January 2, 2025 • 67 mins
Andrew Lockington is a film and television composer who composed the scores for many films including blockbuster hits City of Ember, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, Sandreas, and Rampage, as well as hit television shows like Mayor of Kingstown, Special Ops: Lioness, and his latest Landman, starring Billy Bob Thornton. He also created the opening theme for Amazon Prime's Monday Night Hockey.
Andrew's work is known for its creativity and attention to detail. We spoke about some of those techniques like how he recorded in a prison for Mayor of Kingstown and used its gates, walls, bars as musical instruments. Andrew explains how this kind of extra effort can help us bring out the emotional impact in our work.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube
Takeaways:
- Andrew's recent projects showcase a diverse range of musical styles.
- The line between film and TV music is increasingly blurred.
- Creating sound palettes involves collaboration and experimentation.
- Embracing imperfections can lead to more authentic music.
- Recording in unique locations can enhance the emotional impact of a score.
- Music should reflect the humanity of characters, even in villains.
- The environment where music is recorded influences its sound and feel.
- Collaboration with trusted partners can uncover hidden musical gems.
- Storytelling through music can bridge gaps between characters and viewers.
- The stories behind music can enhance the emotional experience.
- Creating music should focus on conveying emotion rather than technical perfection.
- Imperfections in music can add character and authenticity.
- Accidental discoveries in music production can lead to unique sounds.
- Simplicity in recording can yield powerful results.
- The creative process is often unpredictable and requires openness to change.
- Music can evoke feelings that are difficult to quantify or replicate.
- .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}Mark as PlayedTranscript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Andrew, thank you for being here.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks, Brian.
Thanks for having me.
It's a great pleasure.
And, you've got a lot of really cool things happening right now at this very moment as werecord.
Landman just started on, on Paramount.
Your Amazon Prime Monday night hockey theme song is live.
(00:21):
And I just saw the lioness soundtrack was released today on Apple music when I was goingthrough your stuff.
So, congratulations.
That's another bunch of.
items to an already really impressive body of work.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's really funny that you work on all this stuff for a year and it all comes out atthe same time.
(00:43):
It's funny how that happens.
There's no spacing everything out.
just all is kind of being born in the same two weeks.
But yeah, thank you.
Yeah, it's been a great year.
I've had a lot of fun working on a lot of different projects and yeah, it's been a lot offun.
And it's a lot of different styles too.
When I listened to the hockey theme, very epic, orchestral.
(01:08):
And just before we started talking, my wife and I got to see the first episode of Landmanand much different, organic guitars and really fits the vibe of the film or guess TV show
in this case, but.
It's a blurry line these days, isn't it, between film and TV in a good way.
(01:29):
But thank you.
Yeah, yeah, it's, I certainly feel, I approach it like film.
So yeah, it feels like, you know, I a director say to me that they're series, they're notTV series.
So it's much more of a 10 hour movie than it is 10 one hour TV shows.
(01:53):
But yeah, know, style-wise, thank God they're different because it's, when you're workingon multiple things at once, you need some delineation between them so your brain doesn't
get confused.
And I was lucky that these all called for very different approaches.
So I was able to avoid crossing wires in my head in terms of themes and styles andapproach.
(02:18):
And I'm guessing each project has a bit of a palette that you get to draw from.
What's that process like for you coming up with these sound palettes to fit?
Because I think part of your job is to fade a little bit in the background so that we getabsorbed into the music, into the show, into the emotions that are going on.
(02:41):
And...
The sounds you choose are very important in setting the stage and the mood and the timeperiod even.
How does that process work for you?
Where do you begin?
Is it a lot of direction from others or experimentation?
It depends on the project, but in the case of working with Taylor Sheridan, it's a lot ofcollaboration and brainstorming and trial and error.
(03:09):
It's an interesting way to put it, setting the palette, because it is really what you'redoing.
You're trying to come up with what is the tone of the music and what is the instrument.
More specifically, what instruments will you use?
But also, what role will the music play?
What is it trying to say?
or not say in the show and that brainstorming and really as you said coming up with thepalette is both the best and the worst part of the process.
(03:39):
It's incredibly rewarding but it's it's like being thrown in a maze without any clues ofhow to get out.
And so in some ways it's on purpose.
You try to sort of put yourself in a situation that's unfamiliar and use your musicalityand the tools you have to find your way in uncharted territory, so to speak.
(04:09):
So in that sense, it can be really rewarding and the payoff is rewarding, but it's verymuch like being in the middle of a math problem that you don't know how to solve.
Yeah, and in the case of Landman, more than the other two shows I did with Taylor, wereally went full circle.
We did a lot of brainstorming, a lot of experimentation to come up with.
(04:32):
What in the end was a really simple palette and a really simple idea.
But it's funny, I can't have to look this up because I keep referencing this quote, butit's some quote where they talk about journeying the world
and coming back to where you started, where you grew up and seeing it for the first time.
(04:56):
And we very much did that with the music.
We started in this place of really simple melodies and simple instrumentation and all thelittle sounds of the human playing the instrument, not just the sound of the instrument.
And we tried all these other ideas.
and ultimately came back to this original idea of really just a guitar and humming andembracing the imperfection of communicating an emotional idea without over producing it.
(05:31):
Hmm.
That's I've had that experience actually in real life, traveling the world, went to Europeon my honeymoon with my wife, only to come back home.
live on Long Island, New York, and we were like, wow, like we went to all these differentcountries.
We got the ocean here.
We have the city not too far away.
The mountains are pretty close.
(05:52):
So we kind of saw it differently after that.
But I've had that with music as well, where you think.
You might write the song on an acoustic guitar, try it out with the band or try it out ina different kind of genre and then find out, you know what, like there was something kind
of cool about where we started.
And those instincts come out, I guess, it shows you the power of that instinctual.
(06:16):
So being a musician then, you also know sometimes there can be a great song on the radioand you sit down and you strip it down into acoustic guitar and vocal and it's missing the
magic.
It's almost like it's been produced so well that they didn't have to start with theframework being
(06:40):
super strong because they could mask it all in this over, not over production, butfantastic production.
And I remember years ago hearing a Katy Perry song, I think it was Teenage Dream.
And it was an acoustic cover that a band called the Rescues had done of it.
And I remember thinking, I had no idea how good the song was.
(07:03):
until I heard it with all of that stripped away down to its simplest form.
And in the case of Landman, Taylor actually would say to me, okay, I like this.
What does it sound like?
Just you playing guitar and humming it.
And that was the test, the gauntlet.
We'd have to put all these ideas through to see, is it real or is it, are we masking allthe...
(07:30):
the bad parts of this melody.
And I almost said masking all the imperfections, but in fact we kind of came to realizethere was a bit of a measure that if it had imperfections, but they were musical ones,
that that was a good thing.
That, you know, if there was a breath or, you know, there's one of the themes I remembertaking a breath in right before.
(07:55):
So the melody didn't start on
beat one when it should have, but it was almost like just a hair, like a 16th or an eighthlate.
But that was what made it great.
That was the magic.
And the minute you perfected it and put it on the grid and quantized it, it didn't work inthe same way.
(08:15):
So it was very much kind of trying to embrace all the little rough edges that make ushuman.
And it's only in kind of looking back on it and being out of the battle.
that I see that that was there all along in the writing and the acting.
Billy Bob Thornton's character is far from perfect, but it's all those littleimperfections that make him perfect, if that makes sense.
(08:42):
Yeah, it's from the first episode I've seen anyway.
Like, he is really just, he's a dad.
And he's in this big business.
He's talking about trillions of dollars at different points, but he's just a dad.
And there's a lot of scenes where you see him really just humanized in that way.
(09:06):
Where...
He sees his daughter with the fancy boyfriend that's of taken advantage of her a littlebit and juxtaposed to this opening scene where he's so powerful, even though he's tied up.
And it takes that.
(09:29):
the kind of like fantasy out of it and makes you say like, yeah, he's like a person likeme and you know, I'm also flawed like that.
And I think you reflect that really nicely with the music.
And these days when it's so easy to, like you said, just take that one line, it wassupposed to be on the one, let's just shift it over there and get it where it belongs.
But to notice that, I guess that's what you mean by not washing away all that like humanaspect of it.
(09:57):
Yeah, and in finding the beauty between the unintended brushstrokes, I guess, the littlethings that you didn't, you know, like sitting at the piano and I played this chord, but
the one middle note in the chord just barely sounded.
But that's good.
That's what made the chord sound good, you know?
(10:18):
And I have to give credit to Taylor and to the fact that we've gone through this process.
for three or four years with the two other shows that I trusted him enough to throw thosethings at him and I guess he trusted me enough not to worry about saying, no, no, no, keep
(10:39):
it.
And it's funny, I remember saying to my assistant, I was like, there's this thing I playedand...
It was imperfect and Taylor said, no, he likes it.
He likes how it sounds, like it sounds real and authentic.
like, I forget what he said.
(10:59):
It was, I was playing a, a nickel harpa, which is like a keyed medieval fiddle, mainlyfrom Sweden.
and that area of the world 500 years ago.
But it's featured in the score and I don't play it well.
And I had played this line and Taylor said to me, said, it kind of sounds like it'scrying.
(11:21):
And it kind of sounds insecure.
And I'm thinking, well, it's insecure because I'm incredibly insecure about playing it.
But there was a humanity to it.
And my assistant was like, really?
Can't you convince them to let you re-record it or we'll get another player in?
And I said, I know that's what I thought too, but actually in the scene, it kind of makessense.
(11:44):
Like it kind of works.
So it's good to, I feel really lucky to collaborate with people you trust who can help youfind the magical moments and things that you might've overlooked or you might've erased
the sketch thinking it was,
bad, but they're able to kind of help you see the path in going in that direction.
(12:08):
And as you mentioned, the NHL theme, totally different, totally different approach tomusic.
You're trying to be perfect.
trying, you want it to be incredibly musically sound and exact.
And this was a complete 180 departure from that.
you
There's so much vulnerability in that, right?
(12:29):
And like you said, to have collaborators that you can feel safe with and trust.
And when we bear emotion, I think we always get a little uncomfortable because we'rerevealing something true about ourselves.
And in our playing, sometimes the truth is, yeah, I rushed it.
I got excited or I missed the note a little bit or the instrument kind of creaked in acertain way.
(12:54):
But that is life.
And that's when you're trying to showcase that, I think especially in a show like that,it's clever to leave that stuff in.
Yeah, it's interesting too, for songwriters out there, when you write a lyric and sing it,if you're writing about heartbreak and singing about heartbreak and you're actually
(13:21):
feeling heartbroken when you're singing it, there's something within this performance thatyou can't quantify into numbers or production or anything.
that if you capture it when, if that person plays Heartbreak or sings Heartbreak with themoment they're feeling Heartbreak, it has a different quality than them being in Wembley
(13:47):
Stadium three years later, re-singing their hit about Heartbreak.
