"Nicole Dionne is someone who keeps her ear close to the ground. On any given night, you can count on running into her in an L.A. club, checking out what's new, exciting, and up-to- the-minute in music."
-- Chris Morris, Senior Writer, Billboard Magazine

Born and raised in the San Francisco suburb of Danville, CA, Nicole Dionne found her calling in life early. Her father performed with noted local Americana band Rich Price & The High Sierrans, opening for such greats as George Strait and Lynn Anderson. Every time she saw her father on stage, Dionne's flame of passion for music flared just a little bit higher. As a child, Dionne trained as a vocalist, studied piano, clarinet and guitar. At one point, the budding entrepreneur started her own singing group with her sisters using the money they made performing to buy Christmas gifts for family and friends.

After graduating from UCLA with a degree in social psychology (and having taken courses in musical theater and acting), Dionne signed on as first assistant to film directors Renny Harlin ("Die Hard 2", "The Long Kiss Goodnight"), and Marco Brambilla ("Demolition Man"). When Brambilla transitioned briefly from directing feature films into the realm of advertising at Ridley Scott & Associates, Dionne found her niche. Thus, when Brambilla moved back into directing feature films, Dionne decided to stay in advertising.

In short order, Dionne was offered the opportunity to head up a division at Machine Head, the premiere advertising sound design company, where she was invigorated while working with young, up-and-coming artists. Dionne produced more work for Machine Head in her first six weeks on the job than her division had produced in the entire prior year. But sound design wasn't Dionne's final calling and she soon started dreaming up the concept that in 1995 would eventually become PrimalScream Music, a company that now produces original music for top national television advertising campaigns.

"What drew me to television advertising is the intensely psychological aspect of it – it's a format with a huge message and a strong point to make in just a few seconds that leaves a lasting impression on a viewer’s brain," declares Dionne. "I started PrimalScream Music because I wanted to have fun coaxing exciting new creations from artists and also have the chance to literally direct thoughts through the art of music. PrimalScream Music is the avenue where I have the position between the artist and the product and I can take things to the next level."

Insisting from its inception that PrimalScream Music would never do traditional advertising jingles, Dionne took new approach to designing music to sell a brand. "Looking back at my life growing up, music was such a big part of it. And like most people, when I hear certain songs, I experience different emotions. So, what I do for our clients is produce new, original music for their campaigns which communicates a feeling or vibe to an audience, bonding them to the product through an authentic and artistic expression of music."

And being a young woman in her "baby- twenties" working in an industry, which had long ago hit upon a formula for success, Dionne initially found some resistance to her novel approach.

"When I first started, I was asked 'how do you approach a jingle'?" Dionne relates. "And I said 'PrimalScream Music doesn't do jingles'. And some industry people came at me quickly, saying that I was pretty stupid on a business level not to be doing jingles, because that's what made the money. But from the beginning what I wanted for PrimalScream Music is to create music for advertising that anyone would want to listen to on the radio - or, now, on their iPods."

After landing several high-profile clients, including Lexus, Guinness, American Express, Canon, Intel, Gatorade, Nike, AT&T and Ford, PrimalScream Music garnered an amazing amount of positive trade press and industry recognition, winning three Clios right out of the gate. Yet, it wasn't until a few years later, when forced by unanticipated circumstances to change her way of working in the studio that Dionne hit her full stride.

"I was put in a situation where my stable of go-to artists was suddenly stolen out from underneath me. It was a bad time; I thought it might be the end of PrimalScream Music. But, I will always take a 'no' and turn it into a 'yes' by looking at the 'how'. And I realized that no one was working with established music artists – everyone was working with commercial composers. I liked the idea of taking name and accomplished artists, passionate about the music they enjoy creating, and bringing those bands, recording artists, singers, etc. into my studio to write authentic, raw, emotional, music for advertising."

Yet, the day had not yet come when the music industry and Madison Avenue embraced each other as they do now. In some music circles, making music for commercials was still seen as "selling out"; and advertisers could see no value in hiring a big-name musician to labor anonymously behind the scenes instead of standing out front holding the product in hand. Nicole Dionne was just a bit too ahead of her time…

And then BMW came calling on PrimalScream Music.

In 2001 BMW created a series of short "brand" films called "The Hire". Shortly after, PrimalScream Music was hired to provide new music for their trailers created for “The Hire”. Originally intended for only for Internet consumption, in an attempt to reach a hipper, younger demographic, the groundbreaking shorts were directed by top-name feature film directors such as John Frankenheimer, Wong Kar-Wai, Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie, and starred Clive Owen as "The Driver" of (what else?) BMW automobiles. Madonna, Forest Whitaker and Mickey Rourke also starred.

Nicole Dionne's PrimalScream Music was given the task with creating music for the initial spots. It was then, Dionne says, "I was able to transition into my dream of working with anyone I wanted from the rock world, from gospel and jazz, feature film composers…just anyone. And then I decided to move forward with the concept that I could put both already famous and established artists and edgy new artists at the forefront of a piece of commercial music and have it work for both the client and the consumer." Musicians and composers who worked on this campaign included Klaus Badelt, Remy Zero, Michael Wandmacher and Jeff Rona. The series was viewed over 100 million times in four years, and garnered the AICP Campaign of the Year Award with the help of PrimalScream Music. This campaign was one of the largest created in advertising history.

