Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / White Lotus Composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer

Transcript

White Lotus Composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin, never before as a TV show come along with
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a soundtrack so incredibly haunting that I couldn't shake it.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: That's what happened when I first heard the score for
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: writer and director Mike White's HBO show White Lotus. Cristo
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Baal Tapia deVie is the composer and musician behind all
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the sounds and the score that ranged from percussive African
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and Latin instruments to gut role human chance. When I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: first heard the show's theme that You're hearing now, I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: was all in. It sounded like some sort of crazy,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: deranged version of Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man. Crista Ball Tapia
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: deVie is a Chilean composer based in Canada who studied
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: classical music at the Music Conservatory in Quebec. After dabbling
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: an electronic music production and playing drums in various bands,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Vir's first big break as a composer came from his
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: score for the British thriller Utopia. On today's episode, I
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: talked to the vier about how he came up with
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: White Lotus's striking sounds game. He plays the stems from
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the score and talks about how he initially set out
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to create a Hawaiian hitchcock sound. De Vier also explains
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: how he created the signature tribal sounding vocals from the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: show after being summoned to California by Kanye West. This
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: justin Richmond. Here's my interview with Krista Bull Tapia de Vie.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: How did you get approached even for the show to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: begin with? They called me in January and they send
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that script and I love the script. I thought it
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: was one of the best script I've read in a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: long time. So I took the meeting with Mike and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, he was great, Like he's a pretty
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: easy going guy, at least to me. We talk a
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: little bit. We made some jokes about, you know, doing
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a Hawaiian Hitchcock and this and that. He didn't want,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: you know, comedic music, like a typical comedy show music
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. And then I went back to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the studio and for about three weeks I was just
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: recording not stop but Hawaiian hitcock. But that was your phrase,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that was your way of thinking about it. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I told him that. But it's not because of the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: style or trying to emulate Bernard Herman or you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: anything like that. It's just that he wanted to feel
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that something might be happening, something, something's bubbling underneath what's
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: happening there, and it feels like somebody's gonna die, somebody
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: is gonna be sacrificed, whatever, anything like that. So I
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: guess I supposed to people's attention to other things that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: what's obvious. What's interesting for me lately is that, like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I've been doing lots of interviews more than usual for
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: this show for the music because people, like you said,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: people are really I don't know, something happened with the music.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Something is touching people about this. And the thing is,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I'm really more a musician. I'm going to say that,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: let's say, a composer, because in the sense that you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I had this little talk with Mike and then I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: go to a studio and my brain is processing stuff,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: but I'm not thinking about any of it. I don't
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: have graphics and designs and calculations about what the music
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: is exactly doing to every character and every moment. And
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: then at the end, you know that this is going
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to happen and people are gonna feel like this, like
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it's not a master plan whatsoever. It's really really like
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: super super spontaneous and very fast. And then it's done.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: And afterwards, when people started, you know, asking me about this,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I realized I didn't know what you say. So there
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't like a thought about doing things a certain way. There's,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: for example, the voices. I don't know, like the lead voices.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I wanted the lead vocals to feel like just a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: human singing. But there is some processing, but it's not
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a processing that you feel like. It's a digital processing
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: like auto tune or whatever. It's gonna it's gonna make
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you feel like you know this sound. You know this
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: from pop music. You have all these auto tune notes
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that are all very straight and perfect and stuff. So
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: we are used to that digital sound now, so I
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: didn't want to go with digital effects. For example, I
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: was changing the pitch or the voice by changing the speed,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: which is the oldest trick in the book. Like you
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: have tape and just played the taipdown and you have
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a lower note. That's the basic idea. I think it's
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: less detrimental to a natural voice, at least for me
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: for what I needed to do. I mean so you
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: have these singing voices that are doing stuff that if
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: you try to sing it, you're not gonna be able
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to because there's something weird happening, Like there's something not
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: human about it. Because I change the notes in a
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: way that a person couldn't do. So you feel the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: raw quality. There's jumps, there's jumps in the yeah, the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: dramatic jumps. Yeah. So you have this quality that it's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a real voice. It's not a you know, like a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: robot sample or something. But there's something that you can
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you can't point your finger on, but you feel there's
