Scott Hackwith is an American composer-producer-musician whose career has progressed from work as a professional guitarist and singer to recording producer and scoring motion pictures. Currently, he is the owner-chief creative officer of Slogan Music & Mix, a Los Angeles based company specializing in creating original music for placement in films, documentaries, television shows and commercials. Since launching the company in 2001, Hackwith has completed jobs for hundreds of major clients. Slogan also represents a formidable roster of award-wining composers, and past notable associations have involved the talents of The Ramones, Iggy Pop, and Dave Jerden (Rolling Stones, Janes Addiction). As a songwriter-composer, Hackwith has both contributed songs and written soundtracks to numerous feature films, including the Russell Crowe-Denzel Washington headlined Virtuosity, Adam Sandler's Airheads, the award winning Love & Sex, starring Famke Janssen and John Favreau and Love is the Drug, starring John Patrick Amedori and Lizzy Caplan.
Born September 3, 1968 in San Diego, California, Hackwith eventually re-located to Los Angeles where he divided his time between playing lead guitar for TSOL, recording numerous home demos on a four track and landing a day job at Propaganda Films. Working behind the camera for acclaimed directors David Fincher (Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Dominick Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds, Swordfish), Michael Bay (Transformers, Pearl Harbor) and Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo). Hackwith's talent quickly propelled him from production assistant to serve as art director and production designer for their music videos and TV commercials. Nonetheless, music remained his primary interest and Hackwith reserved the evenings to either perform, write or record his original material. In 1992, Hackwith launched the heavy gauge alt rock band, Dig, whose debut EP Runt was issued by Caroline Records (home to Brian Eno, Smashing Pumpkins) and topped the influential CMJ chart. After coming to the attention of record exec-manager Gary Kurfist (Talking Heads, Blondie), the band signed with MCA's Radioactive imprint. Dig‘s "Believe" single enjoyed success on Billboard's Top 20 and at MTV, who aired the Hackwith-directed "Believe" video on the network's Buzz Worthy program for months. Dig played alongside the Flaming Lips, The Ramones, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and many others, which led to some lasting alliances. The most notable include Iggy Pop, with whom he frequently participated in after hours jams (Pop even featured Hackwith's vocals on his Brick by Brick album), and the Ramones, who chose Hackwith to produce their 1993 Acid Eaters, which Spin magazine called "the best Ramones record made in a decade." He also produced the band's retrospective sets Ramones Mania Vol. 2 (2000), Masters of Rock (2001), The Chrysalis Years(2002), Best of the Chrysalis Years (2002), The Best of The Ramones (2004), Weird Tales of the Ramones (2005) and Greatest Hits (2006). Hackwith's numerous production credits, apart from all of Dig's albums, include Beachwood Sparks' acclaimed 2002 Make the Cowboy Robots Cry album (co-produced with Jimmy Tamborello), live albums by punk spearheads the Circle Jerks, Agent Orange, and many more. Hackwith's transition into full time work as a composer for film and television represented a fulfilling artistic extension of his own non-stop creativity. Along with his on-going duties for commercial clients, Hackwith's 2009 credits include composing music for the Discovery Channel's Bone Detectives TV series and forthcoming documentary Raised in the Ring. Scott was recently entrusted with Motown's original multi-track tapes of the classic Jackson 5 hit “I’ll be There, and produced a vibrant re-mix for a State Farm Insurance commercial.