In the years since, Dionne's roster of artists reads like a who's who of the music industry: Gram Rabbit, Marc Broussard, Pedestrian, Robert Francis, Avion, Remy Zero, Godhead, The London Symphony, Caitlin Crosby, Klaus Badelt (“Poseidon”), Producer Stuart Brawley (Emmy Rossum), Victor Bisetti (Los Lobos), Doug Pettibone (Lucinda Williams), Damon Johnson (Seal and Miles Davis), and Oren Waters – just to name a few. ?With Dionne's reputation firmly established as a music producer, music industry heavy-hitter Jeff Greenberg invited PrimalScream Music to move into the world-renowned West L.A. recording complex The Village. Built in 1922 as a Masonic temple (and the onetime headquarters of the Beatles’ spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) the complex not only houses a state-of-the-art recording studio but functions as a creative cooperative, with many high-profile artists among its tenants. Albums recorded and/or mixed at The Village include The Rolling Stones’ Goat’s Head Soup, Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Smashing Pumpkins’ Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, Jet’s Get Born and Oasis' upcoming CD, Dig Out Your Soul.

Greenberg felt that it would be beneficial to The Village to get to know PrimalScream Music and for Dionne to have access to and opportunities to collaborate with the other talented denizens. "PrimalScream Music fits the strong and historical musical culture at The Village," asserts Greenberg. "Our other residents include John Mayer, Danny Elfman, Robbie Robertson, Ed Cherney (Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones) and Jon Alagia (Dave Mathews, John Mayer). Collaboration is in the air between all these unbelievably creative people, as well as the numerous bands and recording artists who come here on a daily basis to record their albums. Nicole Dionne pioneered the integration of hot, young talent into advertising, and that is another great conversation that the artists who call The Village their home can have in this magical space."

"It's a great honor to have been invited to become a part of the artistic community and enjoy riding on the wave of the eclectic, energetic vibe here," enthuses Dionne.

And through it all, Dionne remains a maverick, constantly looking for the next trend, the next new sound, the band that no one has heard yet; but will very soon.

"When I was just starting my vocal training as a little girl, my coach told me 'You sound like you're trying to be Barbra Streisand. You can only ever be Number Two that way. If you want to be Number One, you have to sing like yourself. ' And I've never forgotten that. I make my own way, and strive for constant innovation, creating the Next Big Thing myself."

Scott Burton came to Los Angeles from South Texas by way of Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. Primal Scream's "go to" guy, Scott is highly regarded as a music producer, mixer and sound designer.

His most recent projects include: producing and mixing music for the Starz network, Home Depot, Firestone, Curves, Jeep, Dodge, Hyundai's explosive new campaigns, and multiple unique music-centric spots for Comcast; music production and mixing for Lexus, NCAA and an two intense, music-packed spots for YWCA, directed by Bronwen Hughes ("Stander"); sound design and music mixing for a powerful FEMA spot directed by Bruce Dowad; an SBC Yahoo! DSL campaign, directed by Robert Altman ("Gosford Park", "M.A.S.H.") - Scott designed, mixed and edited sound and music for three spots that featured Lucy Liu, Liv Tyler and LL Cool J; music editing, mixing and sound design for Universal; and ADR Engineer for the USA Pictures film "The Kid Stays In The Picture" - he recorded the film's voice-over by legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans ("The Godfather", "Chinatown").

Scott's mixing talents are sought by artists such as Prince, Jonas Brothers, Beck, Corinne Bailey Rae and Motion City Soundtrack. His highly-acclaimed mix for Ziggy Marley's recently released "Love Is My Religion Live!" concert DVD inspired a re-release of Ziggy's 2006 album with tracks from the show. Scott has recently completed work on the upcoming concert DVD for the Prince 3121 Tour.

Scott provided audio recording and encoding services to -TAG- Media/Razorfish L.A. for Fox's "The Visitor". He has recorded for the J. Paul Getty Museum, and was Director of Audio Engineering for the streaming entertainment company Soundbreak.com. While at Soundbreak, he worked with such artists as Fat Boy Slim, BT, Joe Rogan (host of NBC's "Fear Factor"), Michael Chicklis (star of FX's "The Shield"), Ice T, Slash from Guns-N-Roses, Too Short and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath.

Scott's musical sensibility, technical expertise and diverse knowledge base make him key to Primal Scream.

Jimmy Runge - Producer/Creative Consultant

Jimmy joins PrimalScream Music with an extremely generous and exciting background in the music industry; having worked very closely with some of the most respected artists and bands of our current era. Some of these bands and artists are: The Eels, Lucinda Williams, Son Volt, Alice in Chains, Rickie Lee Jones, Ryan Adams, Paula Cole, Machine Head, Bebel Gilberto, Mark Lanegan, Alejandro Escovedo and Buick 6.