So a lot of this score was about capturing that moment in the moment you felt it.
And it was, you know, a lot of recording everything, sitting down and
playing an idea and recording it because you didn't know if it would be the moment or not.
(14:15):
a lot of it, you know, I'm from Canada.
I live in Toronto.
I'm talking to you from Toronto, my home in Toronto right now.
I had not spent a lot of time in Texas before I met Taylor, but much like the charactersin his show, some of the most authentic, real, say what you mean and you know.
mean what you say, people are from Texas and it's reflected to, I think, very accuratelyin this show and there's no posturing, there's no pretending to be somebody else, it's
(14:48):
just people that are very honest with themselves and so the music really had to be thattoo.
It had to be unapologetic about its imperfections but confident in its presentation.
Right?
I think that's so important and I get the feeling that, and I hope this too, I have thiswish that this happens with music in general, but as it's gotten so slick and polished,
(15:17):
you know, as we've had our DAWs and we can fix everything perfectly, I think there's beenthat trend.
But now I'm seeing more things, even in just the way the software is designed, there'sthings like probability or humanize or.
plugins that kind of warp the tuning a little bit.
(15:38):
I think there's this desire to have that back because we've sort of found out that we werestriving for perfection and we couldn't quite get there and that's where kind of the
humanity lies.
But now that we can actually put it in there, we say, hey, wait a minute, we've takensomething out of here that's really important to our expression.
(15:59):
Well, if you go back and listen to the Beatles through the discerning ear of modern dayproduction, it's flawed in so many ways in terms of tuning, timing, you know, so many
things.
EQ, there's so many elements to it that are, that by our measurements today, it doesn'tmeasure up.
(16:22):
And yet it's still the pinnacle for what we're all striving to achieve.
So it's the calamity of errors that make it great.
you almost, it's a great lesson to kind of go, wow, we should strive for that.
Like I would be fascinated if, I mean, maybe it's an experiment somebody will run someday,but take the multi tracks from a Beatles song, very famous Beatles song and give it to an
(16:46):
engineer and say, produce it, you know, present day.
would it be as great?
How would it sound if Paul McCartney was perfectly in tune and actually sang it 70 takesand they took a word from this take and a word from that take and would it have the same
effect?
I don't know.
I know from my experience, a lot of times when I was in a band and we would do the bedtracks and then go down and lay the multi-tracking, we'd often go back to the...
(17:17):
the rough bed track and go, damn, that's better.
And it wasn't technically perfect, but it captured a moment in time that felt more realthan us all individually going and laying over our parts.
I get that with my band a lot.
(17:37):
do a demo.
Within the last month this has happened where I've recorded the vocals again and then oneof the guys in the band's like, listen to the original, you the way this happened.
And I'm like, not even really saying words yet.
I'm just kind of blabbering stuff out and I hear what he's saying, but it's like, youknow, if we just have to sort of accept this is something different that's going to
(18:02):
happen.
I'm pretty sure I know how I'd feel about those re-engineered Beatles recordings.
I did an experiment not that long ago where I wanted to see song structures very visually.
So I would drop famous songs, songs I loved, well-written songs into my DAW and then justmake MIDI clips above it.
(18:30):
So just blocks.
This is red for the verse.
This is blue for the chorus.
And when I got to some of the Beatle songs, as far as the BPM goes, when I get to the endof the track, it doesn't line up anymore.
It was really amazing how much they fluctuated, sometimes like 10 beats per minute in twoand a half minute songs.
(18:54):
But you wouldn't change it.
Then I, of course, like.
play around with it and I adjust the timing so it's perfect and you're just like my godthis is so off
Yeah, it's amazing how the small, like the butterfly flaps its wings and it's not the sameexperience.
That's cool to do that.
That's interesting.
(19:16):
Yeah, it was very interesting just to see visually the way the songs were laid out, butthen just to see like, you know, I consider Ringo my favorite drummer.
So, you know, he can do no wrong pretty much by me and watching him like speed up and slowdown so drastically was an eye-opener, especially when, yeah.
(19:37):
many rules.
is it yesterday?
There's one of the songs I saw recently in interview with Paul McCartney and he was sayingthat they started the take and he didn't realize Ringo had gone to the washroom.
And so there's no drums and he's thinking there's no drums yet.
And then he sees as he's singing Ringo, know, sneaking back to his drum set and then hejust starts playing.
(20:04):
And it's like musically perfection, but you never would have thought of doing that onpurpose.
It's just embracing the happy accident, you know?
Right.
I saw that clip.
I forget what song it was too, but something where he doesn't come in right away, but itturns out when he makes it there, it's actually the perfect time for him to come in.
(20:29):
You know, something I've been enjoying about your work and looking into how you're doingit kind of reminded me of the Beatles a little bit.
just in that they were so experimental with recording.
now here you are today experimenting with the locations.
So I didn't see footage of this, but I did read jungles of Papua New Guinea are placesyou've done recordings in, in the tropics of Costa Rica.
(20:56):
And I saw another clip, I believe it was on your Instagram talking about performing theparts in a jail cell from one of the shows.
And
look like in today's day and age.
are certainly plugins you could get.
There's certainly studio trickery you could do to emulate that kind of stuff.
(21:18):
But I really appreciated the fact that you want the extra mile, literally lots of miles insome cases, to do that.
And I kind of just wanted to see how you rationalize that.
I personally, I get it a hundred percent, but
I could also imagine that maybe like studios and budgets might say like, why are we goingin the jungle for this?
(21:43):
you know, I'm happy to report that more often than not, they love it.
They love the idea of doing something different like that.
Music is one of those things that everybody is kind of an expert on.
Everyone, I can't sit here and talk about different types of cinematography or lighting oredit film editing or
(22:05):
you know all these other roles, key roles, but when it comes to music everyone has arelationship with music.
They know what they like, they know what they don't like, and they have an opinion of whatworks and what doesn't work.
So in my experience anyways with a lot of these at a left field ideas, people are excitedby them.
(22:28):
And they're also, we're at a time where I think people are really excited about doingsomething new and different and pushing the envelope in music.
I think all kinds of music actually fall into that.
Whereas I've lived through time periods where they would temp a movie with a score andsay, want it to sound like this.
(22:48):
You know, not, don't copy it.
but we want it to be this type of score, this instrumentation, this vibe, achieve exactlywhat this is doing.
So yeah, I've actually had a lot of support from the filmmakers and from the studios andexperimenting with that kind of stuff.
And you're right, in some cases you could mimic it for sure.
(23:15):
Like in terms of the jail cell, could we have come up with you know,
really long reverb that had mimicked the stone walls of this four-story prison that wasbuilt 200 years ago 100 % could have created something but two interesting things one the
(23:37):
as good as these reverbs are they don't actually combine the sounds in the room before youhit the reverb so a lot of times you've got you know four percussionists close mic'd and
you take those closed mic sounds, I'll put them through the reverb and yeah, we get a, anecho-y sound.
(23:57):
You take those four instruments and they combine in the room and naturally hit the reverbin slightly different locations, slightly different timing.
There's something different about that.
And I don't think you can always put a conscious like a
a number on how what's different or even consciously know what's different.
(24:18):
But back to what we were talking about, this authenticity and this truth in music, I thinkyou can get that.
Now that prison in particular, we showed up, we were a couple of days, it was duringCOVID.
So we all had our masks on and it was a big deal to get permission to go into this prison.
(24:40):
It was Mayor of Kingstown, so the Jeremy Renner.
starring show with that Taylor shared and wrote.
And was actually the first time I'd worked with Taylor and brought in these musicians andmyself.
My daughter had to come along, my teenage daughter, because of COVID.
So they didn't want too many people.
So she thankfully assisted.
(25:02):
And the plan, I'd written out all this music to play and we brought in all these drums andall these instruments.
And think we were doing four sessions and maybe an hour into the first session of themorning of the first day, honestly can't remember if it was me or one of the drummers,
(25:22):
somebody hit the wall.
Like just playing the rhythm and took them out, hit the wall.
And the wall's like this gate of metal that's like a hundred years old and it's rattly andconnected to something.
And the whole, like we were like, do, do, do, do.
and the whole room just echoed.
(25:43):
And it was like a wave where you hit the metal and the wave, visualize the wave going upand around us and down the other side.
And we were like, damn, that's cool.
And the whole thing turned into us playing the prison.
We abandoned the instruments and it turned into taking mallets and bows like a string bowthat you'd play on a cello and bowing the door and slamming the door, closing the prison
(26:12):
door really slowly because the hinge goes and plays this melody and putting on our heavy
boots because it was cold outside and stomping down the hall in a rhythm.
by being there, we realized, damn, the prison is the instrument.
(26:34):
And let's play the prison in the only way that the prisoners could have played the prison.
They didn't have drums.
They didn't have all these instruments.
Let's play it like they would have played it.
And the whole score did this whole left turn in this whole different direction.
And it completely informed everything that we did from that point on.
(26:57):
So even though that hadn't been the intention, if they hadn't let us do it and we justmimicked it, we never would have gone that way.
Yeah, wow.
So I was going to ask you if just being in that room with the reverb informed the players,because it always does.
Wherever you play it, it affects your playing, it just, I it really did in this case.
(27:18):
You just threw the instruments away.
So being in that room for sure affected us, because I remember my daughter went out andgot us lunch.
There was nothing, it was COVID, there's nothing open.
So she goes out in the car and gets, I think it was Subway or sandwiches or something.
And we all walked out and stood outside and realized how oppressed we'd been being in thisdark, damp, Gothic space.
(27:48):
And so I've never cheated on my taxes.
I never will.
I know what it's like to be in that penitentiary.
I don't want to ever be there where I can't walk out on break.
it was, yeah, from a, from an approach standpoint, that that also influenced the score,like getting a sense of how oppressive it was.
(28:09):
And
And the other interesting thing about that and part of the reason I wanted to go andrecord in the prison was I did some research on it.
It's one of the oldest prisons in Canada where they were filming.
Incidentally, they were filming there like the next week.
They hadn't started filming yet.
So I managed to get in there before they built the sets, before all the actors showed up.
(28:30):
And what Taylor and I kind of discussed in the idea was that the most violent
prison riot in Canadian history had taken place in that prison.
And the prison riot was instigated by the fact that there was a bell in the guard gatethat would get rung periodically throughout the day.
(28:52):
would signify morning, night, meals, yard, time.
And it was so loud and so oppressive because of the design of this prison being all stoneand metal.
the, can imagine the echo that would happen with this incredibly loud bell and theprisoners felt so oppressed by this sound.
(29:14):
Like it was almost like a sonic torture that the goal of the riot was to actually destroythe bell.
They broke into the
the guard station and they shattered the bell.
It's not a museum, but they actually have in the decommissioned prison now behind glassthe broken pieces of the bell sort of demonstrating what their whole goal was.