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: there's something weird happening. And maybe that's upsetting too in
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: a way, because I'm wondering if people feel about that
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the way they feel. You know, when you watch a
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: horror movie and you have a character that's a human,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: but then you realize there's something weird about that human,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: that it's not quite a human. There's something odd, And
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: this is actually more scary than monsters. I think in general.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It's when you when you believe there's something like you
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and it's not like you at all. It's something that's
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: siding there. There might be some danger or whatever. Yeah,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: how did you decide on the instrumentation. Like so when
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you leave that meeting with Mike and you kind of
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: leave with Hawaiian Hitchcock sort of mind, did you immediately
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: know what instruments you wanted to maybe use or did
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you have to kind of lay out some and try
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and kind of a process of elimination on the instrument
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It was more by addition, I would say, in the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: sense that I just started recording some shakers for a while,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and then after when I had those shakers, then I
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: can play something else. So I'm jamming with myself, just
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: gonna play some other drums, and then when I have
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: those drums, I'm gonna again start over, and I'm listening
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to everything I recorded previously, so it's basically just jams.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And I believe everything I recorded in the end I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: did use because once I had all these percussion beds
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and whatnot, I could decide whether I might need a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: little bit of pianos later on or just a little
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: whatever other instruments. Maybe I don't know. Maybe it's because
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: we didn't have much time. It was very it was
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: very fast, so there was not much thinking and I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't in a mode where I'm gonna you know, I'm
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: gonna try something for a while and maybe it doesn't work,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: so I'll try something else. In this case, it was
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it has to work. Like I'm recording all this stuff
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and in my mind this is working, like all the time,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: whatever I'm doing, it's just working, and I'm moving forward.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That's not how you typically work, I imagine, right, it depends.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you have lots of time, courses, lots
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of procrastinations, which is not good either. So I suppose
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: in general, I mean, any composer in general would complain
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: not having the time to do what they want to do,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: being too rush or something. But I think there's something
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: good about it for me in any ways, this feels
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a lot more spontaneous. I think that that it could
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: be if I spent a year in the studio with like,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: you know, do the usual thing you call the best
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: musicians in town and whatever, and it's just everything takes
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: forever and you're doing this pristine recordings and stuff there was.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: This is very homemade. It feels very right. It feels uncorrected, unproduced.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Were you happy with it when you turn it in? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I was really happy. I was happy that they that
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: might liked it first, because I mean there's a there's
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: an adjustment period where the first time people get tracks
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: for their shows, it's a bit scary. You don't know
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: how they're going to react, and they need time to digest,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: which is normal, particularly if he's you're sending non standard music.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But in this case, it went really well. And and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: there's only Mic I mean there's only one person. I mean,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: he's the creator of this thing and he's doing everything.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So I mean there are other executives and and whatnot,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: but what I mean is like he was the main focus,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I mean what he wanted. So it's it's faster and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: much easier. And I mean unless you have a problem
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: with that one person then then then then that's it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: But uh yeah, it's much easier not having that, you know,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: twenty five cooks in the kitchen. We'll be right back
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: with Crystal Ball t happier to hear. After a quick break,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: we're back with more of my conversation with Crystal Ball.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Tapia Devier. So, when you sat down to create the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: sound and the music for the show, what's the first
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: thing you recorded that actually made it to the final mix.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: It's probably the second piece of music on the show
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: when the show starts, like this old school music, something jazzy,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and then right after that we see a big shot
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: of the of the hotel and that is like a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: very loud track with the same voices that you find
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: in the theme, but is more of a wild tribal thing.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: You wanted to show you what the voices are. Please,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So okay, So that's that's the lead from the theme.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And then so this in particular that beat there, So
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: that's that's the first voices I tried, and I put
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: it on that track and it worked and they liked it.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: What was the thought that led it? Was it like,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I want to play with odd vocals, which is strange voices.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: There is this tribal aspect, this war cry aspect, all
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: of these things that fit well with what we wanted
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: to convey with this show. So it could be associated
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: with many things. You know, it could be natives that
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: have been abused forever, but you know, the white privilege
