# Shawn Patterson (composer)

Shawn Michael Patterson (born September 14, 1965) is an American composer and songwriter. He is known for writing the song "Everything Is Awesome" for the Warner Brothers feature film The Lego Movie (2014).

## Early life

Shawn Patterson was born in Athol, Massachusetts, to working-class parents Ronald and Joan Patterson. His father was a musician who played several instruments, including saxophone, guitar, trumpet, and pedal steel. However, Patterson was first drawn to music while watching comedian Steve Martin play the banjo on television during his Let's Get Small Tour.
Patterson began his music education by taking banjo lessons, and studying Bluegrass and Dixieland styles of music. Patterson started experimenting with the instrument, attempting to attach a pickup to the head and run it through a guitar amplifier owned by a friend from school. He later began to play electric guitars.
In June 1977, Patterson and his father attended a screening of Star Wars. This was the first time film music caught his attention and contributed to his passion for music as a career. Patterson was also influenced by John Williams' 1978 Superman score, a movie he watched several times to try and absorb the music.
On June 2, 1979, Patterson's father died after suffering a brain aneurysm, leaving him, his two brothers, and his mother, Joan Patterson. Around this time Patterson was exposed to rock bands such as Van Halen, AC/DC, Queen, and The Who.
With the release of the Blues Brothers film in 1980, Patterson was heavily drawn to the influences of the film's soundtrack and band: Elmore James, Sam and Dave, and Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Around this time he began practicing and writing songs. He played in and out of local bands until he graduated from Athol High School in 1983 and attended Berklee College of Music on scholarship at 17.
At Berklee, Patterson experienced tremendous discomfort in his left hand, most likely due to a broken left collarbone as a child. He continued experimenting with composition while at Berklee.
Upon leaving Berklee at the end of summer 1983, Patterson resumed playing around Massachusetts, teaching guitar lessons in local music stores and privately. He began studying with local jazz educator and pianist Mark Marquis, who steered him to the Fitchburg Public Library with the instructions to explore their jazz record collection.
Patterson's musical voyage took a serious turn as he discovered jazz styles that would alter his musical interests, such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Pass, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Charlie Christian, Jim Hall, and Wes Montgomery. Many times, he would study for 12 hours a day.
Patterson began experimenting with a broad range of songwriting material, having also been heavily influenced by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and the Benny Goodman Sextet.

## Career

In 1986, Patterson left for Los Angeles to attend the Grove School of Music. While there, Patterson worked full-time during the night shift as a security guard on Sunset Boulevard and would attend college in the daytime. Upon completion at Grove, he returned to Massachusetts, continued his private studies with Marquis, and began playing around the state in various jazz ensembles he led.
In 1988, Patterson accepted a scholarship to attend the Jazz in the July program of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Patterson studied and performed with Dr. Billy Taylor and Max Roach.
Patterson drove to Los Angeles in 1990 to relocate permanently. He played some live gigs occasionally with friends he had met through Grove, but his priority was to build a small studio and begin producing his music to get composing work.
He landed a job as a production assistant at the animated television show, Alvin and the Chipmunks, where, in 1991, he sold his first song for one of the albums of the series. The song was a rap song titled "Rock the House", of which he wrote the music and lyrics. At this time, Patterson was renting various people's small project studios to produce his compositions and began writing for trailer houses, writing the music for large international advertisement campaigns such as The Fisher King, My Girl, and several others.
Patterson moved on to The Ren & Stimpy Show as Operations Manager in search of better pay. Soon, however, he moved into the audio/post-production department and began working as a music editor. Patterson worked cutting music to film and television, working with classical styles.
Patterson continued selling his music independently. He was then asked to write original songs and bits of score for the show. Patterson wrote a series of featured big band songs in the style of Frank Sinatra for the episode, "Ol' Blue Nose" directed by Steve Loter and sung by Billy West.
When The Ren & Stimpy Show came to an end, Patterson was working as a freelance composer and songwriter. Billy West handed Patterson's demo CD out around Los Angeles and it soon found its way into the hands of Doug Langdale and Audu Paden, who hired him as composer for the animated series, Project G.e.e.K.e.R. in 1995.
Patterson was the score composer and songwriter for three seasons of the Emmy Award-winning series Robot Chicken and series score composer for the award-winning TV series, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, created by The Book of Life's Jorge R. Gutierrez. He also scored the 1995 horror film The Demolitionist, and composed music for Disney Channel's Dave the Barbarian.
Patterson is also the score composer and songwriter on DreamWorks Animation's The Adventures of Puss in Boots, a Netflix original series about the character Puss from the Shrek franchise.
He has worked alongside several directors in his career including Chris McKay, Henry Selick, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon, Phil Lord, and Chris Miller.
Patterson has also written and produced songs for artists including Seth MacFarlane, Zac Efron, 50 Cent, Matthew Morrison, RZA, Ke$ha, Patrick Stump, and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
Patterson himself guest starred as a pubescent Theodore in the Robot Chicken episode "Crushed by a Steamroller on My 53rd Birthday" on Adult Swim.
Patterson wrote "Everything Is Awesome" for The Lego Movie (2014), which spent six consecutive weeks on the UK Singles and 31 on the UK Indie, peaking on both charts in early March 2014 at No. 17 and No. 2, respectively. In the US Billboard Hot 100, the song charted at No. 57. The single sold 418,000 copies in the United States by the end of June 2014, and became Gold certified at the end of that year. On July 14, 2017, it was certified Platinum, having sold more than 1,000,000 units since its release. It was nominated for Best Original Song by the Motion Picture Academy and was performed live on-stage at the 2015 Academy Awards. The song was also remixed for the sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019).

## Awards and nominations

* Academy Award-nominated for Best Original Song.
* Grammy-nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
* Satellite Award-nominated for Best Original Song.
* Critics' Choice Movie Award-nominated for Best Song.
* Denver Film Critics Society Award winner for Best Original Song.
* Georgia Film Critics Association nominated for Best Original Song.
* Hollywood Music in Media Award winner for Song - Animated Film.
* Houston Film Critics Society Award winner for Best Original Song.
* Talk Film Society Award winner for Best Original Song.
* Iowa Film Critics Award winner for Best Original Song.
* Phoenix Film Critics Society Award winner for Best Original Song.
* Variety Artisans Award winner.

## Personal life

He has trained in martial arts under the instruction of Sifu Ed Monaghan and Sifu JoAnn Wabisca at Ekata Training Center in Valencia, California.
Patterson has promoted the conspiracy theory that the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump was staged.

## Filmography
### Television

| Year | Title | Notes |
| 1996 | Project G.e.e.K.e.R. | |
| 1996 | KaBlam! | Segment: "The Louie and Louie Show" |
| 1998–2002 | Oh Yeah! Cartoons | Episodes: "Pete Patrick and Persian Puss: What About Lunch?", "Max" segments, "Tales from the Goose Lady" segments, "Hubbykins and Sweetiepie", "The Youngstar 3" |
| 2004–2005 | Dave the Barbarian | |
| 2005–2007 | The X's | |
| 2007–2008 | El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera | |
| 2008 | Tak and the Power of Juju | |
| 2009 | Titan Maximum | |
| 2010–2014 | Robot Chicken | Seasons 5–7 |
| 2012–2013 | The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange | |
| 2014 | Max Steel | Season 2 |
| 2015–2018 | The Adventures of Puss in Boots | |
| 2016 | Victor and Valentino | Pilot episode |