(29:43):
And people died solely so they could destroy this sonic oppressive thing that symbolizedto them taking their freedom away.
So Taylor said to me, there's something to that musically that even though this show isabout Jeremy Renner's character who's been there and he's now outside and working on
(30:06):
behalf of the prisoners and the guards and the police and trying to keep the peace, if hismusic has that oppressive reverb on it.
he's still there in his head and it's permeated his psyche in such a way that he's out ofprison but he'll never escape the prison.
So all of these things, in addition to being sonic Easter eggs, they also kind of shapeyour approach and what is the music supposed to be doing and in this case, just having
(30:39):
that experience, it was like, wow, the music is supposed to make us feel like he's stillthere.
way memories sort of reverberate in our minds.
Just like, yeah.
That's really cool.
And wow, isn't it interesting how a little bit of time and now it's sort of like ondisplay is this, you know, piece of history where I'm sure in the moment, you said people
(31:04):
died, terrifying.
Yeah, yeah, you the other just as a little sidebar, the other incredible thing there wasthe artwork that the prisoners in the 200 years the prison had been open had carved into
the walls was extraordinary.
(31:25):
It was and quite emotionally conflicting because you you recognize they were there for areason.
They'd done something terrible, but.
but they're suffering and you can see that reflected in the artwork.
yeah, it's definitely, it was not only musically eye-opening experience, but just a lifeeye-opening experience and something that made me look at the show in a different way.
(31:58):
Yeah, you see the humanity in those people.
They are still humans despite whatever they did or went through.
Yeah, and I think I've actually carried that into other projects too, is exactly what yousaid, finding the humanity in someone that you otherwise might write off.
(32:20):
You might say, have nothing in common with this person.
And using the music to hopefully give your audience something that they could say, I dorelate with them on this point, or I do.
I know how that feels, even though they might have so many other reasons to disassociatewith that person and their way of life.
(32:48):
And that's great storytelling when that happens in a villain.
When the villain just, I'm evil, let me do bad things.
You know, that's not much to connect with, but when you get the backstory and youunderstand their motivations and there's a part of you that can imagine how you could have
gotten there too if you were in their same shoes.
(33:11):
Going through that makes it much more complex and more compelling to watch them go throughthat.
Yeah, 100%.
It's really cool that you did that because again, like it's so easy to, where you couldstay in this comfortable studio, know, you don't have to go to jail literally and do that.
(33:35):
So you tired of that?
Okay.
a field trip was really exciting at that point.
I think those kind of stories are really important in art these days.
These adventures, the extra mile you go to take those risks, because you could have verywell gone into that jail, tried to record these drums, and it's just overwhelming reverb.
(33:58):
We really can't use it.
And there's a risk to that.
But having that extra layer of story, that adventure you guys wanted to.
Again, it's like one of these things that maybe you can't put your finger on.
There's no dial for it.
But I think it comes through in those final products.
(34:21):
In our world where if you're thinking about what like AI can do with stuff and computergenerated everything, it's really nice to have these stories of like how we got that
sound.
yeah, I got, you know how that sound in there, you know?
I just finished a song kind of dedicated to my dog that passed away not too long ago.
(34:44):
It's been a year and a half, but it's still tough.
But one of the melodic sounds was made from like her bark, kind of sampled it and turnedit into a melodic instrument.
And you probably wouldn't know if you heard it.
You just think it's like some kind of weird synthesizer sound.
But I really do think it puts something in there.
(35:05):
And just like this, when you're there, when you're in that building, and then that's beingused to inform this character's history that's with them.
It's all these little things that brings the art to the art, to the project.
And it's really cool to know people are willing to do that.
(35:29):
I love that the studios are supportive.
So nice to hear.
Yeah, and to your point that people won't know, sometimes that's good.
They don't know.
Because if they recognize the way you're using something, then maybe the message isn'tcoming through clearly enough out the other side.
(35:51):
Because ultimately, you just want them to get the emotion.
Like your song in particular, you want them to feel the emotion of how you feel.
about your poor dog passing away.
You don't want them to concentrate on how you're transmitting that emotion.
You know, I think about this a lot and I've referenced this a lot, but if you think aboutlike FM radio or AM radio and the sound wave and being a carrier wave for information, I
(36:22):
think a lot of music you really want
as much information to get from one side to the other as possible with as littledegradation, with as little being aware of how it's being communicated.
It's just a carrier wave that you want to kind of be silent, you know?
So I think a lot of times when I go to the prison or Papua New Guinea or these differentplaces to try to do things, I'm trying to create something that
(36:54):
Hopefully the method I got it is fairly invisible and it's fun thing to talk about afterthe fact but if if the emotion If I don't achieve what I want in the emotion, then you
kind of have to abandon it and go Well, I'm not not doing it for a good story I'm doing itto better the storytelling or the experience of the show I'm scoring and that can be
(37:19):
really hard sometimes because you can
sometimes have a really good idea on paper that doesn't work and you kind of have toabandon it and let it go.
But yeah, I had this dispute with an actor friend of mine, her husband is a director andhe said,
You you really just want people to like the score as a composer.
(37:42):
You don't, you know, you're not worried about how they feel about the show.
And most composers, and I was like, you don't get it.
Like I, I love if people like the score, but if they like the film overall and they don'tdifferentiate the visuals and the acting and the music, I'm, actually more flattered
because I've done a better job than if the music doesn't match the film, but the music youlike, if that makes sense.
(38:07):
So,
Yeah, all of these little journeys and these methods of creating something, you almostwant them to be invisible in the end, that as long as it's achieving the end goal of
making it more profound and more powerful.
(38:28):
Right, because you're creating a spell.
It's almost this form of hypnosis where we go in, we watch the show and we forgot abouteverything.
And I got that watching Landman today.
I kept reminding myself, I got to listen to the music more.
I got to pay a little more attention to this.
And it's kind of like that in music.
You don't want to be distracted in the, like the how-to.
(38:52):
You don't want that to pop in too much.
You don't want the...
the fact that we're watching a film to keep popping into your head and like, they're doingsomething really cool here with the cameras or with the sound or the actors doing
something very special.
Cause when that happens, now I'm not in that moment.
The spell's broken and there goes that emotional impact, which I guess is really the thingwe're all trying to get.
(39:18):
That's tends to be what I try to think about when I'm making music is.
I don't care how I get it if it enhances emotional impact.
It's the answer.
100%.
And going back to the humanity side, had a, there were a couple of moments and phrases inthe strings in Landman where it repeats.
(39:41):
And I had somebody say to me, one of the engineers say, we should take that first phraseand put it over the second phrase.
Cause the orchestra was a little more together here.
And I thought, no, no, the fact that they're not perfect.
is kind of what's perfect about it.
Like the fact that even though technically and on the manuscript paper those look like thesame two phrases, they weren't.
(40:07):
One of them, they'd already played it once.
So there's these little imperfections and little truths, I guess, that end up being reallyimportant parts of the music.
And I guess, you know, going back to the Beatles, they had that mastered.
You know, they recognize not to eliminate those things, not to self-edit to a point thatit would take all the little imperfections that made it perfect out of it.
(40:36):
You can hear those all over those recordings.
You might even hear a little bit of some kind of calling out before the change, hiddenprobably within those drum tracks or something.
And it only happens in that second verse right before the second chorus.
And it's a little, just a little treat you get along the way.
Exactly, and in orchestral music sometimes you'll catch the sound of the conductorswitching, turning their page.
(41:03):
And I've run into so many engineers that say, we can get rid of that.
And I'm like, no, that's the proof we were here.
Only very few people will know what sound that is, but the people that recognize it willappreciate it.
huh, yeah.
This is, it's like writing, I was here on the wall.
Yeah, that's true.
(41:25):
I've done that with sounds that I get while I'm recording.
I'm so much less uptight about if there's noise.
I'm in my basement studio here, so there's nothing perfect about it.
I've done the best I can.
Thanks.
than mine.
Well, I do conveniently have the washer and dryer out of the frame here.
(41:49):
So there's things going on.
But if you get too caught up in that.
it kills your performance.
Because again, now I'm not in the moment.
I'm thinking about like, is there a car driving down the street or all these things youcan't control.
But a lot of times when I listen back to the things that have these little interferencesin there, it puts me in the moment.
(42:12):
I remember where I was.
And it just feels more like life is happening instead of this kind of weird sterileenvironment that is the, you know, the DAW at negative infinity volume where there's
absolutely no sound that just doesn't exist anywhere in the world to have that little bitof life in there.
(42:34):
for sure.
had years ago, there was a vocalist that I still work with her actually, Emily ClaireBarlow, and she was singing on a score and I had her into the studio a bunch of times and
my room was small and I had put all my acoustic guitars up on the wall displaying themproudly and she would sing in the room beside me into the mic and
(43:00):
She is incredible.
She's got an incredible voice and she's incredibly, there's a magical aspect to her voicealready.
But on the third session on that film that she came in, my guitars were all with theguitar technician being tweaked and the action lowered and new strings, et cetera.
(43:22):
And we kind of looked at each other and thought, there's something missing.
And I realized she's, we've been getting the sympathetic
sounds on all those strings right behind like almost this melodic reverb behind her everyother time she sang because they were literally three feet behind her and the mic was
picking it up and we didn't even realize it.
(43:45):
So I was quick to redo that last session with all those guitars back there again andrealized, well, this is another example of where the limitation ends up being an
advantage, not a disadvantage.
Yeah, you're not supposed to have that.
That's wrong, technically.
(44:07):
But it does.
know that I have an acoustic guitar on the wall next to an amplifier.
I've been recording guitars before and been like, wait, what?
Is there reverb on this amp?
Like, what's going on here?
It's only to find it's just kind of bouncing around inside there.
it can be the best, best thing.
I've done things with orchestras where I'll put the piano next to the double basses andmight get really close.
(44:35):
And the piano player, their only job is to hold down the sustain pedal.
And then the double basses get these sympathetic pitches going in the piano.
And then you just gain it up and you get this incredible echo.
really in the piano strings.
really cool.
Yeah, almost like a spring reverb kind of, but it's tuned, I guess.
(45:00):
Hmm.
You give me an idea, I'm going to put a mic on that guitar next time I'm recording anelectric guitar, just to let it...
I even the drums probably, you know, I spent so much time trying to deaden the drums, so Idon't get that, but maybe for the sake of a reverb, it might be cool to get the floor
toms.
(45:22):
Rumble.
even further, custom tune the strings so they're all open in the pitches you want.
Yeah, yeah.
that's a great idea.
Yeah, so fun.
those are the kinds of things, again, that would be a little extra effort and you couldprobably just slap the only favorite reverb on there.
(45:43):
But I think if anything, if nothing else, it would give me a certain enthusiasm to theproject that would probably carry over into the performances.
that's, you know, I guess if that works, you you win.