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: and everything, so could be that there's some of that.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: It could be some kind of ritual, ritualistic kind of singing.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: There is that aspect. There is the pop aspect that
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: is purely esthetic that to me, when when I found
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this way of playing those voices, to me, it felt
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: like that's it, Like that's a hit. I mean, I
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know I hit like a radio
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: hit or something like that. But it's a hit in
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the sense that the way he hits you, it hits people.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I can tell that this doesn't effect this something like alien.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, people are really curious and
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it's like, wow, what is that voice and stuff? So
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: so it just felt right away like I had found
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: some gold there. He definitely did. Where did the voice
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: sounds come from? So there's this weird story where I
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: met Kenye West at some point. I didn't really meet him.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I mean he called me and he bought me a
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: plane ticket, and this was like, I have no idea
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: what he wants, Like it's kennye A West. So this
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: is a couple of years ago, and it's like, okay, well, sure,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a joke. I mean until I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: got to it, I thought somebody's playing a trick. When
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I talked to him on the phone, I said, Okay,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: this guy sounds like Harrie West, but you never know.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, it says so weird. And it's not like
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I'm producing whatever, you know, the new singer or something.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: It's just I'm doing these weird projects and stuff. So
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: but I mean, he's he's looking for weird stuff too,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: so I guess. But anyhow, at some point I got
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to a lib and I went to his place where
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: he works and everything in Calabasas and stuff. And then
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I was trying to understand what he wanted. But because
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: this guy, he's always, you know, talking about a million
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: things at the same time. I mean, he was showing
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: me this new Nike shoe and speaking about music and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: how this Nike shoe relates to music, and it was
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: like a new prototype. And then there's some kids that
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: come from another room with some other prototype. And then
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: we walked to another room and we start looking at
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: all his clothes, the new stuff that he's coming with.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: And still, you know, all this time, I have no
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: idea what's happening. I don't know why I'm there, why
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: he showed me all this stuff. But anyhow, I did
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: have my laptop and I started to work on some stuff.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And my minding is since it's Kennyer West, I was
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: at the hotel and I was trying to find something
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: that is really striking, because if he takes me there,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not just gonna do some R and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: B beat or whatever. You know. I had to come
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: up with something. And this is what happened, and not
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: not this tune in particular, but I had those voices
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and I tried to find a way to play melodies
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: that is a really striking thing. And this happened by accident,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and I was like at that point I knew that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: this was like gold and I was Okay, this, I'm
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: gonna show it to Kenny. So anyhow, I was there
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: for like a week and I had to leave, and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: there worst problems and Kenny started firing people and his
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: lawyers and everything was too long and I had to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: leave or whatever. It was a mess. Just to say
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: this as like I'm gonna say, it's maybe a month
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: before he came out of the closet as a Trump supporter,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So I didn't know about that. I would probably have
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: gone there if I knew, but so it was, there
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: was lots of changing happening in his life and everything.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So I just I just left at some point and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, he'll he'll come me back whenever
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: he needs something. I don't know. So I had those
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: voices the system, meaning you know, there's a girl doing stuff,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and then I was playing with it with some person stuff,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: so I could do any harmonizing or whatever. At that point,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter what exactly the melody is. It's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: just that that system. And then yeah, so this project
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: came out and I was, man, those tribal voices, that's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: exactly what we need for this. So I just went
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: back to my system there and started finding the right
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: melody and stuff, and that's it. It became that. So
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that that part Peular Harmony, the last one I show
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: you just now, that's the one I did for Kanye,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: which he never heard. He never heard it. I can
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: never heard it. So because we did, we never got
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to somewhere with that. So I don't know what was
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: happening whether so lately I didn't like thinking about that,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and it's like, I hope this guy listened to the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: White Lotos and he's like everybody else, Okay, who's that guy.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: It's the same guy who made it for you a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. It's crazy to think that could
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: have been a Kanye n I would have been perfect
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: for Kanye. Yeah. Can you play that sound again? Can
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: you play thost voices one more time? Yeah? So I'm
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: playing for from the beginning. Was this part part of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: his Well, no, just this one. I never heard the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: laughing before. Yeah, because there's so much happening. I guess
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you know it's in there, in the chaos in there
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: super cool. So once you had that, what was the thought?
