John Murphy is a British film composer. He is a self-taught multi-instrumental musician who began his career in the 1980s, working notably with The Lotus Eaters, Thomas Lang, and Claudia Brücken. Since the beginning of his career, he has collaborated numerous times with several directors, mainly Danny Boyle, Guy Ritchie, Michael Mann, Matthew Vaughn, and Stephen Frears. He has received praise through the years and some of his awards include the Silver Award at the Cannes Film Festival, a British D&AD Award, and a BMI Award. Murphy gained recognition in the film industry while working with Guy Ritchie on his film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Michael Mann's Miami Vice, Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass and scoring various films by Danny Boyle. His instrumental tracks "In the House – In a Heartbeat" from 28 Days Later and "Adagio in D Minor" from Sunshine have been featured in a variety of TV shows, commercials and film trailers.
Background
Born in Liverpool, England, Murphy began composing music for films in the early 1990s and scored his first hit with Leon the Pig Farmer. Together with former OMD member David Hughes, he worked on several successful British movies, enjoying particular success with the soundtrack to 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Since 2000's Snatch and Shooters, Murphy has been mainly based in Los Angeles. His successes include City by the Sea and Danny Boyle's box-office success 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later. He also collaborated with Underworld to score Danny Boyle's science fiction filmSunshine. In 2006 Murphy composed the score for Michael Mann's Miami Vice. In 2009, he composed the music for the 2009 remake of the 1972 filmThe Last House on the Left, followed by 2010's Kick-Ass, based on the comic book of the same name. Other excerpts from his scores have been released for advertising, in particular "In the House – In a Heartbeat" from 28 Days Later, and "Adagio in D minor" from Sunshine. In 2014, he released an album Anonymous Rejected Filmscore that had been, as the title suggests, composed for a film whose studio head had rejected it. Murphy promised the director that he wouldn't name the film, but described it as being 6 or 7 years previous, so around 2006–07. The score was allowed to develop in directions unconstrained by the original film's narrative and the cover art is a photograph of Murphy's son, taken by his wife through her sunglasses.