Because that's, as you were saying, you want to have those emotions in the moment of theperformance to come through.
(46:05):
best things in music are accidents.
When I'm writing, some of my best moments are a mistake that I take notice of and realizeI didn't mean to play it that way, but that's better.
So I think, I'd say in my recording production side of things, some of the best thingswere accidents that I just realized.
(46:29):
You know, you're almost sheepish about telling the engineer at Abbey Road that you did itthis way, but they actually like it.
They're sheepish about saying, well, you're not supposed to do it like that, but it'spretty good.
That's cool.
Yeah, I can imagine.
There's certainly funny things I've done where maybe left a mic on that shouldn't havebeen on and then been like, okay.
(46:54):
I did a score and we were trying to make it sound like an old 40s rom-com.
And we had the orchestra mic'd and I was trying to get that sound and I couldn't figureout the sound.
So we had a little crappy mic set up for the conductor to be able to talk to us.
So once we'd do a take, the engineer would turn down the tree and all the surround micsand all the close mics and we'd just hear the mic for the conductor.
(47:24):
So the next take he went and he accidentally left that mic open, the mono mic right by theconductor's baton.
And I said, that's it.
That's the sound we want.
That's exactly it.
What'd you do?
And he said, I screwed up.
I kept that open.
And I said, okay, we need to record that.
(47:47):
And he said, so we're gonna disregard the 32 microphones we have.
that through these incredible mic pres, and we're gonna use the $100 mic that is like aTom mic or something, and I said, well, we'll record both just in case, but again, an
(48:08):
accident, and you realize, that's the sound we wanted.
yeah, those are the best moments when you suddenly realize, this total screw-up wasactually the answer to all of our problems.
I love that too.
And that's probably how they were recording things back then for orchestras anyways,single mic, just get it in the right spot where we can hear stuff and what else are going
(48:33):
to do?
Yeah.
But I love when you realize it doesn't take all of that stuff, like those expensive micsand those top end preamps with the engineer, you know, getting everything perfect and
just you can still make magic with pure simplicity.
(48:57):
Well, it still comes down to the music.
I had someone say to me once, I said, I really want to buy this new mixer, this newdigital console.
It's so cool.
And he said, yeah, that's great.
Will it make your music sound better?
I said, no, but it'll look good and it'll make life a bit easier.
(49:19):
And he's like, yeah, that's right.
But will it make anything sound better?
And I thought, no.
And I've kind of used that to measure everything now.
And you realize, you know, there's a lot of hits recorded on a laptop in somebody'sbasement and with radio shack microphones and, you know, there's, it still comes down to
(49:42):
the music and you can have the best mics and the best preamps in the world.
If the music and the performance isn't good, then, you know, you're not there.
Yeah, that's some of the beauty of where we are today that you can have that.
mean, look at Billie Eilish and Phineas, what they do sitting on the floor of theirchildhood bedroom.
(50:03):
It's just, I think that I don't know if I want to hear them anywhere else.
If there's something special, his brother and sister, that's...
that comes through.
How do you get that comfortable?
It's a little bit uptight in the studio.
It's serious business.
The clock is running and the dollars are flying away.
(50:27):
So you get in a kind of mindset that can prevent some of those vulnerable moments tohappen.
Agreed, 100%.
I gotta say, I'm really enjoying your outlook and what you're bringing to these shows andto these films.
(50:49):
It really does take it someplace special, I think.
It's also very interesting how intangible it is, but you feel it.
Which is the opposite of intangible, but it's something real there that I think...
is important for us to have in our music and I think music in general could use more ofthat direction.
(51:15):
It's really nice work.
Well, thank you.
It's interesting.
I know every interview, every podcast, in every genre, every occupation could talk aboutAI right now because it's such at the forefront.
But I have to say that music has something that when it's done right and when it's reallyhonest,
(51:43):
I don't think you can break it down into numbers and code.
don't think, I think there's a humanity that we can't understand.
We can't put it into an equation or ones and zeros.
And I don't think anything can.
And it's funny on Mare, again, there was a, a piano theme and I had written maybe four orfive different piano melody ideas.
(52:08):
And
was sending them to Taylor later that day and I got news that a friend that I'd gone touniversity with who had been really close with but lost touch with in recent years had
passed away.
Total shock.
It was one of those things where, you didn't know he passed away six months ago and I wasjust thrown.
(52:31):
And not thinking about the project I went and I sat down at the piano and I wrote just aone hand melody.
motif.
I put it with the other five one-hand melody motifs, mp3s, sent them to Taylor.
And that night he's like, okay, so they're all good.
(52:52):
What's with that one?
What is with that one?
What was going on when you wrote that?
And I couldn't put it, I couldn't ever have imagined that someone could pick those out ofa lineup and say,
that that one, that one's real.
But he did.
And on paper or on the Disney ride, they were all emotional and moving in or trying to bemoving in that way.
(53:22):
But this one had this untamed, this this undescribable truth to it that he knew rightaway.
And
I often think about that because you can't find that in the code of the music.
You can't find that, you can't pull that out.
(53:43):
I think it's really set me on a quest to try to make sure that I'm writing from a verypersonal place, something real.
Like I can only imagine that, and I'd love to hear this piece you wrote, because I canimagine that there's an emotion to that that is incomparable.
(54:03):
to other things you've written and very unique in its message because it is very true towhat you're writing it about.
But I'm always trying to think about what is that?
What is that sound and how can I best communicate that?
(54:23):
it was sort of an epiphany for me in a new moment where I realized, wow, someone can hearthat, someone can pick that up.
Yeah.
Yeah, and especially with a bunch of others to compare it to.
And there's also that specific goal for the project you're working on.
(54:45):
It's like these microphones are picking up more than just.
those sounds and those particular frequencies.
And if you look at the microphone frequency ranges, it seems like there's something elsegoing on there.
Maybe a third dimension that's not represented in the charts.
But something gets in the air.
(55:07):
I hope so.
Because that's kind of the, I think that's the drug that we all get off on in music iswhen all these little things combine into something magical and you can't put your finger
on how it happened and you can't recreate it.
It's just...
it's moving and it's cool and it just happens.
(55:29):
I hear songwriters say that these things are floating around in the ether and they showup, but it's not just the thing, it's the moment that they show up that has a magic too
that you kind of want to capture.
Yeah, I think about that a lot when I don't feel like doing it.
(55:50):
You know, when I have time and I know I should probably be working on some music and Ithink about those things.
Like if you don't show up at that time, like you just, you're never there.
It's like the old, you can never step in the same river twice because the river is alwayschanging and so are you.
So you're never in that moment and
(56:10):
I also saw the Dolly Parton biography that came out not too long ago and they said shewrote, Jolene and I will always love you in the same day.
I was like, what?
What kind of lightning was striking that day?
(56:31):
I believe that that doesn't come to you the next day.
think every day you're getting something different.
Just from my experience of doing this, just know that sometimes the things that pop out ofme are just because it was that moment.
Maybe it was even the people I was around or what I just had done an hour before, butthere's a lot of weird factors that we can't quite collect data on and feed into some kind
(57:01):
of algorithm.
So how often have you in your life been lying in bed and woken up in the middle of thenight lying in bed and you come up with a song or a melody and you half the time you get
out of bed and you go and you write it down or you record it.
It's just a voice memo or something.
And the other half you don't.
Thinking, I'll remember this.
(57:22):
You never remember it.
And when you wake up, when I wake up in the morning and the 50 % of time that I did get upand record it,
Half of that, it's amazing and I'm so glad I got up.
And the other half, it's terrible and I was obviously having some weird dream that made methink it was good, but it's really bad.
(57:44):
So it's funny how that works out.
But yeah, I agree.
There's something going on that music's a bit of a window into something else.
I think if nothing else, you wind up with an amusing recording.
Music is great for that too.
Sometimes it's just fun, it's silly.
(58:08):
It takes you to that moment that would otherwise just be erased from history and yourexistence.
Yeah, I think you're right.
It's amazing that we haven't run out of combinations yet because there's such a finitenumber of notes and the way we put them together that that too tells you there's much more
(58:29):
to it than just the notes and the timing and the time signature.
I think in my case, especially, because I'm keeping it pretty simple most of the time.
Not really doing many things that are that outside the norm, especially with theory andstuff like that.
(58:50):
But yeah, sometimes you write a song, it's like, how did this not get written already?
And some songs feel like they've always existed.
Just some Bob Dylan songs, or like blowing in the wind feels like it was probably alwaysblowing in the wind.
How does a person write that?
It just seems like it was always sung since the dawn of time.
(59:17):
Yeah, agreed.
Yeah, that's cool.
It's a magical thing, And you're doing some magic with it.
Well, it's not all magic, but I'm glad you're focusing on the magic.
There's always a lot of misfires, but that's part of what you have to do.
It's part of the job is going down a lot of dead ends.
(59:38):
So yeah, no, I'm really lucky.
I've had a a great run.
I always noticed with musicians when I hire an orchestra in particular, you can hear whenthey're having fun.
And so I hope
I hope when people hear my music they can see how much I'm enjoying making it.
(59:59):
Hmm.
Well, I'm glad you say that too about it not always being magic because, yeah, we aredefinitely kind of romanticizing it a little bit, but I've never spoken to anybody in real
life or in this podcast.
Here you are an award-winning composer and nobody ever says it's easy.
It's still mysterious and challenging and...
(01:00:23):
Part of what makes it magical and why we get those magical moments is because of howchallenging and just weird it is.
Cause you can study it and get technical, but there's still something out there that wejust, I don't know.
It just comes through on a different wavelength.
(01:00:44):
Well, every time I hate it and I come up from my studio and into the light and see myfamily and my teenage daughters are studying for a calculus exam, I suddenly go, no, I'd
rather do music.
I'm good.
I take back what I said in the studio five minutes ago.
(01:01:05):
So yeah, no, it's not, not to say it's easy, but there's nothing else I'd rather be doingfor sure.
Yeah, good problems to have, right?
Good frustrations.
So can I ask you, do you like to send people any place for your work?
(01:01:26):
I know I'm going to put your Instagram.
I'll put links to Spotify, Apple Music, and things like that.
But anywhere else you want?
my catalog, it's amazing because Lioness Season 2 soundtrack was released today.
And I was looking at all these soundtracks on there.
thought, wow, that's crept up on me.
There's a bunch there.
(01:01:47):
So that's one of the good things about Spotify and Apple Music and this digital streaming.
It's nice that that's all cataloged there.
I like that.
really like
Yeah, like documenting Instagram is really my only social media.
I like kind of documenting what I'm doing and some of the recording adventures we go onwith that.
(01:02:11):
And yeah, and then just seeing the project, so much of the music is written for thecombined experience of a visual and a music, an audio element together.
Yeah, I'm always flattered when people respond to the music and go and see how it fitswith the storytelling aspect of the other side of the job.
