilton, Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Captain Marvel, Dead Pool 2, Blade Runner 2049, Bumblebee, to name a few.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There were so many struggles along the way, but that’s what made it interesting. For instance, when we started SIIX in 2016, Lorenzo and I were living in London and didn’t have a lot of starting capital, so we moved in together. While I was working full time for our company, Lorenzo took on a day job so we could pay our bills, and then we would continue working together late into the evening. After we worked pretty much 24/7 for what seemed like forever, we finally finished our first album “Awoken” and decided to fly to Los Angeles to meet some editors and music supervisors in person.

Being a new company, we needed to prioritize spending, so we knew we wouldn’t be staying anywhere fancy. As a matter of fact, we chose to rent a small van that was built to live in. It was quite hilarious rolling up to our first meetings with big time editors and music supervisors with our “house on wheels”. We received our first requests for some of our music and had to drive around looking for wifi from coffee shops, apple stores, etc., which often weren’t open or didn’t have fast enough internet to upload and send these large files to our clients.

After about a month of meeting with trailer houses, building relationships, pitching our album all the while struggling to find a place to take a shower, we ended up flying back to London with a feeling of accomplishment as well as a rollercoaster of emotions. We were home for about two weeks before we got an email from 20th Century Fox with a confirmation that our music was being used in the trailer for Assassin’s Creed.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My company is called SIIX Trailer Music and Sound. We create music and sounds that can be heard in trailers and tv spots for movies. If I had to say there’s something we specialize in or have become known for, it would be our hybrid orchestral music as well as our cutting edge sound design that has really become part of our identity as a company.

I think I am most proud when I look at what we’ve accomplished over the last five years. We’ve worked on trailers for 6 out of 10 of the highest-grossing films for two years in a row now, released 16 albums and amassed over 1.2 billion views on YouTube.

There’s nothing like seeing a trailer through to its completion and then sitting in the cinema hearing your own music played back to you. From all the trailers I worked on, Blade Runner 2049 was definitely one of my favourite experiences. We were able to combine two different tracks to create one and added synth overlays to help capture the unique sounds of the Blade Runner world. It was most gratifying that AV Squad and Warner Brothers trusted me and my team with one of their biggest movie releases of the year and with such an iconic theme, originally created by the legendary Vangelis. Knowing that our music not only had to be approved by the big studio bosses but also by the director Denis Villeneuve as well as Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling it’s just insane to me.

Something unique about us as a company is that we include a philanthropic element into every deal we make. It’s important to me to give back and to make it part of everything that I do.

What were you like growing up?
I was a pretty active, wild child. Growing up in a small village in the countryside of Germany, there was always something to do whether it was painting, horse riding, skiing, playing football aka soccer…I kept myself busy. I was full of ideas and quick to act on them, whether it be new inventions or just practical jokes. Once, I decided to paint my brother’s entire bedroom in an obnoxious red while he was out fishing with friends. His face when he arrived home was absolutely priceless. These types of experiences were commonplace for our family and always kept things fun and lighthearted.

We are a social family and community back home. Practically every weekend there was a new adventure or place to travel. I loved having a majority of my family and friends all living in the same village or nearby. Always having a house full of people in the evenings to laugh with, tell stories and of course drink beer.

I also had quite a bit of freedom as a child, as long as my grades were fine. My parents inspired me to get out and experience things. I remember at 15 years old, I hopped a train with a few friends to Paris for my birthday and at 16, I attended the infamous Love Parade, one of the largest music festivals in the world.

At the end of the day, I still feel like the same girl from that small village in Germany and growing up with such a strong sense of family and community has helped me maintain a very meaningful connection to my home throughout my journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.siixmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliavvahle/

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