Richard Band

Richard Band was born in Los Angeles on December 28, 1953. He is the son of film producer-director-writer Albert Band (THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE – screen adaptation) brother to producer-distributor Charles Band and uncle to young rock star Alex Band of the rock group ‘The Calling’. At the age of 5 years the family moved to Sweden so his father, following his years working with John Huston could direct and produce the film FACE OF FIRE (James Whitmore, Theodore Bickel). Subsequently the family moved on to Paris for a year where Richard upon returning from school would on an almost daily basis conduct Beethoven’s 5th and 9th symphonies while standing on the dining room table. In late 1959 the family then moved to Rome, which was then considered the "Hollwood of Europe" where they remained for almost 11 years. One night in 1963 on a location shoot in Madrid, Spain, Richard fell even more in love with music. Having been mesmerized by the masterful guitar playing in a flamenco show, Richard went out the following morning and bought his own first guitar. Shortly the young teenager began playing professional jobs in and around Rome and a year later he was forming his own bands and began touring Italy accompanied by four adult musicians. At age 17, after touring around a great deal of Italy and Europe, Richard had already achieved. an incredible amount of success and so in 1970 returned to the United States. Not wanting to be a "rock & roll" star like every other musician in La at the time, Richard realized if he wanted to remain in music, he would have to begin studying music seriously. Richard began his formal music studies at the Immaculate heart College in 1972, and later he studied privately with John Ringgold and composer Dorrance Stalvey of the famous "Monday Evening Concerts." Since brother Charles Band had just formed his first movie company, Richard decided to take a break from music and began to work as an assistant director on some films. He then went from assistant director to production manager and then to associate producer and producer on over 12 films. In 1977 Richard Band left the film business and took an extended holiday in Europe to get back to his roots. He soon realized that he could perhaps marry his love for films and music by creating music for film. A few month's later Richard and a friend, Joel Goldsmith, son of famed film composer Jerry Goldsmith, approached Irwin Yablans at Compass International Distributors (HALLOWEEN) and asked for the opportunity to score a film. After much discussion they were given $1000.00 to create a score for the 1978 film LASERBLAST which heralded his and Joel’s debut as film composers. Richard has since gone on to score over 70 films and many television productions including multiple episodes of STARGATE SG-1, WALKER: TEXAS RANGER and Disney's SING ME A STORY. Amongst various Awards over the years, In 1986 his music score for FROM BEYOND won best Original Soundtrack at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges Spain beating out such heavyweights scores from Aliens and Blue Velvet Richard has also scored many documentaries including the award-winning series’ MOST DECORATED, BRUTE FORCE and WEAPONS OF WAR as well as having contributed much music to other shows such as THE REAL WEST, CIVIL WAR JOURNALS and various BIOGRAPHIES. Amongst various television specials for which Band has composed music was the acclaimed Final tribute to NBC's BILL COSBY SHOW. Richard’s experience over the years has brought him to score over 20 films internationally with such renown orchestras as THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC, THE LONDON SYMPHONY and THE ROME PHILHARMONIC. He has also had music recorded in Prague, Romania and Munich. In the last several years Richard has enjoyed scoring a variety of family and comedy films for Viacom and Paramount Pictures as well as hundreds of animated vignettes for the WB kid's network all of which were scored with orchestra. He also developed the campaign music for many of the WB’s primetime shows such as BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, GILMORE GIRLS, ROSWELL, and SMALLVILLE. His musical talents can also be heard on miscellaneous amusement park rides including ALIENS - THE RIDE and several Vegas venues. Richard has also scored many interactive games for companies like InterPlay some of which include STAR TREK, WATERWORLD, CASPER, CLAYFIGHTER and INVICTUS: THE SHADOW OF OLYMPUS. Richard presently continues to work on many different projects including developing a specialized music library for films and television under the name of GRATIS MUSIC. The library will formally be launched in mid 2006 and in addition to his own music, will include music from at least 20 other well know film & TV composers. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.