(01:02:35):
It's an amazing body of work and no wonder you have people that keep wanting to work withyou.
know, it's showing up again and again to create some really special stuff.
Well, appreciate that.
I'm, I am, this is going to sound like a soundbite, but I am so lucky the people I get towork with, I pinch myself getting to write music behind Morgan Freeman or Billy Bob
(01:02:59):
Thornton or, you know, Demi Moore, any of these amazing actors.
I feel really lucky to be, to be trusted with that responsibility and, yeah, never, nevertake it for granted.
So yeah, it's, thank you for saying that.
Yeah, well, and I also thank you for taking the time to talk and leaving me feelinginspired today.
(01:03:25):
So go make that guitar and then once you've recorded the guitar on the wall, send me yoursong.
want to hear it.
Cool.
Sounds good.
Yeah, you too.
Thanks.
Andrew, thank you for being here.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks, Brian.
Thanks for having me.
It's a great pleasure.
And, you've got a lot of really cool things happening right now at this very moment as werecord.
Landman just started on, on Paramount.
Your Amazon Prime Monday night hockey theme song is live.
(00:21):
And I just saw the lioness soundtrack was released today on Apple music when I was goingthrough your stuff.
So, congratulations.
That's another bunch of.
items to an already really impressive body of work.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's really funny that you work on all this stuff for a year and it all comes out atthe same time.
(00:43):
It's funny how that happens.
There's no spacing everything out.
just all is kind of being born in the same two weeks.
But yeah, thank you.
Yeah, it's been a great year.
I've had a lot of fun working on a lot of different projects and yeah, it's been a lot offun.
And it's a lot of different styles too.
When I listened to the hockey theme, very epic, orchestral.
(01:08):
And just before we started talking, my wife and I got to see the first episode of Landmanand much different, organic guitars and really fits the vibe of the film or guess TV show
in this case, but.
It's a blurry line these days, isn't it, between film and TV in a good way.
(01:29):
But thank you.
Yeah, yeah, it's, I certainly feel, I approach it like film.
So yeah, it feels like, you know, I a director say to me that they're series, they're notTV series.
So it's much more of a 10 hour movie than it is 10 one hour TV shows.
(01:53):
But yeah, know, style-wise, thank God they're different because it's, when you're workingon multiple things at once, you need some delineation between them so your brain doesn't
get confused.
And I was lucky that these all called for very different approaches.
So I was able to avoid crossing wires in my head in terms of themes and styles andapproach.
(02:18):
And I'm guessing each project has a bit of a palette that you get to draw from.
What's that process like for you coming up with these sound palettes to fit?
Because I think part of your job is to fade a little bit in the background so that we getabsorbed into the music, into the show, into the emotions that are going on.
(02:41):
And...
The sounds you choose are very important in setting the stage and the mood and the timeperiod even.
How does that process work for you?
Where do you begin?
Is it a lot of direction from others or experimentation?
It depends on the project, but in the case of working with Taylor Sheridan, it's a lot ofcollaboration and brainstorming and trial and error.
(03:09):
It's an interesting way to put it, setting the palette, because it is really what you'redoing.
You're trying to come up with what is the tone of the music and what is the instrument.
More specifically, what instruments will you use?
But also, what role will the music play?
What is it trying to say?
or not say in the show and that brainstorming and really as you said coming up with thepalette is both the best and the worst part of the process.
(03:39):
It's incredibly rewarding but it's it's like being thrown in a maze without any clues ofhow to get out.
And so in some ways it's on purpose.
You try to sort of put yourself in a situation that's unfamiliar and use your musicalityand the tools you have to find your way in uncharted territory, so to speak.
(04:09):
So in that sense, it can be really rewarding and the payoff is rewarding, but it's verymuch like being in the middle of a math problem that you don't know how to solve.
Yeah, and in the case of Landman, more than the other two shows I did with Taylor, wereally went full circle.
We did a lot of brainstorming, a lot of experimentation to come up with.
(04:32):
What in the end was a really simple palette and a really simple idea.
But it's funny, I can't have to look this up because I keep referencing this quote, butit's some quote where they talk about journeying the world
and coming back to where you started, where you grew up and seeing it for the first time.
(04:56):
And we very much did that with the music.
We started in this place of really simple melodies and simple instrumentation and all thelittle sounds of the human playing the instrument, not just the sound of the instrument.
And we tried all these other ideas.
and ultimately came back to this original idea of really just a guitar and humming andembracing the imperfection of communicating an emotional idea without over producing it.
(05:31):
Hmm.
That's I've had that experience actually in real life, traveling the world, went to Europeon my honeymoon with my wife, only to come back home.
live on Long Island, New York, and we were like, wow, like we went to all these differentcountries.
We got the ocean here.
We have the city not too far away.
The mountains are pretty close.
(05:52):
So we kind of saw it differently after that.
But I've had that with music as well, where you think.
You might write the song on an acoustic guitar, try it out with the band or try it out ina different kind of genre and then find out, you know what, like there was something kind
of cool about where we started.
And those instincts come out, I guess, it shows you the power of that instinctual.
(06:16):
So being a musician then, you also know sometimes there can be a great song on the radioand you sit down and you strip it down into acoustic guitar and vocal and it's missing the
magic.
It's almost like it's been produced so well that they didn't have to start with theframework being
(06:40):
super strong because they could mask it all in this over, not over production, butfantastic production.
And I remember years ago hearing a Katy Perry song, I think it was Teenage Dream.
And it was an acoustic cover that a band called the Rescues had done of it.
And I remember thinking, I had no idea how good the song was.
(07:03):
until I heard it with all of that stripped away down to its simplest form.
And in the case of Landman, Taylor actually would say to me, okay, I like this.
What does it sound like?
Just you playing guitar and humming it.
And that was the test, the gauntlet.
We'd have to put all these ideas through to see, is it real or is it, are we masking allthe...
(07:30):
the bad parts of this melody.
And I almost said masking all the imperfections, but in fact we kind of came to realizethere was a bit of a measure that if it had imperfections, but they were musical ones,
that that was a good thing.
That, you know, if there was a breath or, you know, there's one of the themes I remembertaking a breath in right before.
(07:55):
So the melody didn't start on
beat one when it should have, but it was almost like just a hair, like a 16th or an eighthlate.
But that was what made it great.
That was the magic.
And the minute you perfected it and put it on the grid and quantized it, it didn't work inthe same way.
(08:15):
So it was very much kind of trying to embrace all the little rough edges that make ushuman.
And it's only in kind of looking back on it and being out of the battle.
that I see that that was there all along in the writing and the acting.
Billy Bob Thornton's character is far from perfect, but it's all those littleimperfections that make him perfect, if that makes sense.
(08:42):
Yeah, it's from the first episode I've seen anyway.
Like, he is really just, he's a dad.
And he's in this big business.
He's talking about trillions of dollars at different points, but he's just a dad.
And there's a lot of scenes where you see him really just humanized in that way.
(09:06):
Where...
He sees his daughter with the fancy boyfriend that's of taken advantage of her a littlebit and juxtaposed to this opening scene where he's so powerful, even though he's tied up.
And it takes that.
(09:29):
the kind of like fantasy out of it and makes you say like, yeah, he's like a person likeme and you know, I'm also flawed like that.
And I think you reflect that really nicely with the music.
And these days when it's so easy to, like you said, just take that one line, it wassupposed to be on the one, let's just shift it over there and get it where it belongs.
But to notice that, I guess that's what you mean by not washing away all that like humanaspect of it.
(09:57):
Yeah, and in finding the beauty between the unintended brushstrokes, I guess, the littlethings that you didn't, you know, like sitting at the piano and I played this chord, but
the one middle note in the chord just barely sounded.
But that's good.
That's what made the chord sound good, you know?
(10:18):
And I have to give credit to Taylor and to the fact that we've gone through this process.
for three or four years with the two other shows that I trusted him enough to throw thosethings at him and I guess he trusted me enough not to worry about saying, no, no, no, keep
(10:39):
it.
And it's funny, I remember saying to my assistant, I was like, there's this thing I playedand...
It was imperfect and Taylor said, no, he likes it.
He likes how it sounds, like it sounds real and authentic.
like, I forget what he said.
(10:59):
It was, I was playing a, a nickel harpa, which is like a keyed medieval fiddle, mainlyfrom Sweden.
and that area of the world 500 years ago.
But it's featured in the score and I don't play it well.
And I had played this line and Taylor said to me, said, it kind of sounds like it'scrying.
(11:21):
And it kind of sounds insecure.
And I'm thinking, well, it's insecure because I'm incredibly insecure about playing it.
But there was a humanity to it.
And my assistant was like, really?
Can't you convince them to let you re-record it or we'll get another player in?
And I said, I know that's what I thought too, but actually in the scene, it kind of makessense.
(11:44):
Like it kind of works.
So it's good to, I feel really lucky to collaborate with people you trust who can help youfind the magical moments and things that you might've overlooked or you might've erased
the sketch thinking it was,
bad, but they're able to kind of help you see the path in going in that direction.
(12:08):
And as you mentioned, the NHL theme, totally different, totally different approach tomusic.
You're trying to be perfect.
trying, you want it to be incredibly musically sound and exact.
And this was a complete 180 departure from that.
you
There's so much vulnerability in that, right?
(12:29):
And like you said, to have collaborators that you can feel safe with and trust.
And when we bear emotion, I think we always get a little uncomfortable because we'rerevealing something true about ourselves.
And in our playing, sometimes the truth is, yeah, I rushed it.
I got excited or I missed the note a little bit or the instrument kind of creaked in acertain way.
(12:54):
But that is life.
And that's when you're trying to showcase that, I think especially in a show like that,it's clever to leave that stuff in.
Yeah, it's interesting too, for songwriters out there, when you write a lyric and sing it,if you're writing about heartbreak and singing about heartbreak and you're actually
(13:21):
feeling heartbroken when you're singing it, there's something within this performance thatyou can't quantify into numbers or production or anything.
that if you capture it when, if that person plays Heartbreak or sings Heartbreak with themoment they're feeling Heartbreak, it has a different quality than them being in Wembley
(13:47):
Stadium three years later, re-singing their hit about Heartbreak.
So a lot of this score was about capturing that moment in the moment you felt it.
And it was, you know, a lot of recording everything, sitting down and
playing an idea and recording it because you didn't know if it would be the moment or not.
(14:15):
a lot of it, you know, I'm from Canada.
I live in Toronto.
I'm talking to you from Toronto, my home in Toronto right now.
I had not spent a lot of time in Texas before I met Taylor, but much like the charactersin his show, some of the most authentic, real, say what you mean and you know.
mean what you say, people are from Texas and it's reflected to, I think, very accuratelyin this show and there's no posturing, there's no pretending to be somebody else, it's
(14:48):
just people that are very honest with themselves and so the music really had to be thattoo.
It had to be unapologetic about its imperfections but confident in its presentation.
