Michael Andrews | |
|---|---|
 Andrews in 2012 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Mike Andrews, Elgin Park |
| Born | (1967-11-17)November 17, 1967 (age 58) |
| Origin | San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Film score,experimental,folk |
| Occupations | Musician, composer |
| Instruments | Guitar, piano, keyboards, bass guitar,marimba, drums |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Labels | Avace, Ever Loving |
Michael Andrews (born November 17, 1967), also known asElgin Park, is an American multi-instrumental musician, producer, andfilm score composer. He is best known for acover version of theTears for Fears song "Mad World", which he recorded withGary Jules for theDonnie Darko soundtrack, and which became the 2003UK Christmas number one.[1] He is a founding member of the San Diego soul-jazz bandThe Greyboy Allstars, where he goes by the moniker Elgin Park.[2]
After joiningThe Greyboy Allstars following the dissolution of his bandThe Origin, Andrews fell into film score composition by chance in 1998 when The Greyboy Allstars were asked to scoreJake Kasdan's first featureZero Effect and worked on the music for the highly regarded (though short-lived) TV series,Freaks and Geeks. In 2000,Richard Kelly commissioned him to do the soundtrack for the filmDonnie Darko.Its original score album went on to sell over 100,000 copies (in part because of Andrews's remake ofTears for Fears' "Mad World", featuring Gary Jules),[3] and Andrews became a composer to watch. He has since gone on to compose scores for the moviesOut Cold,Nothing,Cypher,Orange County,My Suicidal Sweetheart,Me and You and Everyone We Know,The TV Set, a segment ofParis, je t'aime,Unaccompanied Minors,Bridesmaids,Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story andDaddy's Home among others.
In early 2000, Jim Juvonen gave Andrews a copy of the script for the as-yet-unmade feature filmDonnie Darko. DirectorRichard Kelly knew Andrews worked with The Greyboy Allstars, and made music under the nameElgin Park.
Like his role modelsJohn Barry andEnnio Morricone, Andrews wanted a song on his otherwise instrumental score. He chose "Mad World" byTears for Fears (originally released in 1982), which his childhood friendGary Jules sang as Andrews played piano.
The first soundtrack record was released by Andy Factor, a friend of Andrews, through hisEverloving Records label in 2002. AsDonnie Darko was not a hit at first, there was little interest in the soundtrack in the US. The film was more popular in Europe, especially in the UK, where it outgrossed the US release.
This sparked interest in the soundtrack and "Mad World", which was a 2003 Christmas #1 on the UK Singles Chart. It reached the top 30 of the AmericanBillboard Modern Rock chart in 2004 and hit No. 1 on the Canadian Digital Singles chart in January 2007.[3] It charted in countries like Ireland,Denmark, theNetherlands, and Australia in 2003 and 2004, and a snippet was used in the television commercial for the 2006Xbox 360 video gameGears of War.
In 2005, Andrews scoredMe and You and Everyone We Know, a film byMiranda July praised at bothSundance andCannes film festivals. The score to the film was released onEverloving Records on July 12, 2005.
Initially taking cues from the characters' dialogue, Andrews began writing the score. He came to understand the film's world as a kind ofalternate reality where people believe in fate and chance—and this was the world he needed to paint with his music. He also saw the feelings July was trying to get across in her film as very primary. "She tries to break things down to very basic, simple shapes—the simplest shapes possible, and that totally influenced me in my music".
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Working out of his custom-built backyard studio inGlendale, California, Andrews spent three months creating the score using an orchestra of obscure vintagesynthesizers (a miniature hotwiredCasio keyboard was unearthed at a garage sale for $10) and drum machines. His concept was to play what he termed amateurish, emotional, naïve, magical and simple music on highly unemotional, inorganic instruments—for example, a calculator with built-in twelve-note keyboard that lends a hauntingportamento melody to one of the film's motifs.
Other instruments used in the score include Andrews's modified piano (rather than hitting the strings directly, the hammers first make contact with a piece of soft felt, creating a warmer, slightly muffled tone), as well as hisMoog andVocoder synthesizers. Despite all the electronic gear, noMIDI was used in the recording, so that all the humanness, all the subtle variations of rhythm, are intact. Inara George adds vocals in several climactic moments throughout the film. In some cases, cues were composed of only two or three tracks in order to attain the magical simplicity for which the film called out.
Andrews released his first solo album,Hand on String, on his own newly established label, Elgin Park Recordings, in summer 2006. He is credited on the album as Mike Andrews.
In August 2012, Andrews's second solo record, "Spilling A Rainbow", was released onEverloving Records performed mostly alone, and withDan Long and Steve Kaye recording.[4]
| Year | Single | Peak positions | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUS [5] | AUT [6] | BEL (Fl) [7] | DEN [8] | FRA [9] | GER | NED [10] | SWE [11] | SWI [12] | ||
| 2001 | "Mad World" (featuringGary Jules) | 28 | 13 | 23 | 2 | 30 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 23 |
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