Tyler Bates

Tyler Bates spent his formative years in Chicago, answering to his obsession with music. An avid enthusiast, his mother introduced him to a wide range of recording artists; from Zappa to Coltrane, Simon and Garfunkel to Sly Stone. The soundtrack albums for the Broadway musicals Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar left an indelible impression upon him, both compositionally and emotionally. The marriage of thematic classical orchestra with the punishing cannon blasts of Tchaikovsky's 1812, inspired Tyler's enchantment with unorthodox juxtapositions, which after one mach volume listening, left a living room window cracked in his family's haunted log cabin.



At age ten, his hard-partying teenage cousins introduced him to Led Zeppelin and Kiss, which was all it took for Tyler to drop his alto saxophone for an electric guitar. He then found the early records of U2, Gang Of Four, and Yes, which influenced the principles apparent in his music today. The limitations of his home studio equipment became an integral part of his creative process; sparking an experimental approach in effort to complete his compositional ideas. At age thirteen he started daisy-chaining cassette recorders to produce multi-track recordings. An Echoplex and other sound mutation devices became the gateway to his atmospheric explorations and counter-rhythmic sensibilities, as he studied the effects of varying tape speeds on live and pre-recorded sound sources.



By nineteen, Tyler managed a trading firm in the stock market, while enjoying the beginnings of great success in Chicago-based bands. But he could not ignore the calling to expand his career in music. In 1993, fueled by an offer to score a movie that paid less than a months rent, Tyler returned to his native Los Angeles with zero experience in making music for films, and successfully produced his first score. This led to steady work on B movies while simultaneously developing the sound of his band, Pet, with singer-songwriter Lisa Papineau. The duo created a stir in Los Angeles that attracted Tori Amos to a Los Angeles club show, after which she immediately began her campaign to get the band a major-label record deal by banging on the door of Atlantic Records President, Val Azoli. Pet was signed soon after, spawning Amos' Igloo/Atlantic Records imprint in effort to afford the band its greatest chance at success in the biz. After recording their debut album at Tori's hillside castle in rural Ireland in 1996, and with a platinum record to their credit for the song "Lil' Boots," from the "The Crow: City Of Angels" soundtrack album, the band began touring stints with Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, Helmet and Luscious Jackson. But the emergence of several rock & roll clichés led Tyler to the decision to leave the group to focus solely on scoring movies by late 1997.



With a sound foundation of twenty scores to his credit, Bates began his career as a film composer. The special quality of his music was recognized by director Stephen Kay, who contracted Bates to score his art house Be-Bop film, The Last Time I Committed Suicide, starring Keeanu Reeves, Adrian Brodie, and Thomas Jane. This was a great experience for both Bates and Kay, which led to their collaboration on several films since, including Get Carter; the catalyst to Tyler Bates' stylistic emergence as a film composer. After working with Matt Dillon on his directorial debut, City Of Ghosts, and Mario Van Peebles on Baadassss!, Tyler was introduced to director Zack Snyder, who responded to his concept of the score for Dawn of the Dead, which became an instant classic in the horror movie genre. Both Rob Zombie and James Gunn recognized the affect of Bates' music for Dawn, and recruited him to score their films, The Devil's Rejects, and Slither, respectively, which have also joined the pantheon of cult classic films.



An important aspect of Bates' music is the contribution by the gifted family of musicians he works with. All who perform on his scores are impassioned artists, with a flair for the experimental, while maintaining pop sensibilities. First and foremost, his trusted associate of many years, Wolfgang Matthes, assists Tyler in exploring myriad possibilities of ambient sound design, which is integral to the innovative signature of his scores.



Tyler Bates' music possesses a timbre of its own, attracting visionary filmmakers who aim to make distinctive films with commercial appeal. His recent work on Zack Snyder's battle epic, 300, embodies expansive orchestral and choral themes that express a sweeping range of color and emotion, while embracing a tonal palette unfamiliar to studio films of its nature. Based on the Frank Miller graphic novel by the same title, 300 is scheduled for release via Warner Bros, March 9th, 2007. Tyler has recently begun work on Rob Zombie's Halloween, scheduled for release in late summer of 2007.



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