Right?
I think that's so important and I get the feeling that, and I hope this too, I have thiswish that this happens with music in general, but as it's gotten so slick and polished,
(15:17):
you know, as we've had our DAWs and we can fix everything perfectly, I think there's beenthat trend.
But now I'm seeing more things, even in just the way the software is designed, there'sthings like probability or humanize or.
plugins that kind of warp the tuning a little bit.
(15:38):
I think there's this desire to have that back because we've sort of found out that we werestriving for perfection and we couldn't quite get there and that's where kind of the
humanity lies.
But now that we can actually put it in there, we say, hey, wait a minute, we've takensomething out of here that's really important to our expression.
(15:59):
Well, if you go back and listen to the Beatles through the discerning ear of modern dayproduction, it's flawed in so many ways in terms of tuning, timing, you know, so many
things.
EQ, there's so many elements to it that are, that by our measurements today, it doesn'tmeasure up.
(16:22):
And yet it's still the pinnacle for what we're all striving to achieve.
So it's the calamity of errors that make it great.
you almost, it's a great lesson to kind of go, wow, we should strive for that.
Like I would be fascinated if, I mean, maybe it's an experiment somebody will run someday,but take the multi tracks from a Beatles song, very famous Beatles song and give it to an
(16:46):
engineer and say, produce it, you know, present day.
would it be as great?
How would it sound if Paul McCartney was perfectly in tune and actually sang it 70 takesand they took a word from this take and a word from that take and would it have the same
effect?
I don't know.
I know from my experience, a lot of times when I was in a band and we would do the bedtracks and then go down and lay the multi-tracking, we'd often go back to the...
(17:17):
the rough bed track and go, damn, that's better.
And it wasn't technically perfect, but it captured a moment in time that felt more realthan us all individually going and laying over our parts.
I get that with my band a lot.
(17:37):
do a demo.
Within the last month this has happened where I've recorded the vocals again and then oneof the guys in the band's like, listen to the original, you the way this happened.
And I'm like, not even really saying words yet.
I'm just kind of blabbering stuff out and I hear what he's saying, but it's like, youknow, if we just have to sort of accept this is something different that's going to
(18:02):
happen.
I'm pretty sure I know how I'd feel about those re-engineered Beatles recordings.
I did an experiment not that long ago where I wanted to see song structures very visually.
So I would drop famous songs, songs I loved, well-written songs into my DAW and then justmake MIDI clips above it.
(18:30):
So just blocks.
This is red for the verse.
This is blue for the chorus.
And when I got to some of the Beatle songs, as far as the BPM goes, when I get to the endof the track, it doesn't line up anymore.
It was really amazing how much they fluctuated, sometimes like 10 beats per minute in twoand a half minute songs.
(18:54):
But you wouldn't change it.
Then I, of course, like.
play around with it and I adjust the timing so it's perfect and you're just like my godthis is so off
Yeah, it's amazing how the small, like the butterfly flaps its wings and it's not the sameexperience.
That's cool to do that.
That's interesting.
(19:16):
Yeah, it was very interesting just to see visually the way the songs were laid out, butthen just to see like, you know, I consider Ringo my favorite drummer.
So, you know, he can do no wrong pretty much by me and watching him like speed up and slowdown so drastically was an eye-opener, especially when, yeah.
(19:37):
many rules.
is it yesterday?
There's one of the songs I saw recently in interview with Paul McCartney and he was sayingthat they started the take and he didn't realize Ringo had gone to the washroom.
And so there's no drums and he's thinking there's no drums yet.
And then he sees as he's singing Ringo, know, sneaking back to his drum set and then hejust starts playing.
(20:04):
And it's like musically perfection, but you never would have thought of doing that onpurpose.
It's just embracing the happy accident, you know?
Right.
I saw that clip.
I forget what song it was too, but something where he doesn't come in right away, but itturns out when he makes it there, it's actually the perfect time for him to come in.
(20:29):
You know, something I've been enjoying about your work and looking into how you're doingit kind of reminded me of the Beatles a little bit.
just in that they were so experimental with recording.
now here you are today experimenting with the locations.
So I didn't see footage of this, but I did read jungles of Papua New Guinea are placesyou've done recordings in, in the tropics of Costa Rica.
(20:56):
And I saw another clip, I believe it was on your Instagram talking about performing theparts in a jail cell from one of the shows.
And
look like in today's day and age.
are certainly plugins you could get.
There's certainly studio trickery you could do to emulate that kind of stuff.
(21:18):
But I really appreciated the fact that you want the extra mile, literally lots of miles insome cases, to do that.
And I kind of just wanted to see how you rationalize that.
I personally, I get it a hundred percent, but
I could also imagine that maybe like studios and budgets might say like, why are we goingin the jungle for this?
(21:43):
you know, I'm happy to report that more often than not, they love it.
They love the idea of doing something different like that.
Music is one of those things that everybody is kind of an expert on.
Everyone, I can't sit here and talk about different types of cinematography or lighting oredit film editing or
(22:05):
you know all these other roles, key roles, but when it comes to music everyone has arelationship with music.
They know what they like, they know what they don't like, and they have an opinion of whatworks and what doesn't work.
So in my experience anyways with a lot of these at a left field ideas, people are excitedby them.
(22:28):
And they're also, we're at a time where I think people are really excited about doingsomething new and different and pushing the envelope in music.
I think all kinds of music actually fall into that.
Whereas I've lived through time periods where they would temp a movie with a score andsay, want it to sound like this.
(22:48):
You know, not, don't copy it.
but we want it to be this type of score, this instrumentation, this vibe, achieve exactlywhat this is doing.
So yeah, I've actually had a lot of support from the filmmakers and from the studios andexperimenting with that kind of stuff.
And you're right, in some cases you could mimic it for sure.
(23:15):
Like in terms of the jail cell, could we have come up with you know,
really long reverb that had mimicked the stone walls of this four-story prison that wasbuilt 200 years ago 100 % could have created something but two interesting things one the
(23:37):
as good as these reverbs are they don't actually combine the sounds in the room before youhit the reverb so a lot of times you've got you know four percussionists close mic'd and
you take those closed mic sounds, I'll put them through the reverb and yeah, we get a, anecho-y sound.
(23:57):
You take those four instruments and they combine in the room and naturally hit the reverbin slightly different locations, slightly different timing.
There's something different about that.
And I don't think you can always put a conscious like a
a number on how what's different or even consciously know what's different.
(24:18):
But back to what we were talking about, this authenticity and this truth in music, I thinkyou can get that.
Now that prison in particular, we showed up, we were a couple of days, it was duringCOVID.
So we all had our masks on and it was a big deal to get permission to go into this prison.
(24:40):
It was Mayor of Kingstown, so the Jeremy Renner.
starring show with that Taylor shared and wrote.
And was actually the first time I'd worked with Taylor and brought in these musicians andmyself.
My daughter had to come along, my teenage daughter, because of COVID.
So they didn't want too many people.
So she thankfully assisted.
(25:02):
And the plan, I'd written out all this music to play and we brought in all these drums andall these instruments.
And think we were doing four sessions and maybe an hour into the first session of themorning of the first day, honestly can't remember if it was me or one of the drummers,
(25:22):
somebody hit the wall.
Like just playing the rhythm and took them out, hit the wall.
And the wall's like this gate of metal that's like a hundred years old and it's rattly andconnected to something.
And the whole, like we were like, do, do, do, do.
and the whole room just echoed.
(25:43):
And it was like a wave where you hit the metal and the wave, visualize the wave going upand around us and down the other side.
And we were like, damn, that's cool.
And the whole thing turned into us playing the prison.
We abandoned the instruments and it turned into taking mallets and bows like a string bowthat you'd play on a cello and bowing the door and slamming the door, closing the prison
(26:12):
door really slowly because the hinge goes and plays this melody and putting on our heavy
boots because it was cold outside and stomping down the hall in a rhythm.
by being there, we realized, damn, the prison is the instrument.
(26:34):
And let's play the prison in the only way that the prisoners could have played the prison.
They didn't have drums.
They didn't have all these instruments.
Let's play it like they would have played it.
And the whole score did this whole left turn in this whole different direction.
And it completely informed everything that we did from that point on.
(26:57):
So even though that hadn't been the intention, if they hadn't let us do it and we justmimicked it, we never would have gone that way.
Yeah, wow.
So I was going to ask you if just being in that room with the reverb informed the players,because it always does.
Wherever you play it, it affects your playing, it just, I it really did in this case.
(27:18):
You just threw the instruments away.
So being in that room for sure affected us, because I remember my daughter went out andgot us lunch.
There was nothing, it was COVID, there's nothing open.
So she goes out in the car and gets, I think it was Subway or sandwiches or something.
And we all walked out and stood outside and realized how oppressed we'd been being in thisdark, damp, Gothic space.
(27:48):
And so I've never cheated on my taxes.
I never will.
I know what it's like to be in that penitentiary.
I don't want to ever be there where I can't walk out on break.
it was, yeah, from a, from an approach standpoint, that that also influenced the score,like getting a sense of how oppressive it was.
(28:09):
And
And the other interesting thing about that and part of the reason I wanted to go andrecord in the prison was I did some research on it.
It's one of the oldest prisons in Canada where they were filming.
Incidentally, they were filming there like the next week.
They hadn't started filming yet.
So I managed to get in there before they built the sets, before all the actors showed up.
(28:30):
And what Taylor and I kind of discussed in the idea was that the most violent
prison riot in Canadian history had taken place in that prison.
And the prison riot was instigated by the fact that there was a bell in the guard gatethat would get rung periodically throughout the day.
(28:52):
would signify morning, night, meals, yard, time.
And it was so loud and so oppressive because of the design of this prison being all stoneand metal.
the, can imagine the echo that would happen with this incredibly loud bell and theprisoners felt so oppressed by this sound.
(29:14):
Like it was almost like a sonic torture that the goal of the riot was to actually destroythe bell.
They broke into the
the guard station and they shattered the bell.
It's not a museum, but they actually have in the decommissioned prison now behind glassthe broken pieces of the bell sort of demonstrating what their whole goal was.
(29:43):
And people died solely so they could destroy this sonic oppressive thing that symbolizedto them taking their freedom away.
So Taylor said to me, there's something to that musically that even though this show isabout Jeremy Renner's character who's been there and he's now outside and working on
(30:06):
behalf of the prisoners and the guards and the police and trying to keep the peace, if hismusic has that oppressive reverb on it.
he's still there in his head and it's permeated his psyche in such a way that he's out ofprison but he'll never escape the prison.
So all of these things, in addition to being sonic Easter eggs, they also kind of shapeyour approach and what is the music supposed to be doing and in this case, just having
(30:39):
that experience, it was like, wow, the music is supposed to make us feel like he's stillthere.
way memories sort of reverberate in our minds.
Just like, yeah.
That's really cool.
