Brandon Higley was born on October 7, 1986 to his parents Dottie and Dennis Higley. He spent most of his life in Northern California, with a brief exodus to Louisiana (an experience he cannot recommend). Now he and his girlfriend live in Santa Cruz with their cat, Thyme.
Brandon's interest in video games began when his cousin gave him a Game Boy, the original gray hulk of 2-bit wonder. Games like Mario Land and Tetris devoured hours of his time, and eventually, his interests became more sophisticated, and required color. The SNES hosted Final Fantasy II, the genesis of Brandon's musical interest in video games, and the game from which he used to record music using a cheap tape deck. Since then, he's remained on the cutting edge of games and game music.
His musical education began in the fourth grade when he joined the school marching band, where he remained until he graduated high school. At Yuba Community College he studied for two years under Dr. Robert Mathews, a graduate of Peabody Musical Conservatory with a doctorate in Composition, and also continued studying the flute, his primary instrument, and guitar. Brandon's knowledge of Western artistic music allowed him to write a small opus which helped him get accepted into the Music BA program at University of California Santa Cruz, where he worked on his first video game, a senior exit project called The Hacker and The Heroine, for the flagship graduating class of the first University of California Game Design program.
Since his first completed video game soundtrack, he's continued his career by contributing to minor projects such as Ethereal Muse Studios' Xbox Live Arcade game Encore!, and the now-defunct Koru Entertainment's Type 3. He is a proud member of the Game Audio Network Guild and plans to continue to enhance the art of storytelling in games through his music.
