Two Steps from Hell

Two Steps from Hell is an American production music company based in Los Angeles, California, founded by Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix in 2006. The company focuses predominantly on movie and trailer music, and has supplied tracks to films such as "Interstellar", "Harry Potter", "Pirates of the Caribbean", and "X-Men".
History.
Two Steps from Hell was founded in early 2006 when Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix joined forces to write original music for movie trailers. The two have composed music for over 1,000 major motion picture trailers.
With the founding of the company in 2006, Bergersen was looking for a name that would draw attention with the old adage in mind, "All PR is good PR." The idea for the name came from "Two Steps From Heaven", a Norwegian nightclub that, according to Bergersen, had a similar theme going on.
Despite the company finding success with its music, the tracks were not officially released to the public until the May 2010 release of the commercial album "Invincible". "Invincible" was approaching Gold record status. As of January 2017, Two Steps from Hell has published 10 public albums in addition to 20 demonstration albums, with almost 1,000 unique tracks in total.
"Invincible" was followed by Bergersen's first solo album, "Illusions", then "Archangel" and "Halloween", both primarily compilation albums of industry tracks. Next, "SkyWorld" was released as the first public album to feature mostly new tracks, followed by the primarily compilation albums "Classics Volume One" and "Miracles".
In 2013 Nick Phoenix released his only solo album to date, "Speed of Sound."
The album "Sun", which was released on September 30, 2014, is the second solo album from Thomas Bergersen. Preview tracks were released from the album, titled "Cry" and "Sun", the former of which can be downloaded from Bergersen's official website. An official music video for "Sun" was also released on YouTube, preceding the announcement of a signed limited deluxe edition CD release set to include additional tracks and notes from Thomas, as well as a large-size poster featuring his artwork.
Additionally, in July 2014 Two Steps from Hell released an e-book known as "Colin Frake on Fire Mountain", which features a 75,000-word novel written by Nick Phoenix with illustrations by Otto Bjornik, as well as an original score also made available via a soundtrack release. A sequel entitled "Colin Frake: Asclepius" was released on April 2017.
2015 saw the release of "Battlecry" featuring all new songs. This album proved to be a huge success for the company, charting at position 183 on the US Billboard 200. This was followed by the compilation album "Classics Volume Two" in 2015, and the all new albums "Vanquish", "Unleashed", and "Dragon" in 2016, 2017, and 2019 respectively.
In 2020 Bergersen released the first two chapters (out of seven) of his "Humanity" album. These featured mostly new tracks, with several reworked tracks from older releases.
Two Steps from Hell's main graphic artist is Steven Gilmore, who has created album covers for almost every promotional and public release, including the logo of the company, with the only exception being the 2009 DVD release of their library, for which the album cover was created by Paul Zeaiter. Additionally, Thomas Bergersen's "Illusions" solo album features design by Jesper Krijgsman, while its sequel, "Sun", features artwork created by Thomas himself.
Main appearances.
The company's music has been featured in:
Other major appearances.
Two Steps from Hell's music is also used extensively in a variety of places, from global events to local concerts, some of which are listed below:
Concerts.
Two Steps from Hell hosted a live concert on June 14, 2013 at the Disney Hall, in Los Angeles, California, performing some of their most popular songs, such as "Heart of Courage," "Protectors of the Earth," "To Glory," "Strength of a Thousand Men," "Black Blade," and "Breathe," as well as "Ocean Princess," '"Age of Gods," and "Remember Me" from Bergersen's album "Illusions".
The second live concert happened on April 20, 2018 and was organized by the Film Music Prague Festival. The concert was performed by Praga Sinfonietta, which was conducted by Petr Pololáník, Kühns mixed choir, Merethe Soltvedt and Kamila Nývltová as solo singers. Thomas Bergersen participated on several songs playing on violin or piano. Performed were these songs: "Strength of a Thousand Men", "Fill My Heart", "Protectors of Earth", "Everlasting", "Heart of Courage", "Fire Nation", "Ocean Princess", "Master of Shadows", "Flight of the Silverbird", "Blackout", "Winterspell", "Stormkeeper", "Evergreen", "Neverdark", "Victory", "Fall of the Fountain World", "To Glory", and as an encore "Remember Me".
2020 was to see the start of the Two Steps From Hell European tour, but this was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Discography.
Public albums.
Source:
Demonstration albums.
Source:
Other albums.
There are a number of albums made by other composers from the company, which are not considered part of the primary library and are consequently not represented on official Two Steps from Hell resources. They include:
Additionally, composer Troels Folmann contributed a number of tracks to the industry albums Dynasty, Dreams & Imaginations, and Legend, though he was credited only for the latter.
Commercial singles.
Commercially available songs that are not on any album or were released as preview tracks. All of the following pieces are written by Bergersen, except where noted:
Standalone tracks.
Songs that are not on any album or were initially released as preview tracks via Facebook or their official YouTube account. All of the following pieces are written by Bergersen, except when noted:
E-books.
Two Steps From Hell has released two e-books, and each book has an accompanying soundtrack.