Bios
Matt Ellard
Matt Ellard has been producing, mixing and engineering music for more than 22 years. Starting at Trevor Horn’s Sarm West studio in London, before relocating in 1992 to the United States to become Chief Engineer at Cherokee Studios (Los Angeles, CA), Fort Apache Studios (Boston, MA), and Q Division (Boston, Ma). Whilst also maintaining a flourishing career as an independent producer/engineer with artists from around the globe. He is a member of the Audio and Media Technology Faculty at The New England Institute of Art in Boston, MA.
He has worked with many well known artists ranging from George Michael to Queen, Seal to The Pet Shop Boys, Motorhead to Ozzy Osbourne, Natalie Merchant to Elliott Smith, Weezer to Radiohead, Converge to Between The Buried And Me, Ice Cube to Ice T, Morphine to The Slip, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to many many more….
His depth of knowledge and experience across both the analog and digital domains is extensive. Matt is President of The Authority. He manages everyday operations, whilst also attending to all things audio. His extensive mixing experience and attention to detail will ensure that all our tunes will sonically stand out from the competition.
Marc Friedman
Accomplished bassist and multi-instrumentalist, Marc Friedman has been touring and recording for 15 years. Marc’s styles range from modern classical to pre-war swing, to early country music, and beyond. His career has focused primarily on his avant-rock power trio, The Slip. The band has earned critical international acclaim, and their song "Even Rats" was featured in Guitar Hero I. Marc has toured or collaborated with Natalie Merchant, Marco Benevento, Sonya Kitchell, Dan Bern, and many more.
His love of classical music, his studying Indian Raga, and transcribing jazz and acoustic blues, has given him diligence and a dedication to the vast universe of notes and rests that make up a score or a song. These skills lend themselves perfectly to the Authoring process needed for Rock Band Network. Marc watches closely over the Authority's songs, paying close attention to making the game feel extremely realistic and natural to the sensation of playing a real instrument.
As the Authority's Creative Director, Marc oversees quality control. He is also the Chief Bass and Guitar author for the Authority.
Clinton Vadnais
Clinton Vadnais first worked obsessively with computers in the 1980s, on the Apple II and Commodore 64. He also spent countless hours playing in video arcades and on his Intellivision console at home. He has been playing guitar since the mid-‘80s, and learned MIDI and Sequencing in the early ‘90s.
Clinton’s guitar-playing style has earned him the nickname, Cleantone. It was equally appropriate when his passions shifted toward the art of recording. In the 1990s with years of self-taught engineering skills under his belt, he went to augment them at Full Sail in Orlando, FL. He has since worked extensively in concert production, videography, television, and various other media services.
Clinton is well known for his location recording talents. Credited with many hundreds of recordings and tens of thousands of hours logged on Digital Audio Workstations, his technical skills are well honed.
Clinton is the Authority's Chief Author. He oversees our Authoring team, making sure our high standards are maintained. His extensive Authoring experience makes him the go-to-guy for all technical issues.
Damian Gates
Damian graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and has been working in the financial services field for the past 10
plus year as a Stock Broker and at Fidelity’s clearing firm National Financial as a Client Service Manger. He has his Series 7, 24, 55, and 63
and is a Six Sigma Yellow Belt.
Additionally Damian has been a touring and recording musician with the group Clarias for the past ten years sharing the stage with such acts as Bon Jovi, Kanye West, Nickelback, Mute Math and Lupe Fiasco. He has been playing video games since the Atari system was first introduced.
Damian is The Authority’s business manager.
Nathan Booth
A Boston transplant from the Philadelphia area, Nathan joined The Authority in early 2009 shortly after its inception. A long-time drummer and guitarist, he is particularly well versed in the rhythmically spastic, gravitating toward all things metal and rock. With a background on both sides of the glass in the recording studio and behind the Rock Band drum kit he's a natural fit at The Authority.
Greg Lanzillotta
Greg Lanzillotta is a multi-instrumentalist with over a decade of experience composing, recording, mixing, and performing music. He began playing and recording music at a young age and his passion led him to The New England Institute of Art where he received a Bachelor of Science in Audio Production. His trained ear and skill with multiple instruments allows him to author songs for the Rock Band Network with pinpoint accuracy. Although guitar is his first instrument, he currently plays drums in the band Lemon Demon.
Steve Giles
Steve Giles is a keyboardist, arranger, and composer. As a member of Pop/Rock group Clarias, he has shared the stage with acts such as Bon Jovi, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Mute Math. Over the past 8 years he has played stages across the US and Canada, as well as a tour in Japan and Guam.
He is also very active in Boston’s classical music scene as the Production Manager for conductors Benjamin Zander (Boston Philharmonic) and Gil Rose (Boston Modern Orchestra Project) who were both nominated for 2010 Grammy Awards. Steve is a graduate of Berklee College of Music with majors in Film Scoring and Composition.
Pat Mills
Patrick Mills is an audio engineer and award-winning artist who hails from the verdant hills of southeast Michigan. His recent exodus to the Boston area landed him in a unique intersection between art and sound, a potent combination to say the least. His most often cited sources of inspiration include the likes of Bill Murray, David Duchovny, Calvin and Hobbes, and many, many more.
Brandon Akeley
Brandon is a graduate from The New England Institute of Art with a Bachelor's Degree in Audio and Media Technology. Originally from northern Maine, he moved to Boston after High School to pursue his love of music production.
Hobbies include working in the studio, playing fantasy football, riding dirt bikes and playing Rock Band. His love of music and gaming made authoring a natural progression for him. In his spare time he creates electronic music, from hip hop and dance to punk-pop and acoustic.
Rich Graiko
Rich Graiko has an extensive resume as a Hellcat/Epitaph, and Megalith, records recording artist, session musician, producer/engineer and sideman.
Over the past fifteen years, Rich has worked primarily as a Trumpeter on dozens of major tours including The Van’s Warped tour, Dance Craze Too (The English Beat & the Selector) The Fall of Ska (Reel Big Fish & Streetlight Manifesto), and the Hellcat Records Tour, etc.
In addition to occupying the original Trumpet seat in the Reggae/Soul group Westbound Train (Boston), he has free-lanced in several internationally touring acts including The Toasters (NYC/Valencia) The Transplants (LA) and Dave Hillyard and the Rocksteady Seven (NYC). He is also a co founder of underground traditional Ska group and Megalith recording artists The Void Union.
Connor McDaniel
Raised on Nintendo 64 and Math-Rock, Connor McDaniel has been authoring songs independently since 2007, and has independently authored near four hundred guitar charts. Currently enrolled as a Music Business Major at McNally Smith College of Music, Connor spends roughly 25% of his time authoring, 25% rocking, 25% finding obscure foreign metal bands from 1983, and 25% of his time still managing to rock while sleeping and/or eating.
