Scott Mathews

Scott Mathews (born July 25, 1955) is an American music producer, composer, performer, and entrepreneur.

He has appeared as a musician, songwriter or producer on recordings with sales of more than 40 million units which earned more than 20 gold and multi-platinum RIAA Certification awards.

As a recording artist, he recorded for Capitol Records and established the video department at Capitol just prior to MTV.

Mathews owns and operates a private studio, TikiTown, along with four production and publishing companies.

Mathews began playing music at a young age.

At 15 he got his first break playing with Elvin Bishop at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium.

Nagle was already an established songwriter and recording artist for Warner Brothers, best known at the time for his 1970 album Bad Rice.

Nagle and Mathews teamed up and began to write and record material in Nagle's garage studio in San Francisco.

Turning 18, Mathews moved to Sausalito, CA, sharing a house with David Jenkins of Pablo Cruise, making a living as a session musician while writing and producing 'blueprints for records' with Nagle.

Mathews soon began producing radio and television jingles for various ad agencies.

This led to Roy Orbison being the first notable artist Mathews produced in the recording studio.

Mathews convinced an advertising agency he could get Orbison to license his biggest worldwide hit, Oh, Pretty Woman for Tone, a women's body soap manufactured by The Dial Corporation.

The campaign was such a success that Mathews followed it up with Johnny Cash on Victoria Station radio ads.

Ron Nagle's producer from his solo record, Jack Nitzsche, heard some of the duo's new material and hired them to work on film scores and record projects.

In Nitzsche, Mathews found his mentor in the music business and high-profile projects followed soon after.

Performing and producing sessions under Nitzsche, Mathews worked on his first movie soundtrack, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and was Nitzsche's multi-instrumentalist and close assistant on various recording projects with major artists such as Mick Jagger, Barbra Streisand, Glen Campbell, Ry Cooder, Dr. John.

In 1973 Mathews met future long-time collaborator Ron Nagle.

In 1977, Barbra Streisand heard one of Mathews and Nagle's songs at a meeting with Jack Nitzsche.

She asked to meet with the two composers and the three began writing together in a bungalow at The Beverly Hills Hotel.

They wrote "Don't Believe What You Read" for Streisand's album Superman which went double-platinum in the United States.

Mathews also assisted Nitzsche in writing the arrangements for the album.

Mathews and Nagle also wrote and published songs by The Tubes including the cult favorite, "Don't Touch Me There".

Also in 1977, Mathews played drums and dobro on Glen Campbell's album Southern Nights on Capitol Records and worked with Nitzsche on the arrangements of several songs.

Robin Williams contacted Mathews to help with a musical finale for his shows in San Francisco at The Boarding House.

Following that success, Williams took the show to New York at the Copacabana.

Mathews urged Williams to record some shows, which led to a record deal with Casablanca Records.

The result was an Reality...What a Concept, the first Grammy Award winning project for both Williams and Mathews.

Mathews was a studio musician on the Beach Boys album Keepin' the Summer Alive,

Mathews starred as Fluke Starbucker in the 1977 Star Wars parody Hardware Wars.

It was highly profitable, grossing in excess of $1,000,000 on a paltry $8,000 budget.

George Lucas said in a 1999 interview on the UK's The Big Breakfast television show that Hardware Wars was his favorite Star Wars parody.

In 2003, the film was honored by Lucasfilm when it was given the Pioneer Award at that year's The Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.

In August 2010, Time magazine listed it as one of the top 10 Star Wars fanfilms.

Following Mathews' writing and production work with artists on A&M Records, Capitol Records approached him and Nagle to build a band project.

Nagle and Mathews, funded by A&M, wrote and produced material under the name Dūrocs.

The duo ended up signing with Capitol Records as a production company to produce artists already on the label and/or new artists they brought in.

Capitol's Artists and repertoire division pushed for Mathews and Nagle to record their own album as the first project with the label and the duo agreed although the so-called 'band', Durocs, but never had any intention of performing live.

Originally labeled as new wave and power pop, Dūrocs wrote and produced material that was more diverse and explored Mathews and Nagle's interests in the styles of The Brill Building, Leiber and Stoller and Phil Spector.

Durocs did not assemble a band to tour in support of the album.

En lieu of touring, they produced music videos for their two singles.