Nick Phoenix (born August 25, 1967) is a London-born, American raised composer, of Scottish and Serbian descent. He is the co-founder of the production music company Two Steps from Hell. He has written music for a number of high-profile trailers, with over 1200 noted scores and placements in total and over 100,000 TV placements with Sony/Extreme Music. Two Steps From Hell has the unique distinction of the only production company to become a full blown artist with millions of fans worldwide.
Nick was part of the birth of epic trailer music, writing with Music Junkies in the mid 1990s. At the same time, he was involved in producing virtual instrument libraries under the Quantum Leap brand for East West/www.soundsonline.com. He has received over 120 major awards for his virtual instruments over a 25 year period.
In 2006, Phoenix formed Two Steps from Hell with his business partner, Thomas Bergersen, and the two publicly released the album Invincible in 2010. Trailers for the Harry Potter Franchise, Batman, Jurassic Park, Star Trek and numerous Pixar films helped bring Two Steps into the spotlight. Several additional commercial album releases have since followed, including Archangel and SkyWorld, each of which has charted on the iTunes top 100 in the Soundtracks category. Battlecry rose to #4 when it was released in 2015. In 2019, Two Steps released Dragon which peaked at #5 in the iTunes soundtrack category and #1 on Googleplay. Two Steps From Hell has also been the #1 streaming film music artist worldwide since 2017. The Two Steps From Hell YouTube channel has over 5 billion views. In 2018, both Invincible and Battlecry reached gold record status. Phoenix will perform a sold out European tour in 2022.
Nick Phoenix joined Doug Rogers at East West (soundsonline.com) in the early days of sampling and has produced dozens of the most popular virtual instruments available today. Nick’s career has been driven new ideas and innovation. He pioneered concepts like creating choirs that can sing the words you type on the keyboard and reverse engineering musical performances to create virtual instruments capable of flowing and expressive performances. Virtual instruments like Silk captured the “complete” sound of unusual ethnic instruments using an innovative multi-mic, phase aligned technique. Nick co-produced East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra and Hollywood Orchestra, the two most popular complete orchestral virtual instruments ever released. These libraries were the result of many talents, with Nick directing the performance, attitude and articulation of the orchestra. Cutting edge reverb to accompany these orchestral sounds became an obsession for Nick. After many years of struggling with available reverbs, Nick created a method of capturing instrument specific and stage location specific convolution reverb and created Spaces and Spaces 2.
Nick’s career as a composer has always been a huge part of what he does as a virtual instrument producer. Epic libraries like Stormdrum and Voices Of The Apocalypse were created to allow him to compose huge soundscapes on a very tight schedule for blockbuster trailers. Stormdrum 3 with Mickey Hart captured unique instruments way outside the spectrum. Hollywood Pop Brass is the first pop brass library that sounds like a hit record out of the box. Hollywood Choirs has taken the word building concept to new levels and has won numerous awards. The latest release “Forbidden Planet” is the result a 20 year journey with analogue synthesizers. It is unlike any synth plug-in ever created.
On 15 November 2015 Phoenix’s son, Jack, who was 15 years old, was killed when he was legally walking across a street in LA and hit by a man who was being chased by the police at 90 miles an hour. The Two Steps From Hell album Vanquish was dedicated to his memory. Jack’s clothing brand Sake, www.sakeforever.com, is thriving in 2022.
In 2021, Nick quietly released “King Of One” with his newly formed rock band, which includes members of Death Cab and John Mayer’s band. The sequel “Wide World” was released in May 2021 to high acclaim. Nick also launched a new website in 2021 which features the ability for fans to create mixes of his music.
Discography:
Invincible (2010) — Compilation of some of the most popular Two Steps from Hell tracks.
Archangel (2011) — Compilation of more of the most popular Two Steps from Hell tracks.
Halloween (2012) — Compilation of well-known horror tracks from several demonstration albums, with several other-genre tracks as well.
SkyWorld (2012) — First public album to use mostly all-new tracks.
Classics Volume One (2013) — Compilation of previously unreleased tracks in the same vein as Invincible and Archangel. First public album available in lossless audio.
Speed of Sound (2013) — Nick Phoenix solo album. All-new tracks.
Miracles (2014) — An epic drama/emotional album with the best of Illumina, Dreams & Imaginations, Two Steps From Heaven, and a few new tracks composed by Thomas Bergersen.
Battlecry (2015) — Public Album; follow-up to SkyWorld and the first public album to be released on two discs. It was later re-released in 2017 as Battlecry Anthology, featuring instrumental and orchestral versions of all the tracks from the original album.
Legacy (2015) — Japan-exclusive album featuring compiled tracks from previous public albums.
Classics Volume Two (2015) — Compilation of new and previously unreleased tracks.
Two Steps from Hell: Ringtones (2016) — A collection of ringtones released on Google Play.
Vanquish (2016) — Features vocal performances by Felicia Farerre, Asja Kadric, Jenifer Thigpen, and Linea Adamson.
Unleashed (2017) — Features vocal performances by Merethe Soltvedt, C.C. White, Felicia Farerre, Uyanga Bold, Nick Phoenix and Linea Adamson.
Impossible (2018) — Second Japan-exclusive album featuring compiled tracks from previous public albums like Battlecry, Vanquish, Unleashed and Classics Volume Two.
Dragon (2019) — Features vocal performances by Felicia Farerre, Merethe Soltvedt, and Uyanga Bold.
King Of One (2021) — Nick Phoenix solo rock album.
Wide World (2022) — Nick Phoenix solo rock album #2.
Myth (2022) — Latest Two Steps From Hell album featuring all new tracks
East West Quantum Leap Guitar And Bass
East West Quantum Leap Brass
East West Quantum Leap Voices Of The Apocalypse
East West Quantum Leap Stormdrum
East West Quantum Leap Stormdrum 2
East West Quantum Leap Stormdrum 3
East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra
East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Choirs
East West Quantum Leap Ministry Of Rock
East West Quantum Leap Ministry Of Rock 2
East West Quantum Leap Goliath
East West Quantum Leap Gypsy
East West Quantum Leap RA
East West Quantum Leap Silk
East West Quantum Leap Voices Of Passion
East West Quantum Leap Hollywood Orchestra
East West Quantum Leap Hollywood Choirs
East West Quantum Leap Pianos
East West Quantum Leap Voices Of The Empire
East West Quantum Leap Voices Of Soul
East West Quantum Leap Forbidden Planet
East West Quantum Leap Voices Of Opera
East West Quantum Leap Hollywood Backup Singers
East West Quantum Leap Hollywood Pop Brass
East West Quantum Leap String Machine