ABOUT

Tod Weidner is a singer/songwriter.

A Rock & Roll lifer.

A true believer.

He’s spent the last several decades playing in projects ranging from Pink Floyd tribute bands to Garage Rock to his long-running band of Ohio Scene indie mainstays, Shrug. He describes his solo work as “Americana with Soul”.

His songs usher you into a cozy room, with Leonard Cohen, Mark Lanegan, Chris Smither, and Tom Petty battling for turntable time, a candle burning in the corner, and a sunrise in the wings. 

Tod grew up in rural Ohio, where his high school English teacher father taught him a love of words and the thrill of putting them together in creative and compelling combinations. The inheritance of a scratched up Elvis Presley 45 at the age of six did the rest of the damage. Music was absorbed. A guitar was bought. Bands were joined. Noises were made.

It’s a common story in The Land Where You Make Your Own Fun. A tale as old as Youth. A rite of passage, born of boredom.

© Fred Shank

He soon became a fixture in the famously fertile music scene of nearby Dayton, most notably as the co-founder, singer, and songwriter of Shrug, a stalwart group that has released six albums to date and has garnered a loyal, multi-generational following. Stints with bands like Dayton’s Garage Rock Darlings Motel Beds and Set The Controls, a popular Nashville, TN-based Pink Floyd tribute, took him around the country, playing everywhere from backstreet dives to theaters. All the while, Tod was logging countless hours onstage playing solo acoustic sets, opening for legends, and honing his craft.

One such opening set led the Grammy-nominated and critically acclaimed folk singer/author Bill Morrissey to proclaim him “one of the best lyricists I’ve ever heard” and offer him carte blanche to open for him anywhere, anytime. Morrissey passed away before more shows would come to pass but his seal of approval is one Tod still carries with him proudly.

In 2019, after spending decades under the protective wing of the Heartland, new opportunities beckoned. Tod and his wife moved to California, where he finally embarked upon a long-planned, often-shelved career as a solo artist.

He’s released 11 digital singles over the past few years, with an ever-growing library of soulful, literate songs piling up and patiently awaiting their turns- equal parts dusky California hills and endless midwestern miles of snowy corn stubble, phosphor bronze and feral feedback, worn wood and jittery voltage. One minute, they’re whispering Curtis Mayfield-esque sweet nothings. The next minute, they’re swaggering with the ragged, gleeful joy of a kid with his first pawn shop axe, trying to channel the louche charm of his battered copy of Exile On Main Street. Stick around a bit longer, and they’ll take you to a bayou porch or a Greenwich Village coffee bar. But rest assured: they’re all from the heart- that same heart that, all those years ago, first fell in love with words and that scratchy old Elvis 45. Some things never change.