Tyler Bates

Tyler Bates is a prolific film composer best known for his score to the Zack Snyder-directed action hit "300," which engendered some unwelcome publicity in the form of a plagiarism scandal. Bates, a Los Angeles native, began his professional career in the early 1990s, scoring low-budget thrillers and science-fiction films with titles like "Tammy and the T-Rex." During this period, he also performed as half of an alternative rock duo, Pet, with singer-songwriter Lisa Papineau, releasing a sole album on Atlantic Records in 1996. Moving full-time into film scoring, Bates continued working in low-budget and direct-to-video films before eventually rising to higher-profile films like "Baadasssss!," Mario Van Peebles's affectionate biopic of his father, independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, and a remake of George A. Romero's classic 1970s zombie flick "Dawn of the Dead." The director on the latter film was a young filmmaker named Zack Snyder, who worked again with Bates on his next two films, the graphic novel adaptations "300" and "Watchmen." The first of those films was at the center of a brief scandal when it was revealed that Bates had plagiarized several music cues in his score from Elliot Goldenthal's score for Julie Taymor's experimental Shakespeare adaptation, "Titus"; Warner Brothers Studios took the unusual step of acknowledging and apologizing for the intellectual property theft on its website. Bates has also worked closely with musician-turned-horror-director Rob Zombie, scoring all Zombie's films including his reboot of the slasher-flick staple "Halloween" and its sequel.