And wow, isn't it interesting how a little bit of time and now it's sort of like ondisplay is this, you know, piece of history where I'm sure in the moment, you said people
(31:04):
died, terrifying.
Yeah, yeah, you the other just as a little sidebar, the other incredible thing there wasthe artwork that the prisoners in the 200 years the prison had been open had carved into
the walls was extraordinary.
(31:25):
It was and quite emotionally conflicting because you you recognize they were there for areason.
They'd done something terrible, but.
but they're suffering and you can see that reflected in the artwork.
yeah, it's definitely, it was not only musically eye-opening experience, but just a lifeeye-opening experience and something that made me look at the show in a different way.
(31:58):
Yeah, you see the humanity in those people.
They are still humans despite whatever they did or went through.
Yeah, and I think I've actually carried that into other projects too, is exactly what yousaid, finding the humanity in someone that you otherwise might write off.
(32:20):
You might say, have nothing in common with this person.
And using the music to hopefully give your audience something that they could say, I dorelate with them on this point, or I do.
I know how that feels, even though they might have so many other reasons to disassociatewith that person and their way of life.
(32:48):
And that's great storytelling when that happens in a villain.
When the villain just, I'm evil, let me do bad things.
You know, that's not much to connect with, but when you get the backstory and youunderstand their motivations and there's a part of you that can imagine how you could have
gotten there too if you were in their same shoes.
(33:11):
Going through that makes it much more complex and more compelling to watch them go throughthat.
Yeah, 100%.
It's really cool that you did that because again, like it's so easy to, where you couldstay in this comfortable studio, know, you don't have to go to jail literally and do that.
(33:35):
So you tired of that?
Okay.
a field trip was really exciting at that point.
I think those kind of stories are really important in art these days.
These adventures, the extra mile you go to take those risks, because you could have verywell gone into that jail, tried to record these drums, and it's just overwhelming reverb.
(33:58):
We really can't use it.
And there's a risk to that.
But having that extra layer of story, that adventure you guys wanted to.
Again, it's like one of these things that maybe you can't put your finger on.
There's no dial for it.
But I think it comes through in those final products.
(34:21):
In our world where if you're thinking about what like AI can do with stuff and computergenerated everything, it's really nice to have these stories of like how we got that
sound.
yeah, I got, you know how that sound in there, you know?
I just finished a song kind of dedicated to my dog that passed away not too long ago.
(34:44):
It's been a year and a half, but it's still tough.
But one of the melodic sounds was made from like her bark, kind of sampled it and turnedit into a melodic instrument.
And you probably wouldn't know if you heard it.
You just think it's like some kind of weird synthesizer sound.
But I really do think it puts something in there.
(35:05):
And just like this, when you're there, when you're in that building, and then that's beingused to inform this character's history that's with them.
It's all these little things that brings the art to the art, to the project.
And it's really cool to know people are willing to do that.
(35:29):
I love that the studios are supportive.
So nice to hear.
Yeah, and to your point that people won't know, sometimes that's good.
They don't know.
Because if they recognize the way you're using something, then maybe the message isn'tcoming through clearly enough out the other side.
(35:51):
Because ultimately, you just want them to get the emotion.
Like your song in particular, you want them to feel the emotion of how you feel.
about your poor dog passing away.
You don't want them to concentrate on how you're transmitting that emotion.
You know, I think about this a lot and I've referenced this a lot, but if you think aboutlike FM radio or AM radio and the sound wave and being a carrier wave for information, I
(36:22):
think a lot of music you really want
as much information to get from one side to the other as possible with as littledegradation, with as little being aware of how it's being communicated.
It's just a carrier wave that you want to kind of be silent, you know?
So I think a lot of times when I go to the prison or Papua New Guinea or these differentplaces to try to do things, I'm trying to create something that
(36:54):
Hopefully the method I got it is fairly invisible and it's fun thing to talk about afterthe fact but if if the emotion If I don't achieve what I want in the emotion, then you
kind of have to abandon it and go Well, I'm not not doing it for a good story I'm doing itto better the storytelling or the experience of the show I'm scoring and that can be
(37:19):
really hard sometimes because you can
sometimes have a really good idea on paper that doesn't work and you kind of have toabandon it and let it go.
But yeah, I had this dispute with an actor friend of mine, her husband is a director andhe said,
You you really just want people to like the score as a composer.
(37:42):
You don't, you know, you're not worried about how they feel about the show.
And most composers, and I was like, you don't get it.
Like I, I love if people like the score, but if they like the film overall and they don'tdifferentiate the visuals and the acting and the music, I'm, actually more flattered
because I've done a better job than if the music doesn't match the film, but the music youlike, if that makes sense.
(38:07):
So,
Yeah, all of these little journeys and these methods of creating something, you almostwant them to be invisible in the end, that as long as it's achieving the end goal of
making it more profound and more powerful.
(38:28):
Right, because you're creating a spell.
It's almost this form of hypnosis where we go in, we watch the show and we forgot abouteverything.
And I got that watching Landman today.
I kept reminding myself, I got to listen to the music more.
I got to pay a little more attention to this.
And it's kind of like that in music.
You don't want to be distracted in the, like the how-to.
(38:52):
You don't want that to pop in too much.
You don't want the...
the fact that we're watching a film to keep popping into your head and like, they're doingsomething really cool here with the cameras or with the sound or the actors doing
something very special.
Cause when that happens, now I'm not in that moment.
The spell's broken and there goes that emotional impact, which I guess is really the thingwe're all trying to get.
(39:18):
That's tends to be what I try to think about when I'm making music is.
I don't care how I get it if it enhances emotional impact.
It's the answer.
100%.
And going back to the humanity side, had a, there were a couple of moments and phrases inthe strings in Landman where it repeats.
(39:41):
And I had somebody say to me, one of the engineers say, we should take that first phraseand put it over the second phrase.
Cause the orchestra was a little more together here.
And I thought, no, no, the fact that they're not perfect.
is kind of what's perfect about it.
Like the fact that even though technically and on the manuscript paper those look like thesame two phrases, they weren't.
(40:07):
One of them, they'd already played it once.
So there's these little imperfections and little truths, I guess, that end up being reallyimportant parts of the music.
And I guess, you know, going back to the Beatles, they had that mastered.
You know, they recognize not to eliminate those things, not to self-edit to a point thatit would take all the little imperfections that made it perfect out of it.
(40:36):
You can hear those all over those recordings.
You might even hear a little bit of some kind of calling out before the change, hiddenprobably within those drum tracks or something.
And it only happens in that second verse right before the second chorus.
And it's a little, just a little treat you get along the way.
Exactly, and in orchestral music sometimes you'll catch the sound of the conductorswitching, turning their page.
(41:03):
And I've run into so many engineers that say, we can get rid of that.
And I'm like, no, that's the proof we were here.
Only very few people will know what sound that is, but the people that recognize it willappreciate it.
huh, yeah.
This is, it's like writing, I was here on the wall.
Yeah, that's true.
(41:25):
I've done that with sounds that I get while I'm recording.
I'm so much less uptight about if there's noise.
I'm in my basement studio here, so there's nothing perfect about it.
I've done the best I can.
Thanks.
than mine.
Well, I do conveniently have the washer and dryer out of the frame here.
(41:49):
So there's things going on.
But if you get too caught up in that.
it kills your performance.
Because again, now I'm not in the moment.
I'm thinking about like, is there a car driving down the street or all these things youcan't control.
But a lot of times when I listen back to the things that have these little interferencesin there, it puts me in the moment.
(42:12):
I remember where I was.
And it just feels more like life is happening instead of this kind of weird sterileenvironment that is the, you know, the DAW at negative infinity volume where there's
absolutely no sound that just doesn't exist anywhere in the world to have that little bitof life in there.
(42:34):
for sure.
had years ago, there was a vocalist that I still work with her actually, Emily ClaireBarlow, and she was singing on a score and I had her into the studio a bunch of times and
my room was small and I had put all my acoustic guitars up on the wall displaying themproudly and she would sing in the room beside me into the mic and
(43:00):
She is incredible.
She's got an incredible voice and she's incredibly, there's a magical aspect to her voicealready.
But on the third session on that film that she came in, my guitars were all with theguitar technician being tweaked and the action lowered and new strings, et cetera.
(43:22):
And we kind of looked at each other and thought, there's something missing.
And I realized she's, we've been getting the sympathetic
sounds on all those strings right behind like almost this melodic reverb behind her everyother time she sang because they were literally three feet behind her and the mic was
picking it up and we didn't even realize it.
(43:45):
So I was quick to redo that last session with all those guitars back there again andrealized, well, this is another example of where the limitation ends up being an
advantage, not a disadvantage.
Yeah, you're not supposed to have that.
That's wrong, technically.
(44:07):
But it does.
know that I have an acoustic guitar on the wall next to an amplifier.
I've been recording guitars before and been like, wait, what?
Is there reverb on this amp?
Like, what's going on here?
It's only to find it's just kind of bouncing around inside there.
it can be the best, best thing.
I've done things with orchestras where I'll put the piano next to the double basses andmight get really close.
(44:35):
And the piano player, their only job is to hold down the sustain pedal.
And then the double basses get these sympathetic pitches going in the piano.
And then you just gain it up and you get this incredible echo.
really in the piano strings.
really cool.
Yeah, almost like a spring reverb kind of, but it's tuned, I guess.
(45:00):
Hmm.
You give me an idea, I'm going to put a mic on that guitar next time I'm recording anelectric guitar, just to let it...
I even the drums probably, you know, I spent so much time trying to deaden the drums, so Idon't get that, but maybe for the sake of a reverb, it might be cool to get the floor
toms.
(45:22):
Rumble.
even further, custom tune the strings so they're all open in the pitches you want.
Yeah, yeah.
that's a great idea.
Yeah, so fun.
those are the kinds of things, again, that would be a little extra effort and you couldprobably just slap the only favorite reverb on there.
(45:43):
But I think if anything, if nothing else, it would give me a certain enthusiasm to theproject that would probably carry over into the performances.
that's, you know, I guess if that works, you you win.
Because that's, as you were saying, you want to have those emotions in the moment of theperformance to come through.
(46:05):
best things in music are accidents.
When I'm writing, some of my best moments are a mistake that I take notice of and realizeI didn't mean to play it that way, but that's better.
So I think, I'd say in my recording production side of things, some of the best thingswere accidents that I just realized.
(46:29):
You know, you're almost sheepish about telling the engineer at Abbey Road that you did itthis way, but they actually like it.
They're sheepish about saying, well, you're not supposed to do it like that, but it'spretty good.
That's cool.
Yeah, I can imagine.
There's certainly funny things I've done where maybe left a mic on that shouldn't havebeen on and then been like, okay.
(46:54):
I did a score and we were trying to make it sound like an old 40s rom-com.
And we had the orchestra mic'd and I was trying to get that sound and I couldn't figureout the sound.
