COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER​
Drew Skinner is an award-winning composer, sound designer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Portland, Oregon. Since 2008, he has served as the principal composer and sound designer for the New York-based animation studio Nathan Love, creating music and sound for a wide range of animated, commercial, and branded projects.
Over the course of his career, Drew has collaborated with animation studios, music houses, and sound design companies on work for clients including Ford, UPS, Baskin-Robbins, Nickelodeon, AT&T, and many other Fortune 500 brands. His work combines strong musical instincts with a detailed, cinematic approach to sound, helping shape the emotional tone, rhythm, and character of each project.
Drew’s musical background was forged in the restless energy of the New York and Long Island music scenes of the mid-to-late 1990s. He played in bands connected to the folk-rock movement around the Bowery, while also performing bass and drums in groups rooted in the explosive hardcore scenes of Long Island and New York City. At the same time, Manhattan’s electronic music scene was surging through clubs like Tunnel, Twilo, Limelight, and countless underground events, where jungle and drum & bass became a major influence on his musical direction.
That collision of live performance, underground music, and electronic production eventually led Drew to Berklee College of Music, where he studied Music Synthesis and deepened his understanding of composition, programming, recording, and production.
One of Drew’s most widely heard pieces came from an unexpected place: a big band jazz composition written for Nathan Love’s animated short “Baker Cat.” Despite jazz not being his primary background at the time, the track became a defining part of the film’s charm. “Baker Cat” went viral, and the piece has since reached over 16 million streams on Spotify and even found an unexpected second life being played at ballroom dance competitions in Sweden.
In addition to drums, Drew plays piano, cello, ukulele, bass, and guitar. In 2006, he moved to Los Angeles to build his studio and launch the band Automatique with his brother Sean Skinner. Alongside Jimmy Kuehn and Rocco Shields, Automatique worked with legendary producer Jack Douglas, known for his work with Aerosmith and John Lennon, and contributed two songs to Yoko Ono’s remix compilation album I’m a Witch Too. The band performed regularly at iconic Los Angeles venues including The Viper Room, The Whisky a Go Go, and House of Blues.
As a producer, Drew also releases music under the name DuskRider. His remix of Metric’s “Help I’m Alive” appears on the band’s Fantasies Flashbacks EP.
He remains open to writing another big band anthem for his unexpectedly devoted ballroom audience in Sweden… but only if the cat demands it.