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: What was the move? Yeah? The main thing with this
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: show is the percussions. Really, I recorded maybe for two
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: weeks stucking lots of every percussion that I have. So,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: for example, I think I started with the tombs. So
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: it's like I'm gonna say, there's a maybe a kick drum,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a floor tom, and then some indigenous percussions like shaman drums,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: which are all with animal skins and stuff like that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And I started doing this kind of thing. So I
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: did a bed of this, a lots of different rhythms
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: with only these low drums that are softer and kind
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of deeper, and then I started adding all kinds of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: things like this, and then later building so uh, stuff
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: like that. Then I started playing with bottles and flutes
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: and were you playing them actually or was it a
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: sample of someone playing them? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, this
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is it's all like all that stuff. So the bottles
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: is southing like this. So okay, this is when I
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: discovered how the watermelon man works, because I never thought
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of water Maryland man until I said, Okay, I'm gonna
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: try this bottle thing. So I do this who and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: then uh at some point I tried to do this
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I repeatedly, and I realized I have to breathe a lot,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: so I do. And when I hear my voice going there,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, that's why it sounds like that. That thing.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It's just it's just your throat, you know, it makes
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: us sound and then you have this rhythm and it's
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: just natural. And he's like, oh, that's it, that's how
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that works. So yeah, I just jumped with the bottles
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and tried to do that stuff. And then the flutes
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: it's similar. Okay, so this this trick is just that. Um,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I start maybe four or six flutes to make that
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that one line. Those the harmonies. Okay, so you can
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: hear me there a little bit of my voice and
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: there is that. But there's some other tracks on the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: show where you can really hear this kind of and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the breathing and everything. So those cover all the anxiety
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: of the breathing and the lacking air and somehow you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: claustrophobic thing. There's lots of that in general in the show.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And then have some keys. Okay, so that's the same
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: as it's just adding a little a little bit of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: color there. And how did you decide on that sound.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure I wanted a little kind of sky
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Rickie kind of thing. Um. I suppose it's kind of
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a riverby Keyboord that just feed with the flutes. But
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: it also sounds like what you might hear if you
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: were like clubbing on a private eye, like a gatabza
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: or something like that, might be like, yeah, a bees
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: with a demented twist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's an
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: aspect of the score that it's it's very minimalistic, but
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: it's there. Is that there are dance little things here
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and there, like like this bright clap sometimes when it
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: comes it's almost like a four on the floor. Sometimes
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: on certain versions, I don't know how to call it
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: electronic dancing cheesiness here and there there are some elements
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: of you know, just party rave, whatever you want to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: call it. But and then afterwards I have some effects
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: in there, okay, some people screaming. Okay, so that's that's
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: just the chaos happening, the birds, people screaming and stuff.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: And it's not when you hear the song. This is
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: not clear, but he feels like you're somewhere and maybe
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the people fighting somewhere in the back or you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. Those are like the basic elements. Had
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: you played those instruments before, Like, are those your instruments
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that like go to instruments in your arsenal percussions? I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: suppose I always do lots of questions, I think in general,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: but not as much of this, uh in this was
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: allowed to be more, I would say, maybe a little
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: more tribal, more all out. You know, jungle feeling music, No,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: not jungle music the style, but like I could make
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: music like as if I was in the jungle. I
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: mean a lot of the instruments are like kind of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like African Pigmy have lots of Latin American and African instruments,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and lately I've been buying more African instruments because lots
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of Latin Americans instruments have a background in Africa obviously.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: So for example, in this show, I use a quicker
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: which is Latin America from South America, but there is
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: an African version of that Latin America. The one we
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: use that it's made of metal and we used it
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: like ba Tokada and all these big festivities. So it's
