Brian Tyler

Early life and education

Tyler was born and raised in Orange County, California. His grandfather was art director Walter H. Tyler. One of his first major influences was his pianist grandmother. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master's from Harvard University. Growing up, he taught himself to play dozens of musical instruments, including drums, piano, guitar, bass, cello, world percussion, synthesizer, charango and bouzouki.

Career

Film

Tyler began scoring features shortly after graduating from Harvard. Robert Kraft, who was impressed with Tyler's music, encouraged him to pursue a career in film scoring. Tyler's first film score was for the independent film Bartender (1997), directed by Gabe Torres. The following year, he and Red Elvises composed the score for Six-String Samurai (1998).

Tyler's breakthrough came in the early 2000s, after composing for the Frailty (2001). His work on Last Call (2002) earned him an induction into the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His cues for Children of Dune were used in multiple other theatrical film trailers, including Master and Commander (2003), Sahara (2005), Cinderella Man (2005), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and Star Trek (2009). The track "Summon the Worms" was used as a leader for the Dutch show Peking Express, and in the first leaked promotional reel for The Golden Compass (2007).

In 2007, he was hired to compose for Partition (2007), where he integrated Indian and Middle Eastern music with orchestral writing. He conducted the orchestral portion of the score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony in Los Angeles.

On September 5, 2011, Tyler announced that he was in talks to score the 2011 remake of Highlander, and pilot episodes for the animated series Transformers: Prime. He scored four episodes of the latter.

In 2012, Tyler scored and arranged a new version of the fanfare of the Universal Pictures logo, originally composed by Jerry Goldsmith, in observance of the studio's 100th anniversary. The new score added a choir, a more majestic arranging style, and a closing drum cadence. It made its debut alongside the logo with The Lorax on March 2, 2012.

In 2013, Tyler composed the fanfare of Marvel Studios, which made its debut alongside the logo with Thor: The Dark World, which he also composed the score of the film, on October 23, 2013, at the Odeon Leicester Square.

In addition to composing the score for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), an original song was released for the film entitled "Shell Shocked", credited to Tyler, as his stage name Madsonik, Kill the Noise, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign, Juicy J, Moxie Raia, and Seann Bowe. It reached No. 2 on the iTunes hip-hop singles charts and has sold over 500,000 copies.

On October 12, 2016, Tyler was hired to score the 2017 action-adventure film XXX: Return of Xander Cage. He also contributed to the soundtrack by his stage name Madsonik, in a collaboration with Tom Morello and Kill The Noise entitled "Divebomb".

On March 2, 2018, he announced on Twitter that he had been hired to write a new theme for Formula One; it was released on March 23. The theme was also used in both Formula 2 and Formula 3 since 2019, as well as the F1 Academy since 2023. In August 2018, a 27-track soundtrack composed by Tyler for the cable TV series Yellowstone was issued in CD format and as an MP3 download on Amazon.

On July 16, 2024, it was announced that Tyler composed the official anthem of the Esports World Cup (an esports tournament series held in Saudi Arabia), entitled "Dare to Triumph".

Music

Tyler is the musician behind the audio-visual project "Are We Dreaming". In an interview with BMI, he described his project as an exploration of space and the connection to human emotion driven through his usual film soundtrack style.

Personal life

Tyler got divorced from his first wife on December 23, 2009. He remarried on June 29, 2013. He has no children.

Discography

Theatrical films