Author › Mark Mothersbaugh

Emmy award-winning composer Mark Mothersbaugh has written the music for more than 70 film and television projects. He first came to prominence in the music world in the 1970s as lead singer and keyboard player of the progressive new wave/rock band DEVO. In the mid-1980s, Mothersbaugh began to write music for commercials where he received a Clio award for his work. He then went on to composing music for numerous television projects including the theme song and underscore for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, the score for the popular children’s series Rugrats, and the music for The Rugrats Movie. Recent television credits include HBO’s Big Love and Sci-Fi’s Eureka. In 1996, Mothersbaugh met Wes Anderson and scored the filmmaker’s critically acclaimed Bottle Rocket. He wrote the music for Anderson’s Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, as well as The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Mothersbaugh’s other feature film credits include Catherine Hardwicke’s Lords of Dogtown and Thirteen, Joe and Anthony Russo’s Welcome to Collinwood, Happy Gilmore, 200 Cigarettes, and The New Age, among others. Sony Animation’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs featured a huge orchestral score by Mark and a cover of Food, Glorious Food by DEVO. Mothersbaugh has scored numerous video games including The Sims and Boom Blox. Mark’s record and song production credits include work with artists like Vampire Weekend, David Bowie, Cypress Hill, David Byrne, Beck, Iggy Pop, B'52's, Jacob Dylan, Cindy Lauper, and A Tribe Called Quest. Mark was the recipient of BMI’s distinguished Richard Kirk Lifetime Achievement Award. Mothersbaugh is a world-renowned artist who cites Andy Warhol as inspiration. His paintings and drawings have been shown in galleries around the world. He continues to perform with DEVO, which has had resurgence in recent years. Mothersbaugh was born in Ohio and studied at Kent State University.