Mitch Allan - Biography

Biography

Mitch Allan was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the younger of two children. He graduated from Randallstown High School in Baltimore. Mitch also attended the University of Maryland at College Park and graduated with a BA in Mass Communication with a minor in Political Science.

His original band, Honor Among Thieves, became a big name on the Baltimore, MD music scene in the mid 1990s. They changed their name to SR-71 when they signed to RCA Records. While playing the Baltimore music scene, he also ran and produced records out of Wall of Sound Recording Studio which later became Wright Way Studios.

As Honor Among Thieves, the quartet self-produced an independent album entitled Grow. Two songs from this disc would eventually be re-worked and placed on the SR-71 debut CD, Now You See Inside.

With a number two modern rock single, a number four video on MTV and endless touring, Now You See Inside was certified gold in the U.S. within five months of its release and would go on to sell more than 750,000 copies worldwide. The single "Right Now", written by Mitch Allan, would go on to appear in over a dozen films including Loser, Dude, Where's My Car?, and American Pie. Less than two years later, SR-71's second album, Tomorrow, written and co-produced by Allan, was released, producing another top 15 single and pushing their total worldwide sales to over 1 million. SR-71's third album, Here We Go Again (2004), is only available as a Japanese import. Allan had planned to release his solo album called Clawing My Way To The Middle.

In recent years, Mitch has been focusing his attention on song writing and producing. His most recent success was the Top 5 hit "1985" written by Allan, John Allen, and Jaret Reddick and performed by the band Bowling for Soup. Allan appears in the music video for the song. Originally only available on the SR-71 Japanese import CD Here We Go Again, the Bowling For Soup song "1985" has gone on to be certified Digital Triple Platinum and holds the iTunes record for the most downloads in a single week (over 23,000). It can be found on the Gold-certified Bowling For Soup album A Hangover You Don't Deserve and is part of the compilation Now That's What I Call Music! 17.

Mitch's writing/producing credits also include songs for artists such as Chris Daughtry, Faith Hill, The Jonas Brothers, Tokio Hotel, Takota, Anberlin, Monty Are I, Bo Bice, and Marty Casey & Lovehammers.

Recently, Mitch was nominated for a Latin Grammy for "Song of the Year" for the Belinda song "Bella Traición". A song co-written by Mitch and Kara DioGuardi entitled "Lost" was recorded by Faith Hill, and released as her first single from her greatest hits project. In 2009, he co-wrote with Kara DioGuardi and Cathy Dennis the American Idol winner's single "No Boundaries".

Currently Mitch is working on new songs with Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Pia Toscano and James Durbin from American Idol, BC Jean, co-writer of "If I Were A Boy" for Beyoncé, The Ready Set, Jessica Sutta, and Hollywood Records artists R5.

An avid poker player, Mitch is also one of the "famous faces" due to being a regular player on the online poker website Hollywood Poker, which is run in conjunction with Ongame Network.