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a really it's a loud instrument that sounds like a monkey. Basically,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: it's like a monkey talking or screaming and stuff like that.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: So lots of the monkey sounds in the show are
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: not samples from monkeys, but it's this instrument. I mean,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: all these congress like for example, Congress is it's the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: most like you know, Cuban and Latin American thing you
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: can think of. But but I have like other versions
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: from from Africa and from other instruments like they Don't
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Don't which is uh which which are like huge congress
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: with skins on both sides, and it sounds even more
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: raw that the Latin American version. I have lots of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: stuff like that that I use in here that are
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: not I suppose that are not Hawaiian. But that served
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the purpose, which wasn't to try to make like Hawaiian
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: music or or it's not a Hawaiian so sound at all.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Some people have talked about that that they feel like
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: it's so cool with the music, you feel like you're
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii, but it's really not. But it's more about
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the people who are there, their wild minds, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: they're the dangerous minds, all that stuff. It's more an
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: imagery like that. It's a lot in the writing too,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and just in the way the characters are played and
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the tension between them. But the music definitely propelled it
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the same way, like you know, when you're watching Vertigo,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it's Hitchcock's you know, you might know something's going to happen,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: but just when the start of the movie, if you
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: didn't know it's Hitchcock, it could go anyway. And the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: music really drives that you're viewing experience, you know. Yeah,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I think Mike's a genius really, whatever that means. I mean,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: there's so many definition of genius for me personally my experience.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I think he's a genius because of what he allows
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to happen. I felt like even he when he felt
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit scared about something that I would say
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: sand or whatever, he was always allowing me to try
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: stuff and maybe to be wrong about something, to make
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: mistakes or whatever, or to do really weird things because
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: he's looking for, you know, interesting, interesting ideas. And then
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes some people you're gonna try something, and when you're
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: even starting something, they're gonna put you down. It's like, no, no, no,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: don't think like that. No that we're not doing this.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: And it's like it's like we need to go somewhere
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and then talk about it and then move and then
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: more further and stuff. But I have to say, it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: really weird. It's like he knew what the music was
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: doing and how people were going to react, and he
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: somehow told me that the people, you know, this reaction
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I've been seeing to the show and to the music.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: It's like he told me that in advance that that
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: was going to happen. And I have no idea how
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: how he would know that. What do you say, Well,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: like that, it's crazy what the music is doing, and
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: people are gonna go crazier and they're gonna they're not
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: gonna stop calling you and this and that, and I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: was like, for me, in my head, I was trying something.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I was kind of happy, but I was also expecting
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know how people are going to feel about this.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's so weird. This has happened to me in
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the past, where proposing something with the music and I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: get this idea that people are going to destroying me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: They're gonna say that I destroyed the show and whatnot.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So this was one of those shows. I was like,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: maybe it's cool, or maybe it's really really completely not
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the moment for this. It's not gonna work. I don't know, man,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: all this percussion stuff. I really yeah, I had no idea,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: but he seems he's in more confident than me. We'll
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: be back with more from my interview with Crystal Balls
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Happy at the viear After a quick break, We're back
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: with Crystal Balls Happy at the Year. Since the shows
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: come out, are you getting more work and as it
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: work that you want to do or yes? Short answer
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: answer is yes, Um, it's been overwhelming. I'm gonna say,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and I'm kind of adapting to it because it's like
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: people when crazy, really I mean, and when I say
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: this is like literally I have some people. We have
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: me and my manager we have to block because we
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: were getting like like it was a us. I like
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: they started like straight to me, like some agents. I'm
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: speaking those kinds of people. Yeah, and it's like it's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: like you're telling me, okay, I don't have the time
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: for this. I'm okay, I don't need help. And then