So we had a little crappy mic set up for the conductor to be able to talk to us.
So once we'd do a take, the engineer would turn down the tree and all the surround micsand all the close mics and we'd just hear the mic for the conductor.
(47:24):
So the next take he went and he accidentally left that mic open, the mono mic right by theconductor's baton.
And I said, that's it.
That's the sound we want.
That's exactly it.
What'd you do?
And he said, I screwed up.
I kept that open.
And I said, okay, we need to record that.
(47:47):
And he said, so we're gonna disregard the 32 microphones we have.
that through these incredible mic pres, and we're gonna use the $100 mic that is like aTom mic or something, and I said, well, we'll record both just in case, but again, an
(48:08):
accident, and you realize, that's the sound we wanted.
yeah, those are the best moments when you suddenly realize, this total screw-up wasactually the answer to all of our problems.
I love that too.
And that's probably how they were recording things back then for orchestras anyways,single mic, just get it in the right spot where we can hear stuff and what else are going
(48:33):
to do?
Yeah.
But I love when you realize it doesn't take all of that stuff, like those expensive micsand those top end preamps with the engineer, you know, getting everything perfect and
just you can still make magic with pure simplicity.
(48:57):
Well, it still comes down to the music.
I had someone say to me once, I said, I really want to buy this new mixer, this newdigital console.
It's so cool.
And he said, yeah, that's great.
Will it make your music sound better?
I said, no, but it'll look good and it'll make life a bit easier.
(49:19):
And he's like, yeah, that's right.
But will it make anything sound better?
And I thought, no.
And I've kind of used that to measure everything now.
And you realize, you know, there's a lot of hits recorded on a laptop in somebody'sbasement and with radio shack microphones and, you know, there's, it still comes down to
(49:42):
the music and you can have the best mics and the best preamps in the world.
If the music and the performance isn't good, then, you know, you're not there.
Yeah, that's some of the beauty of where we are today that you can have that.
mean, look at Billie Eilish and Phineas, what they do sitting on the floor of theirchildhood bedroom.
(50:03):
It's just, I think that I don't know if I want to hear them anywhere else.
If there's something special, his brother and sister, that's...
that comes through.
How do you get that comfortable?
It's a little bit uptight in the studio.
It's serious business.
The clock is running and the dollars are flying away.
(50:27):
So you get in a kind of mindset that can prevent some of those vulnerable moments tohappen.
Agreed, 100%.
I gotta say, I'm really enjoying your outlook and what you're bringing to these shows andto these films.
(50:49):
It really does take it someplace special, I think.
It's also very interesting how intangible it is, but you feel it.
Which is the opposite of intangible, but it's something real there that I think...
is important for us to have in our music and I think music in general could use more ofthat direction.
(51:15):
It's really nice work.
Well, thank you.
It's interesting.
I know every interview, every podcast, in every genre, every occupation could talk aboutAI right now because it's such at the forefront.
But I have to say that music has something that when it's done right and when it's reallyhonest,
(51:43):
I don't think you can break it down into numbers and code.
don't think, I think there's a humanity that we can't understand.
We can't put it into an equation or ones and zeros.
And I don't think anything can.
And it's funny on Mare, again, there was a, a piano theme and I had written maybe four orfive different piano melody ideas.
(52:08):
And
was sending them to Taylor later that day and I got news that a friend that I'd gone touniversity with who had been really close with but lost touch with in recent years had
passed away.
Total shock.
It was one of those things where, you didn't know he passed away six months ago and I wasjust thrown.
(52:31):
And not thinking about the project I went and I sat down at the piano and I wrote just aone hand melody.
motif.
I put it with the other five one-hand melody motifs, mp3s, sent them to Taylor.
And that night he's like, okay, so they're all good.
(52:52):
What's with that one?
What is with that one?
What was going on when you wrote that?
And I couldn't put it, I couldn't ever have imagined that someone could pick those out ofa lineup and say,
that that one, that one's real.
But he did.
And on paper or on the Disney ride, they were all emotional and moving in or trying to bemoving in that way.
(53:22):
But this one had this untamed, this this undescribable truth to it that he knew rightaway.
And
I often think about that because you can't find that in the code of the music.
You can't find that, you can't pull that out.
(53:43):
I think it's really set me on a quest to try to make sure that I'm writing from a verypersonal place, something real.
Like I can only imagine that, and I'd love to hear this piece you wrote, because I canimagine that there's an emotion to that that is incomparable.
(54:03):
to other things you've written and very unique in its message because it is very true towhat you're writing it about.
But I'm always trying to think about what is that?
What is that sound and how can I best communicate that?
(54:23):
it was sort of an epiphany for me in a new moment where I realized, wow, someone can hearthat, someone can pick that up.
Yeah.
Yeah, and especially with a bunch of others to compare it to.
And there's also that specific goal for the project you're working on.
(54:45):
It's like these microphones are picking up more than just.
those sounds and those particular frequencies.
And if you look at the microphone frequency ranges, it seems like there's something elsegoing on there.
Maybe a third dimension that's not represented in the charts.
But something gets in the air.
(55:07):
I hope so.
Because that's kind of the, I think that's the drug that we all get off on in music iswhen all these little things combine into something magical and you can't put your finger
on how it happened and you can't recreate it.
It's just...
it's moving and it's cool and it just happens.
(55:29):
I hear songwriters say that these things are floating around in the ether and they showup, but it's not just the thing, it's the moment that they show up that has a magic too
that you kind of want to capture.
Yeah, I think about that a lot when I don't feel like doing it.
(55:50):
You know, when I have time and I know I should probably be working on some music and Ithink about those things.
Like if you don't show up at that time, like you just, you're never there.
It's like the old, you can never step in the same river twice because the river is alwayschanging and so are you.
So you're never in that moment and
(56:10):
I also saw the Dolly Parton biography that came out not too long ago and they said shewrote, Jolene and I will always love you in the same day.
I was like, what?
What kind of lightning was striking that day?
(56:31):
I believe that that doesn't come to you the next day.
think every day you're getting something different.
Just from my experience of doing this, just know that sometimes the things that pop out ofme are just because it was that moment.
Maybe it was even the people I was around or what I just had done an hour before, butthere's a lot of weird factors that we can't quite collect data on and feed into some kind
(57:01):
of algorithm.
So how often have you in your life been lying in bed and woken up in the middle of thenight lying in bed and you come up with a song or a melody and you half the time you get
out of bed and you go and you write it down or you record it.
It's just a voice memo or something.
And the other half you don't.
Thinking, I'll remember this.
(57:22):
You never remember it.
And when you wake up, when I wake up in the morning and the 50 % of time that I did get upand record it,
Half of that, it's amazing and I'm so glad I got up.
And the other half, it's terrible and I was obviously having some weird dream that made methink it was good, but it's really bad.
(57:44):
So it's funny how that works out.
But yeah, I agree.
There's something going on that music's a bit of a window into something else.
I think if nothing else, you wind up with an amusing recording.
Music is great for that too.
Sometimes it's just fun, it's silly.
(58:08):
It takes you to that moment that would otherwise just be erased from history and yourexistence.
Yeah, I think you're right.
It's amazing that we haven't run out of combinations yet because there's such a finitenumber of notes and the way we put them together that that too tells you there's much more
(58:29):
to it than just the notes and the timing and the time signature.
I think in my case, especially, because I'm keeping it pretty simple most of the time.
Not really doing many things that are that outside the norm, especially with theory andstuff like that.
(58:50):
But yeah, sometimes you write a song, it's like, how did this not get written already?
And some songs feel like they've always existed.
Just some Bob Dylan songs, or like blowing in the wind feels like it was probably alwaysblowing in the wind.
How does a person write that?
It just seems like it was always sung since the dawn of time.
(59:17):
Yeah, agreed.
Yeah, that's cool.
It's a magical thing, And you're doing some magic with it.
Well, it's not all magic, but I'm glad you're focusing on the magic.
There's always a lot of misfires, but that's part of what you have to do.
It's part of the job is going down a lot of dead ends.
(59:38):
So yeah, no, I'm really lucky.
I've had a a great run.
I always noticed with musicians when I hire an orchestra in particular, you can hear whenthey're having fun.
And so I hope
I hope when people hear my music they can see how much I'm enjoying making it.
(59:59):
Hmm.
Well, I'm glad you say that too about it not always being magic because, yeah, we aredefinitely kind of romanticizing it a little bit, but I've never spoken to anybody in real
life or in this podcast.
Here you are an award-winning composer and nobody ever says it's easy.
It's still mysterious and challenging and...
(01:00:23):
Part of what makes it magical and why we get those magical moments is because of howchallenging and just weird it is.
Cause you can study it and get technical, but there's still something out there that wejust, I don't know.
It just comes through on a different wavelength.
(01:00:44):
Well, every time I hate it and I come up from my studio and into the light and see myfamily and my teenage daughters are studying for a calculus exam, I suddenly go, no, I'd
rather do music.
I'm good.
I take back what I said in the studio five minutes ago.
(01:01:05):
So yeah, no, it's not, not to say it's easy, but there's nothing else I'd rather be doingfor sure.
Yeah, good problems to have, right?
Good frustrations.
So can I ask you, do you like to send people any place for your work?
(01:01:26):
I know I'm going to put your Instagram.
I'll put links to Spotify, Apple Music, and things like that.
But anywhere else you want?
my catalog, it's amazing because Lioness Season 2 soundtrack was released today.
And I was looking at all these soundtracks on there.
thought, wow, that's crept up on me.
There's a bunch there.
(01:01:47):
So that's one of the good things about Spotify and Apple Music and this digital streaming.
It's nice that that's all cataloged there.
I like that.
really like
Yeah, like documenting Instagram is really my only social media.
I like kind of documenting what I'm doing and some of the recording adventures we go onwith that.
(01:02:11):
And yeah, and then just seeing the project, so much of the music is written for thecombined experience of a visual and a music, an audio element together.
Yeah, I'm always flattered when people respond to the music and go and see how it fitswith the storytelling aspect of the other side of the job.
(01:02:35):
It's an amazing body of work and no wonder you have people that keep wanting to work withyou.
know, it's showing up again and again to create some really special stuff.
Well, appreciate that.
I'm, I am, this is going to sound like a soundbite, but I am so lucky the people I get towork with, I pinch myself getting to write music behind Morgan Freeman or Billy Bob
(01:02:59):
Thornton or, you know, Demi Moore, any of these amazing actors.
I feel really lucky to be, to be trusted with that responsibility and, yeah, never, nevertake it for granted.
So yeah, it's, thank you for saying that.
Yeah, well, and I also thank you for taking the time to talk and leaving me feelinginspired today.
(01:03:25):
So go make that guitar and then once you've recorded the guitar on the wall, send me yoursong.
want to hear it.
Cool.
Sounds good.
Yeah, you too.
Thanks.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.