Rising Stars: Meet Michael Wyckoff

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Wyckoff.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When I was four, I started taking piano lessons. At first, I absolutely loved the piano; then I despised it, as most do. However, I never considered making music professionally until high school. By that point, I had started to love the piano again. It was really the moment I discovered how to write music in high school that triggered that inner love for it. Around that same time, when I was 15 I had started teaching piano lessons and performing as the lounge pianist at Chez Nous in Toluca Lake. I was also the pianist for the vocal jazz ensemble, the “Vannaires”, and the classical vocal ensemble at my school. I won all the talent shows and a bunch of piano competitions for MTAC, as well as this thing at Paramount that I can’t even remember the name of. All this to say, I thought very highly of my abilities at the time. In senior year of high school, I knew I wanted to be a film composer, so I applied to USC, Berklee, UCLA, and CSUN for their film scoring programs. I got rejection letters from all four. That was really a wake up call that I wasn’t as great as I thought I was. A “big fish in a little pond”; I knew that if I really wanted to do this I had a lot of work ahead of me.

Fortunately, I got into CSUN, not the music program, but the general school. Again, as most do (kidding). I figured I would get my GE’s out of the way that first year and work really hard and apply again next year. Also in senior year, I started producing electronic music with my friend Miles. Not as something I thought I would do professionally, but just as something for fun. Once freshman year of college came. I got a meeting with the head of the program and she was kind enough to explain what she liked and didn’t like about my portfolio and what she was really looking for. So that whole year, I hunkered down and worked on my orchestration chops to the best of my ability. In the same year, Miles and I started an EDM duo, “R!OT”; I also started teaching piano lessons at Knauer Pianos in Tarzana. Sophomore year Miles left the project and I also saw these two youtube videos, “Pop Culture” by Madeon and “Weapon” by M4SONIC. I was in awe and went out and bought the instrument they were using in those videos, the Novation Launchpad. I started making youtube videos where I performed my music with it like they had, and to my surprise they did really well! I also met Brandon Laatsch that year, who at the time was half of the youtube channel RocketJump (formerly freddiew), and started writing the music for his youtube videos. I wasn’t really…good…at the time, but I’m grateful he took that chance on me.

That year Christina Grimmie, her brother Mark, and drummer Bobby became some of my best friends and I joined them, as well as my best friend Jonathan, as the keyboardist in her band. We played a bunch of incredible shows including Vidcon 2013 which I will always cherish. In 2014 a song Miles and I had made was licensed in the film “Mom’s Night Out”, and I made this launchpad video as a joke that will haunt me till the day I die as it became the most viewed of its kind with over 75 million views across uploads. For those two years, 2014 and 2015, I kept focusing on my school studies and my R!OT project, which by the end of senior year had over 200,000 subscribers, all the while writing for Brandon, teaching piano lessons, performing with the band, and doing 10 million other things. In 2015 I graduated from college and Brandon started the video game company “Stress Level Zero”. I started to score their games and our first game “Hover Junkers” did…ok. 2016 I started teaching at Icon Collective, which is a music college in LA. At the end of my first-semester teaching there, Christina was murdered. The only effect of that I’m comfortable sharing right now is that I decided I was going to stop teaching at Knauer to give myself more time to focus on music. That same year I did an official remix for Daya which was my first song on the radio, as well as two remixes for Aaron Carter, Dirty South, and Jayceeoh. I also got to perform at Entertainment Weekly’s Popfest.

In 2017 and 2018, we released our next game with Stress Level Zero, “Duck Season”, and it was very well received, but still not huge. Although it did do better than Hover Junkers! That same year I also met Harvey Mason Jr. who completely changed my life in a similar way to Brandon, and I’m very grateful to the both of them. He brought me to SM in Korea where, with a killer team, we just made kpop track after kpop track. In what is definitely one of the most surreal, “real life is not supposed to work like that” moments I’ve ever had, the first track we wrote was picked up by EXO and went double platinum. We wrote stuff for Red Velvet, EXO-CBX, NCT, SHINee, you name it. Harvey also let me work on the music for Pitch Perfect 3, and aside from the music I got to program Anna Kendrick’s launchpad scene. I need to give a quick shoutout to SoNevable who sent me presets that night, otherwise it would’ve been physically impossible with the amount of time I had. Harvey also brought me on to Over the Moon, All Rise, and Valley Girl, and let me score this indie film “Chokehold”. Through his label Hundredup I also had a R!OT track licensed in the show Whiskey Cavalier. As R!OT, I also got to perform at the Goldie Awards at New York’s Brooklyn Steel where I met my friend Yuto. He and I made a song, “Inari”, that got used in the game Electronauts. And I also got to perform on Japanese radio “BlockFM” in Tokyo.

2019 and 2020: this is when Boneworks, the latest Stress Level Zero game came out. It was one of the highest selling VR games of all time and is definitely my proudest career moment. I’m incredibly grateful to have been a part of that. I then scored a film “Morok”, and with my friends Rhyan and Jared scored this Bruce Willis film “Hard Kill”. I also made some really fun music with my friend Jake Barker, who brought the incredible Paula DeAnda on. I also produced a single for Chinese artist Tao and got to produce a single for Christina posthumously with Jonathan and her brother Mark, which was difficult at times but I’m glad we got to do it together. Finally, I got to write some cool music with my company in Taiwan, “Red Eyes Studios”, for some games that will be out next year! I also left Icon Collective for personal reasons, although I look forward to being back in a capacity. Which brings us to today! In the midst of a global pandemic. I’m doing most of the same, and I look forward to sharing those projects, although now I’m starting to take better physical and mental care of myself. I think anyone trying to have a career in the arts needs to stay on top of those two things.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Absolutely not. Lack of money, murder, personal physical health issues, drug dealer invasions, lost love, industry snakes. There are so many more. Life just keeps hitting me in the face and maybe I’ve just watched too many anime’s with protagonists like Goku, but I’m not giving up just yet!

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
You have to wear all the hats in this industry. I’m really a professional wearer of hats. But when I’m not wearing hats, I compose, produce, orchestrate, mix, master, arrange, and songwriter music in every style, as well as do sound design and play the piano. I write music for movies, tv shows and video games, as well as pop artists and my own project. I think it’s that ability to write and produce every style that sets me apart from others and that I’m most proud of.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Being an adult is better!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.michaelwyckoffmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riotedm/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Riotedm/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RIOTEDM
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/riotedm
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/r-otofficial
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/michaelwyckoffmusic