Cliff Martinez
Cliff Robert Martinez (born February 5, 1954) is an American musician and composer. Early in his career, Martinez was known as a drummer notably with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Since the 1990s, he has worked primarily as a film score composer, writing music for Spring Breakers (2012), The Foreigner (2017), and multiple films by Steven Soderbergh, Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Solaris (2002), Contagion (2011) and Traffic (2000) and Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive (2011), Only God Forgives (2013), The Neon Demon (2016) and the miniseries Too Old to Die Young (2019).
Cliff Martinez

Raffi Asdourian from New York, United States · Cliff Martinez · CC BY 2.0
- Born
- 1954.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- composer, drummer, film score composer and musician.
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Cliff Robert Martinez (born February 5, 1954) is an American musician and composer. Early in his career, Martinez was known as a drummer notably with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Since the 1990s, he has worked primarily as a film score composer, writing music for Spring Breakers (2012), The Foreigner (2017), and multiple films by Steven Soderbergh, Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Solaris (2002), Contagion (2011) and Traffic (2000) and Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive (2011), Only God Forgives (2013), The Neon Demon (2016) and the miniseries Too Old to Die Young (2019).
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wikidata · Q455964 · wikipedia · Cliff Martinez
In this article
Early life
Early life
On April 14, 2012, Martinez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Martinez was born in the Bronx, New York City. His grandfather migrated from a small village in Spain to the United States. Raised in Columbus, Ohio, his first job composing was for the popular television show Pee Wee's Playhouse. At the time, however, he was more interested in rock bands, and played drums in a variety of them, mostly in a temporary capacity.
Red Hot Chili Peppers (1983–1986)
Red Hot Chili Peppers (1983–1986)
After several years drumming for such acts as Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, The Dickies, Lydia Lunch and The Weirdos, in late 1983, Martinez and Jack Sherman were drafted in to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the recording of their eponymous first album after Jack Irons and Hillel Slovak left the band to concentrate on their other project at the time, What Is This?. Martinez also played on the recording of the band's second album Freaky Styley (1985) and its subsequent tour. In 2012 Martinez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Martinez performed with the band for the first time in 26 years when he joined them along with former drummer Jack Irons on their song, "Give It Away" during the ceremony.
Video game composing
Video game composing
Martinez composed the main menu music titled "Galaxy Theme" for Spore in 2008. In 2014, Martinez also composed the title score for Far Cry 4.
Advertising
Advertising
In 2013, Martinez scored the "Fly Beyond" Grey Goose vodka commercial. Martinez also composed two songs, "Vibe" and "Kotopulse", for the 2014 Lincoln Motor Company advertising campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey.
The Weirdos
The Weirdos
Weird World (compilation)
Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch
13.13 (1982) Stinkfist (1986)
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Ice Cream for Crow (1982)
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984) Freaky Styley (1985) The Abbey Road E.P. – (1988) What Hits!? – (1992) Out in L.A. – (1994) Under the Covers: Essential Red Hot Chili Peppers – (1998)
The Dickies
The Dickies
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) The Second Coming (1989) Locked N' Loaded Live in London (1991) Idjit Savant (1994)

Cliff Martinez
Raffi Asdourian from New York, United States · Cliff Martinez
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 2002–2023
The full dated record · 3 entries
2002
Cliff Martinez - Solaris (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2002) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
2016
Cliff Martinez - The Neon Demon (Original Soundtrack) [FLAC] (2016) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
2023
Cliff Martinez – Touch Of Crude (Soundtrack From The Prada Short Film) vinyl rip (2023) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
Film composing
In the mid 1980's, Martinez' interests shifted and he began to focus his attention toward film scoring. A tape Martinez had put together using new technologies made its rounds, leading him to score an episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse. The same recording also ended up in Steven Soderbergh's hands and Martinez was hired to score the famed director's first theatrical release, 1989's Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Martinez's longstanding relationship with Soderbergh has continued through the years and they have worked together on ten theatrical releases including Kafka (1991), The Limey (1999), Traffic (2000), Solaris (2002) and 2011's Contagion, as well the Cinemax series The Knick (2014–2015). His nontraditional scores tend towards being stark and sparse, utilizing a modern tonal palette to paint the backdrop for films that are often dark, psychological stories like Pump Up the Volume (1990), The Limey, Wonderland (2003), Wicker Park (2004) and Drive (2011). Martinez has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media (Steven Soderbergh's Traffic), a César Award for Best Original Music (Xavier Giannoli's In the Beginning (2009)), and a Broadcast Film Critics Award (Drive). He earned a Robert Award for Best Score for his work on Only God Forgives (2013). Martinez's use of audio manipulations, particularly for percussive sounds, has been evolving through the years and is evident by the hammered dulcimer of Kafka, the gray-areas between sound design and score for Traffic, the steel drums and textures of Solaris, what Martinez called "rhythmi-tizing pitched, ambient textures" of Narc (2002), and "using percussion performances to trigger and shape the rhythmic and tonal characteristics of those ambient textures," as he described his score for 2011's The Lincoln Lawyer. Martinez served as a juror for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and served on the International Feature nominating committee for the 27th Independent Spirit Awards in February that same year. Martinez's recent films include Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (2012), Nicholas Jarecki's Arbitrage (2012), Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (2012) (co-composed with Skrillex), and Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon (2016).
Primary material
Documents and archives
institutional register
- MusicBrainz artist record for Cliff Martinez
Unverified · MusicBrainz
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q455964: Cliff Martinez
Unverified · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Cliff Martinez”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Ezell, Brice. Getting Good at Getting Dark: An Interview with Cliff Martinez. PopMatters. September 4, 2013.
- 2.Romero, Angie. 10 Questions With Cliff Martinez. BMI. July 22, 2013.
- 3.Puga, Kristina. Red Hot Chili Peppers ex-drummer, Cliff Martinez, opens up. Kristina Puga. 2012-02-21.
- 4.Cliff Martinez. Composer for Film TV and Multimedia | Official Website.
- 5.Rock and Roll Hall of Fame News, Commentary and Analysis. Futurerocklegends.com.
- 6.Liffengren, Jordan. Drummer Reunion For Chili Peppers Performance. DRUM! Magazine. April 6, 2012.
- 7.Jensen, Jorn Rossing. The Hunt sweeps Danish Robert awards. Screendaily.com. 2014-01-27.
- 8.Official Bio. Cinemediapromotions.com.
- 9.Elle Fanning Sees Nicolas Winding Refn's Neon Demon. Dreadcentral.com.
- 10.Spore (2008) Windows credits - MobyGames. September 16, 2013.
- 11.Hasty, Katie. 'Only God Forgives' director Nicolas Winding Refn's next projects: Commercial, horror. HitFix. July 16, 2013.
- 12.Lincoln on X. Twitter.com. September 8, 2014.
- 13.Cliff Martinez to Score Martin Campbell's The Foreigner. March 21, 2016.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
institutional register
MusicBrainz artist record for Cliff MartinezMusicBrainz
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Wikidata, structured authority record Q455964: Cliff MartinezWikimedia Foundation
Unverified
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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