British composer/producer/programmer Atticus Ross has worked steadily since the mid-’90s, collaborating with Tim Simenon’s Bomb the Bass and Barry Adamson as a programmer, and performing with his own band with wife Claudia Sarne, 12 Rounds. The duo’s first album, 1996’s Jitterjuice, was released by Polydor in the U.K., but they were dropped by the label the following year; however, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor signed them to his label Nothing Records, which released My Big Hero in 1998. This began a long collaboration between Ross and Reznor, which intensified when Ross moved to the U.S. in 2000; he earned production and programming credits on NIN’s albums With Teeth, Year Zero, and The Slip, and co-wrote Ghosts I-IV as well. During this time, Ross also worked with Reznor on projects that included Zack de la Rocha, Jane’s Addiction, the ill-fated Tapeworm collective, and How to Destroy Angels, which also included Reznor’s wife, former West Indian Girl member Mariqueen Maandig, as a member. Outside of his work with Reznor, Ross collaborated with Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz on the band Error, which released a self-titled EP in 2004, and also did production and remixing work with artists including Joe Barresi, Coheed and Cambria, Korn, Grace Jones, and Telepathe over the years. Ross’ first film music work was the 2004 score to the Hughes Brothers’ television show Touching Evil, a collaboration with Sarne and his brother, Leopold Ross, but his big break was scoring Ross Hughes’ 2010 movie The Book of Eli, which earned him a Discovery of the Year nomination at the World Soundtrack Awards. Later that year, Ross and Reznor collaborated on the score to David Fincher’s The Social Network, which was released in late 2010 and ultimately won that year’s Golden Globe and Academy Awards for best original score. Ross and Reznor reteamed on another Fincher film score, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, late in 2011.