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: right away it's like texting you one text after the other.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: It's like you have some kind of you know, a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: fuck up partner that's gone psychle It's like, what's happening
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: these people? So that's one thing. And then I have
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: all the Marvels and Disney and all the people that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I've never worked with because myself it's you know, it's
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: too weird or too exiotic, I don't know exactly. But
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: now they everybody's interested, and I have all these people
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and stuff, and I'm refusing everything just because I'm on
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a movie right now. And that's it. So one of
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the things I'm confronted with now is that, you know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I don't do the composers thing of having a team
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of you know, writers and composers and uh, you know
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: helpers that sometimes they do all the job for me
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you know, if it's a very big project,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's more me. So I don't I
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: don't understand that stuff. That's that's really to me, that's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: just greed, but it's it's like beyond greed. Yeah and yeah,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I would love to be a multimedia like whoever does
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you know Batman and stuff, but I'm not a manager
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and not a boss. I don't want to do that,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and I want to have to check you know, all
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: these people that are working for me and navigating all
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: this stuff. This is just it's super weird and I'm
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: never going to that. I don't think I'm going to
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: do this, you know, five movies in a years, Like,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I don't understand how these people they do that. You
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: see this IMDb from composer and they have like two
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: hundred credits. It's like it's so weird to me. So
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to explain to them that, you know, it's
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: thank you so much, and I'm not refusing because I
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: don't want to do your project or anything. It's just that.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: But for them, this is really alien. They don't understand
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: why I'm refusing stuff because nobody refuses. They just they
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: take everything I did, do everything, and it's like to me,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit McDonald's. It's like I don't
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: want to do chain work or something I want to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: do me. Everything is housemade, it's homemade, and it's like
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I'm doing everything. It is a little bit slower, but
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I don't. I do one thing, the one project, and
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: that's it and then the next project. What's cool though,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: is that it seems like a something happening which I've
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: never seen since I started doing this. It's like I
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: started somewhere with Utopia where I'm kind of like a
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: weird punk latino that is doing some weird stuff but
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: it makes lots of noise. Utopia, even though it wasn't
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: like a hit like in numbers, was a hitting away
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: because to this day, anybody anywhere where I'm in London
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: or in la or whatever, people will speak about that.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: They're gonna tell me, man, that that show, every department,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the art, the music, it was. It was really something
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: so and now the White Lotus seems to have done
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that in the US because the Utopia was more of
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: a UK thing, right, But now with the White lotos
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: is it feels like I'm less of an alien now.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: But they're calling me because that's the thing, Like somehow
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: it's becoming the thing that they want to be completely
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: surprised completely. They want something else, Like it's like, all
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, the tire of this Hollywood sound. They
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: don't want that anymore. They want in your face, they
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: want melodies. They want, you know, the music to be
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: a character. This isn't that. And of course maybe they're excited.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: You have to see if that's possible, because of course,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: you know, with people putting lots of money into projects,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: then they hear something weird and they become scared and
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: they say, oh wait a minute. Yeah, a lot of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: pressure with that. A lot of pressure comes with that.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: If you can be the one though, to bring you know,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: melodies back into this and just really d mcdonaldize, you know, yeah,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: d mcdonaldiz. That's that's a true man. Be appreciated. Yeah, definitely,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, man,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate it now. Prob thanks to Cryst of Balls.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Happier to be here if for taking us the stems
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: first thing for the show White Loads. You can hear
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: his work by checking out at playlist we made on
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Broken Record podcast dot Be sure to subscribe to our
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: We can find all of our new episodes. You can
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: produced helpfully a Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez, and with engineering help from Nick Chaffey. Our
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Me and LaBelle. Broken Record is a
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others,
• 34:23
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• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Our themis Expect Henny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.