Michael Andrews

Michael Andrews (yeah, some folks might know him as Elgin Park) is kinda one of those music chameleons—he wears a lot of hats. Multi-instrumentalist? Check. Producer? Composer? Yeah, he’s that guy. Most people probably know him for that haunting “Mad World” cover with Gary Jules—the one everybody cried to in Donnie Darko. Wildly, that track ended up as the UK’s Christmas number one back in 2003. But honestly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg for this dude. He’s actually a founding member of The Greyboy Allstars, a San Diego-based soul-jazz band, where he uses the name Elgin Park. After his old band, The Origin, fizzled out, he jumped into The Greyboy Allstars and kinda stumbled into film scores by accident. They were asked to do the music for Jake Kasdan’s “Zero Effect” in ’98, which just opened a whole new world for him. From there, he got involved with the cult-favorite TV show “Freaks and Geeks”—yep, the one all your cool friends rave about. Then, in 2000, Richard Kelly tapped him for the “Donnie Darko” soundtrack, and that blew up—thanks in no small part to his take on “Mad World.” That album smashed it, selling over 100,000 copies. Suddenly, Andrews was the go-to guy for that offbeat, emotional film score vibe. He’s scored everything from “Out Cold” to “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” “Bridesmaids,” “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” and a bunch more. The guy’s fingerprints are all over indie and comedy films from the 2000s and 2010s—just check the credits.