Biography

Michael Lord is an American songwriter, composer, producer and Indie recording artist. His 2004 release SWAY found an audience when his song Smile was chosen by the Apple iTunes Music Store as their Single of The Week. Other songs from SWAY including "Bleed" and "Forgiven" soon found their way into hit television shows such as Alias and What About Brian. He followed SWAY with a mini EP titled The String Sessions reinterpreting the songs from SWAY acoustically with a string quartet. Lord wrote all string arrangements which were then performed by The Section Quartet.

In 2005 Lord worked with producer Desmond Child to arrange and record songs for American Idol's Season 4 Showstoppers Album resulting in the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Certified Gold Record.

Following the American Idol success he has turned his attention to music production producing tracks for Honey County, Quincy Coleman, Graham Colton, Courtney Jaye, Dilana, Paulina Gretzky and Chelsea Williams as well as writing songs included in NBC's hit comedy My Name Is Earl.

Currently Lord is composing, producing and arranging music for television, film and media. He recently composed the themes and underscore for NBC's hit game show The Wall hosted by Chris Hardwick. Michael Lord's varied experience and notable collaborations bring him a unique perspective as a composer.

Lord found early success as a member of bands with deals on Atlantic and Island/Def Jam, touring the US, garnering heavy rotation on radio/MTV and Top 20 Billboard chart success. Those experiences opened the door to his collaboration with exceptional producers such as Eric Valentine and T Bone Burnett, with whom he evolved his production chops.

Striking out on his own, Lord's music found an audience when Apple chose his track "Smile" from his self-produced album SWAY as their iTunes Single of Week. This opened the door for numerous placements for his music, including in Alias, Brothers & Sisters, My Name is Earl and Laguna Beach, as well as song arrangement and production opportunities including the Brown Betty musical episode of Fox’s Fringe and the American Idol Showstopper’s album, which was certified Gold by the RIAA.

Lord’s considerable song placements established him as a production music force and led to him co-creating the original music package for A&E’s hit Duck Dynasty, the theme for nationally syndicated entertainment based talk show Hollywood Today Live (Fox/Media General), as well as music for over 200 other shows.

Establishing a footprint in the scripted world, Lord collaborated with actor/director Ricky Schroder to compose a modern Americana score and original songs for Schroder’s film, Our Wild Hearts, as well as Schroder’s US Army project Starting Strong. Lord was then chosen to score various features, including the adaptation of NY Times bestseller Jessica Darling’s It List.

Taking note of Lord’s scoring skills, prominent music producer Jay Ruston enlisted Lord to re-envision a track for metal legends Anthrax on their comeback album, Worship Music. Lord created a hybrid orchestration of metal married to dark, ambient underscore for the bonus track remix version of "The Crawl".

In 2017, Lord joined with prolific television producer Andrew Glassman to compose the themes and underscore for NBC’s game show The Wall, hosted by Chris Hardwick with LeBron James as executive producer. Now entering its third season on NBC, The Wall is a multinational hit format being produced on 6 stages with over 30 international versions in association with Endemol/Shine. Lord's themes/underscore are used in all international versions.

Premiering in June 2019, Lord's themes and underscore will be an integral part of Fox’s game show Spin the Wheel co-created by Andrew Glassman and Justin Timberlake and hosted by Dax Shepard.

A native of Los Angeles, Lord began playing the piano at age 5. He studied classical piano, guitar, drums, and composition. Lord was the recipient of the Chick Corea Jazz Masters Scholarship while he attended the Berklee College of Music.