Graeme Revell is a New Zealand musician and composer. He came to prominence in the 1980s as the leader of the industrial/electronic group SPK. Since the 1990s he has worked primarily as a film score composer. Some of Revell's best known film scores include The Crow, Street Fighter, ', From Dusk Till Dawn, The Craft, The Saint, The Negotiator, Bride of Chucky, Titan A.E., ', Daredevil, Freddy vs. Jason, and Sin City. He is also known for his frequent collaborations with director David Twohy, having scored Below and the Riddick franchise. He is an eight-time recipient of the BMI Film Music Award, including the Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award, and an AACTA Award winner.
Biography
Early life
Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A. As an orderly in an insane asylum in Australia in the late 70's, he and one of the patients formed one of industrial music's first bands, SPK, as an outgrowth of Mr. Revell's interest in music therapy. He spent the next decade making music that ranged from extreme to beautiful to academic and earning a reputation for wild stage stunts that included accidentally setting an audience member on fire with a flamethrower. Mr. Revell's break came in 1989, when he scored the Australian film "Dead Calm." A Hollywood agent, Richard Kraft, heard it and tracked Mr. Revell down. Since then, Mr. Revell has been busy in Hollywood, working with everything from 85-piece orchestras for "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," to Tuvan singers and Armenian stringed instruments for "The Crow," to brassy jazz and hip-hop rhythm loops in his current project, "Fled," with Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin.
He worked as a regional planner in both Australia and Indonesia, and was also an orderly in an Australian psychiatric hospital.
Musical career
Revell was a founding member of the industrial music band SPK, playing keyboards and percussion. The SPK single, "In Flagrante Delicto", was the basis for the Dead Calmfilm score that won him an Australian Film Industry award in 1989. Most of Revell's subsequent projects were film scores. But in 1997, he teamed up with Roger Mason to create a non-film music albumVision II – Spirit of Rumi, released through New York based Angel Records. The two coproduced, supplied some of the instrumental accompaniment, and set to music 11 poems by renowned 13th century poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī. Vocals were provided by Noa, Lori Garson, Esther Dobong'Na Essiene a.k.a. Estha Divine, and the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. In 2002–03, he assisted the rock bandEvanescence on their debut album, Fallen, in which he is credited for doing most of the string arrangements. He has also done string arrangements for Ludus, Stefy, Biffy Clyro and The Wombats.
Style
Revell's musical style is predominantly electronic and computer-based, yet often utilizes classical instruments or entire arrangements for certain pieces. The orchestral scores that Revell has composed have changed throughout his career—from Bernard Herrmann-like pieces to Ennio Morricone-influenced works. "Whenever I write songs, I always have visual images in mind, and I have always changed styles dramatically. That's not good for a long-term rock career, but it's good if you want to score films." "I'm trying to bring a dose of class to Hollywood," he said. "I want my music to be the real thing instead of some terrible synthesized thing thrown together in a week. I don't want to sound just like everybody else." Revell's music is often re-used from movie to movie and in more recent times he has collaborated with other artists on their albums. After the success of his soundtrack on Red Planet where he used the voice of French singer Emma Shapplin to back up and often lead his score, he collaborated with her on her own album Etterna, producing all of her songs. He has recently been interviewed for the independent documentary Finding Kraftland.
Collaborators
Revell has been assisted in sound design by Brian Williams, who creates dark ambient music under the name Lustmord.
Awards and nominations
On 18 May 2005, Revell was honored at the annual BMI Film & TV Awards with the Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement.
