Michael Salvatori

This person is a former Bungie Employee

“The better half of O'Donnell - Salvatori...the actual working half.”

~ Marty O'Donnell on Michael Salvatori

Michael "Mike" Salvatori is a composter and former Bungie employee known for creating the soundtracks for Destiny 2, Destiny, the Halo series, Oni, and the Myth series. His frequent composing partner from the 1980s until 2014 was Marty O'Donnell. He also worked alongside C Paul Johnson, Skye Lewin, and more composers at Bungie for the Halo and Destiny soundtracks.

He is married to Gail, has four daughters, and resides in the Seattle area.

In October 2023, Mike was laid off from Bungie, where around 100 employees were affected by company-wide staff cutbacks. The decision was cited to be Destiny 2's perceived underperformance.^[1] Mike updated his website's home page^[2] soon after by saying he had "GONE FISHIN' :)" and, a few weeks later, changed it to the following:^[3]

DEAR FRIENDS,
I want to sincerely thank all of you who have reached out and sent me encouraging messages. It means more to me than you could know.
Love and peace to all!
Mike

Biography[]

Mike was born in 1954 in Elmhurst, Illinois, where he attended Visitation Catholic School till 8th grade. When he was 12, he joined his first band, covering pop favorites from The Beatles and West Side Story in "The 13th Hour" with longtime friend Gary Polkow. Throughout their high school years in the 1970s, they moved to heavier sounds with "Psychlotron" (who were inspired by the Doors and Iron Butterfly and opened for the Cryan’ Shames) and "Strapperjak" (a horn-rock band that did originals plus covers of Chicago and the Ides of March).^[4]

After graduating York High School, Mike married his high school sweetheart, Gail. They started a band together with her on keyboards and his brother Tom on bass, but only played a few gigs for family and friends. During this time, Mike was working at a print shop to help put Gail through college.^[4]

His band days soon ended, but he still wanted to work in music, so he secured a bank loan and built a studio in his and Gail's house where he recorded local musicians on evenings and weekends. When he wasn't recording others, he worked on his own music, and in 1982, released a solo album "Waiting for Autumn," where he self-released and pressed the album in a run of 500.^[4]

Shortly thereafter, his college friend Martin "Marty" O'Donnell contacted him to propose a film-soundtrack collaboration. They started their own studio in Chicago, "O'Donnell - Salvatori Total Audio Studios," and began working on music for television commercials. In 1985, they created the memorable jingle for Flintstones Vitamins that was used for decades, "We are Flintstones kids."^[5] Mike two daughters sang on the first version.^[4]

The the mid-1990s, Mike and Marty first started doing contract work for Bungie, starting with Myth: The Fallen Lords, and Myth II: Soulblighter.

Shortly after completing Myth II, Bungie founders Jason Jones and Alex Seropian asked Mike and Marty to work on the Oni and Halo soundtracks full time as employees. Marty accepted while Mike continued working as a contractor alongside Marty to keep their Total Audio Studios business running.

In 2011, Mike took a staff job with Bungie to work with Marty on Destiny. “In 2012 and ’13 we got to collaborate with Paul McCartney, who cowrote some of the music on the first Destiny release,” he said to the Chicago Reader. “That was one of those ‘full circle’ moments for me—seeing him on TV in 1964 was what caused me to gravitate toward music as a career.”^[4]

Outside of Bungie, Mike worked on many other games' soundtracks, including Riven: The Sequel to Myst, Stubbs the Zombie, and Hail to the Chimp.