You originally were in bands. I assume the soundtrack work is likely the most income-oriented part of your music?
That's my day job, for sure. I remember at one point in college – before my first band, The Origin, got our record deal in 1988 – I was listening to the TV. Remember that show Thirtysomething? There was someone playing acoustic guitar on that soundtrack, and I was like, "I can do that. I like playing acoustic guitar." It was almost like new age music, like a broader version of Michael Hedges.
Sure, Windham Hill Records style.
Yeah. I never saw music as a career. I saw it as something I wanted to do. I thought, "Well, if it doesn't work out, I guess I could have a regular career." [laughter] Fortunately, that never happened. I was writing songs. We got a record deal. The band, The Origin, got dropped. I went home to San Diego. I met some people, started playing music. It made absolutely no sense for me to go from being a lead singer and songwriter to a guitar player in a funk band [The Greyboy Allstars]. It was what I needed spiritually at the time. I was like, "I just want to be playing music. I want to be in a fun environment. I want to meet people. I want to have a good time." Then that band randomly got asked to do a movie soundtrack [Jake Kasdan's Zero Effect]. I thought, "Wow. I feel good about this. I like being in the studio. I love recording."
Were you all writing cues for the soundtrack?
These guys were all great, in their own right. Robert Walter is an amazing composer and keyboard player. Zak Najor, the drummer, was writing cues. Chris Stillwell, the bass player, wrote the main theme. Karl Denson was busy, so he didn't write as much. I procrastinated, but I ended up doing all my writing in the studio while we were there. That's one of my ways to do it. I sit down in the moment, watch the picture, write, and then distribute parts amongst everybody. I love writing on the spot. I love the pressure of the moment, as well as the functionality of the music. The picture dictates the structure.
Do you read and write music?
I can read very slowly.
It seems the way you score and work is also trying to find the right sound for the parts you want.
Yeah. I'm definitely sound-driven.
Your soundtrack for Donnie Darko has such certain tones and feel.
It's what's evocative in the framework of the movie. What gives it another layer. I hope that the director wants their film to be set apart.
Film to film, do you think, "I'm going to use certain instruments"?
I try to, but I guess I've done enough work where people think that I have a "thing" that I do. Some people come to me for that. I used to get resentful about it, but now I think, "Oh, well. They want me to do that thing that I came upon by natural inspiration." I'll think, "I'm going to get that 'band' back together." I get those instruments out again, and I say, "This is that 'band.’" I write with that "band" again, whether it be the …Darko thing with the vocoder, the Univox Mini-Korg, or my piano. Whether it's been done over and over again or not, it's still composition.
When you say "band," you mean the instruments?
Right. My concept of my "band." The different elements. The instruments are the band, and I get those textures together again.
You started out as a guitar player, and then you were doing keyboard-heavy soundtracks.
That was the thing with Donnie Darko. I met with [director] Richard Kelly, and he said, "By the way, no guitar on this." I was like, "Okay." He was tying my hands, because I wasn't really a piano player at that point. That's why it was so slow. I still can't play very fast. If I do something and use MIDI, I can speed it up. I can play better now because I’ve been doing it for 25 years. Hopefully I got a little bit better! I'm still not a great keyboard player. I wish I was better.
How often do you bring players in for soundtrack work?
I would say about a quarter of the time.
If there are parts that you know someone would play well?
Or if I don't want to be alone. I have great friends that know my idiom. They understand my process and what I like. I'm not asking someone to write the song, but I'm asking someone to give me more than just what I tell them to do. I like movies to feel like records. I want them to feel like there's something at stake. Many soundtracks are the performers reading it for the first time and they're just laying it down. Everyone's like, "It's going to be under dialogue. It's going to be quiet. No one cares." But I care. I want to listen to it after the movie's done, and I want to feel like what I'm doing has vitality. Even if it's just for a moment and it's just for me and the others in the room. We're doing something cool. We're putting our heart into it. I want that interaction with other people to give it that life, and also that tension where someone's playing against someone else. I try to do that when I overdub.
Become different musicians in your head?
Yeah. I try to sabotage myself. To be a really active bass player over a track. And then the challenge is, "Shut up!"
When a movie starts for you, do you sit down and have a cue meeting with the director?
There are all different kinds of ways to do it. Sometimes I start before the movie starts; I get a script, and we talk about the vibe of the music.
Or themes?
Yeah. "This character will have a theme." They might say, "Just make a bunch of music for this and see what it is." I did a season of the show Platonic last year, and I basically made two records and gave them those two records of instrumental music. They used them throughout the show. They used it in ways I would have never used it. Then I came back, and I made connective tissue for it. It would need 30 seconds of an intro and an outro, or it would cross scenes and then go from one of the pieces of music to another. It’s like musical plumbing!
It's nice, because then the work isn't so last minute. Some scores can be, especially for television.
The streamers are a little bit different because I'm not working week by week. When I did Freaks and Geeks, that was week by week. I did Freaks and Geeks basically alone in San Diego. That was a lot, like 25 cues every five days. I look at it like there's X amount of time to work on something, and that's what it is. I can't really get ahead, because – no matter what – I'm going to be working until the film is mixed. I just finished a Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon movie [You're Cordially Invited], which is a classic romantic comedy with director Nick Stoller. He's a great person to collaborate with, but there are little things that pop up. We did a cover of "Islands in the Stream" with Will Ferrell for this. It was supposed to be a karaoke track, so we had to do two versions. One was a karaoke version, and the other one was a full blown version of it where we put orchestra on it for the end title. For the karaoke one, I was like, "How can we make this sound bad?" I used all my canned drums, canned keyboards, and everything's canned.
Some of those karaoke versions are sonically hilarious.
It's so good. That scene is funny, and it's a pretty fun movie!
Harry Shearer told me that on Spinal Tap they had to recut all the songs because the way the editor cut it they were visually playing at the wrong times.
Oh, that's funny. I was so adamant about that when we did Walk Hard: [The Dewey Cox Story]. There was so much done to picture. Jake Kasdan, the director said, "You have to come to set and make sure this looks real." I would come and meet the set director, the set dressers, and all the people that were involved in making it look real.
That's time period-based all through that movie.
Yeah. "Show us what we need the studio to look like when we do the 'Brian Wilson’ scene." I wrote the tune "Black Sheep" with Van Dyke Parks [Tape Op #145]. He put orchestra on it. It's so cool.
What a great arranger.
He's such an incredible guy. I showed up on the set, and the console was pushed up against the wall and the speakers were in the wrong places. I was like, "This doesn't look like a recording studio!" They said, "Dude, get out of here." I came back ten days later and there was a two-story studio built with a control room that was up. There were all these people there playing this song that I did with Van Dyke, and it incredible to realize, "We've created this whole thing." This was completely make-believe, and it was so amazing.
What audio files do you deliver for songs in films?
We give them stereo stems. I don't do the mixing or the stems. Alexander Thompson does it, or Todd Burke, who I've worked with since way back in the day. He has an Atmos room at his house in Monrovia, so he'll do that. I remember when I was working on Donnie Darko. I had reverb on my keyboards and then they put reverb on my reverb. I was thinking, "Okay, I don't need reverb on my reverb." Now, people are getting their heads around what to do and being bolder with it. "This is supposed to be a dry recording. Don't do a bunch of weird reverb and make the thing lose its presence."
