JOHN
FRIZZELL

Biography

HMMA Award-winning composer John Frizzell, born in New York City, began his music career early, singing in the chorus of the Paris Opera Company and the Metropolitan Opera Company. As a teenager, he played guitar in rock bands before shifting his focus to jazz – a passion that led him to pursue a formal musical education at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music and Manhattan School of Music. During his college years, Frizzell met his first mentor, guitar legend Joe Pass, who inspired him to become a composer. Early in his career, Frizzell collaborated with renowned composers as an orchestrator and co-composer. He initially worked with the iconic Academy Award Winner® Ryuichi Sakamoto on the Oliver Stone mini-series "Wild Palms," and then with Academy Award® nominee James Newton Howard on "Dante’s Peak." Following these collaborations, his independent composing career flourished, leading to scores for notable films with leading filmmakers such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Alien Resurrection"), Joel Silver ("Thir13en Ghosts" and "Ghost Ship"), Danny Cannon ("I Still Know What You Did Last Summer"), and Mark Rydell ("James Dean" and "Crime of the Century"). A pivotal moment in Frizzell's career came when he submitted music to Mike Judge on a cassette that he humorously edited to include disparaging commentary from Beavis and Butt-head, who insisted the music ‘sucked’. This tongue-in-cheek approach led to Frizzell becoming the composer for "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America." He continued to work with Judge on projects such as "Office Space," "King of the Hill," "Tales from the Tour Bus," and the 2022 film "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe," for which Frizzell won the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Score for a Streamed Animated Film. Frizzell is also set to score the 2025 reboot of "King of the Hill” and an untitled 2025 film from Judge.