Bram Inscore, a songwriter and producer who had led Beck’s backing band and worked with BTS and Troye Sivan, has died. He was 41.
In a statement released Friday, Inscore’s family said that he “ended his life after a hard fought battle with depression” in San Francisco on Dec. 19.
“Selfless as a human and generous as a collaborator, he ingeniously served the music but never his own ego,” the statement continued. “Deep compassion and dry wit were embedded into everything he did, though he never sought praise or approval. He was truly a unique spirit and though his soul has left his body, it will live forever in his music.”
Bram Katz Inscore was born in San Francisco and grew up playing funk and rock bass, and studied jazz and classical music at USC. He left school to perform as an in-demand live and session musician, playing with acts like Twin Shadow, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Thurston Moore and Beck, who became a longstanding collaborator.
While Inscore wrote and produced his own music — he released a solo album as B.R.A.M. in 2009 — he found his widest success as a pop producer, session musician and songwriter. In 2015, he co-wrote Sivan’s single “Youth,” which became Inscore’s first platinum-single credit. That same year, Beck won the Grammy for album of the year for “Morning Phase,” which featured playing from Inscore, who had also served as Beck’s music director.
Inscore would go on to co-write more than a dozen tracks with Sivan over his career, including “The Good Side” and Talk Me Down.” He wrote for some of the biggest names in K-pop including BTS (“Louder Than Bombs”), NCT 127 (“Space”) and SuperM (“Wish You Were Here”), and he traveled frequently to South Korea and London to write with global acts. He wrote and produced for Andy Grammer (the Emmy-winning “Don’t Give Up on Me”), Niki (“Warpaint”), Rina Sawayama (“Comme des Garçons”) and Chloe & Halle (“Down”). He also scored the music on the popular 2018 Netflix rom-com “Sierra Burgess Is a Loser.”
He is survived by his wife, Lin Agnholt; his mother Karen Katz and father James Inscore; and brother Kipling Inscore.
If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
