Nick Brophy is an American mixer, engineer, producer and songwriter. The artists he has collaborated with and written for include Jason Aldean, the Rolling Stones, Avril Lavigne, Hootie & the Blowfish, Kenny Chesney, Carly Simon, Taylor Swift, Garbage and Everclear. His engineering credits include Everclear's 1x platinum “Sparkle and Fade”, Avril Lavigne's 6x platinum “Let Go” and the Rolling Stones 4x platinum “40 Licks”. His mixing credits include three consecutive #1 singles by Kip Moore; 2x platinum “Somethin' 'Bout a Truck”, certified gold “Beer Money” and 1x platinum “Hey Pretty Girl” as well as Jimmy Fallon's Grammy Award-winning comedy album “Blow Your Pants Off". His songwriting credits include recordings by Hootie & the Blowfish, Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney and Rascal Flatts. To date, his work has contributed to the sale of over 21 Million albums and singles worldwide as well as 12 Grammy Award nominations.
History
Brophy was born in St. Louis, Missouri but grew up all over the world. He spent time overseas in Japan, Greece, Egypt as well as many states in the U.S., eventually settling in Southern California. He began playing guitar at age 13 and was in several SoCal bands before joining Aircraft, a local band out of San Diego consisting of Ronnie Jones, Larry Madison, Rob Lamothe and Alan DeSilva. Aircraft relocated to Los Angeles where it performed shows at Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go, Troubadour, Gazzarri's, the Roxy and other legendary venues. After disbanding in 1987, drummer Alan DeSilva contacted Lamothe and Brophy to form a new band.
In 1988, together with DeSilva and Lamothe, Brophy formed the Riverdogs. Then Whitesnake guitarist, Vivian Campbell was helping produce the group's demos and later left to join the Riverdogs. In February 1989, Riverdogs signed to Tony Martell's imprint label Epic Associated Records and began pre-production on its debut album “Riverdogs” which was released in June 1990. The album was critically lauded and received Holland's Edison Award for best hard rock album of 1991 beating out Nirvana's "Nevermind". Campbell left the band in November 1990 and later joined Def Leppard. After 2 follow-up albums, 1992's “Absolutely Live” and 1993's “Bone”, the Riverdogs disbanded. During the making of “Bone”, Brophy assumed the role of engineer and in 1994 began engineering at the newly built Rondor Music Publishing studios in West Los Angeles.
Rondor Music
In 1994, after just 3 months of working as an assistant engineer, Brophy was promoted to head engineer by Herb Alpert. During his 5 years at Rondor, Brophy engineered alongside veteran producers Lou Adler, Richard Perry, Bones Howe and contemporary producers Greg Wells, Jay Joyce as well as writers and artists Michael Masser, Gerry Goffin, Olivia Newton-John, Everclear, Garbage and many others. While at Rondor, Brophy was signed to EMI Music Publishing and had international success with records by Trine Rein, Momoko, Jill Johnson, and Coco Lee as well as film and TV placements including ABC's “Wasteland”, Eddie Murphy's “Pluto Nash” and a song on the motion picture soundtrack for “The Wedding Planner”. It was while at Rondor that Brophy became an early expert in the industry standardrecording medium of Pro Tools. He was among the handful of Los Angeles-based "Pro Tools Gurus" which included Tal Hertzberg, Greg Fidelman, Lars Fox and Greg Gordon. This, along with his producing engineering and mixing, caught the interest of Worlds End Producer Management's Sandy Roberton.
World's End
In 2001, Brophy signed to World's End Producer Management. In Sept of 2001 he worked with the production teamThe Matrix on Avril Lavigne's “Let Go” album which eventually sold over 6 million copies. The following year Brophy engineered 3 albums with producer Don Was, which included Hootie & the Blowfish “Hootie & the Blowfish”, the Rolling Stones “40 Licks” and Carly Simon “Christmas Is Almost Here”. During his time at Worlds End, Nick worked on albums with producers Dave Sardy, Paul Lani and Was as well as producing an album for Warner Australia artist “Mishelle Bradford-Jones".
In 2003, at the suggestion of friend and country artist Phil Vassar, Brophy re-located to Nashville, Tennessee. He arrived and began co-producing Phil Vassar's “Shaken Not Stirred”. In Nashville Nick has written, produced, engineered and mixed albums and singles with; Vassar, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hanson, Hootie & the Blowfish, the JaneDear Girls, Kip Moore, Big & Rich, Jimmy Fallon and many others. Nick's work as a mixer has earned him several number 1's as well as Fallon's “Blow Your Pants Off” winning a Grammy for best comedy album.
Cornman Music
In 2015, Brophy signed to Cornman-Warner/Chappell Music. During this time he has had recordings by Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Rascall Flatts, Brooke Eden, The McClymonts and others.
