Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Ludwig Göransson

Transcript

Ludwig Göransson · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Ludwig Gornsen is, without a doubt, one of the
0:23
Speaker 1: most accomplished and distinctive film composers of the twenty first century.
0:28
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, after having worked on Tenet together, acclaimed
0:31
Speaker 1: director Christopher Nolan hired Gornson again to score what has
0:34
Speaker 1: become one of the biggest movies of twenty twenty three. Oppenheimer. Ludwig,
0:40
Speaker 1: who emigrated to Los Angeles from his native Sweden in
0:43
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, has racked up dozens of writing,
0:46
Speaker 1: producing and scoring credits. He started out working in TV
0:50
Speaker 1: and oversaw music on hit shows like Community, New Girl,
0:53
Speaker 1: and The Mandalorian. He eventually started scoring films with his
0:57
Speaker 1: old college friend Ryan Kugler. Ludwig composed music for all
1:01
Speaker 1: of Ryan's hit movies, including Fruitville Station, the Creed series,
1:05
Speaker 1: and both Black Panther films, the first of which won
1:08
Speaker 1: him the Academy Award for Best Original Score in twenty nineteen.
1:12
Speaker 1: On today's episode, I talked to Ludvig Gorenson about his
1:15
Speaker 1: incredible body of work as a composer and producer. He
1:18
Speaker 1: explains how his rigorous musical training in Sweden prepared him
1:21
Speaker 1: to write the complex sections of Oppenheimer's score. Ludwig also
1:26
Speaker 1: plays some of the more moving sections of the score
1:28
Speaker 1: for us in an effort to show us how he
1:30
Speaker 1: came up with one of the best soundtracks of the year.
1:36
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
1:39
Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my conversation with Ludwig Gorensen. Congratulations,
1:46
Speaker 1: I should say on the success of Oppenheimer, and also
1:50
Speaker 1: like just the reception to the music has been. It's
1:55
Speaker 1: been incredible. I'll say I always go into movies trying
1:58
Speaker 1: to know nothing. So if I hear you know, Christopher
2:01
Speaker 1: Nolan's been on a movie about Robert Oppenheimer and Robert
2:03
Speaker 1: Downey juniors in Slen Murphy, I'm like, great, that's as
2:07
Speaker 1: much as I want to know. And as it's going
2:09
Speaker 1: through it this music is incredible. So as soon as
2:14
Speaker 1: I got out, I went to pull it up so
2:15
Speaker 1: I could listen to it on the drive home. I
2:18
Speaker 1: had no idea it was you was doing the music.
2:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was so good man, Thank you.
2:22
Speaker 1: When did the project come to you?
2:24
Speaker 2: It came to me about right as Chris had finished
2:28
Speaker 2: writing the script. And we have done a movie before
2:30
Speaker 2: called Tenant Yeah, and that was an incredible experience. Obviously,
2:34
Speaker 2: I've been well aware of Chris movies and Chris films
2:37
Speaker 2: and the music, the way he uses music in his
2:41
Speaker 2: storytelling and incredible scores by Hans Zimmer and David Julien
2:46
Speaker 2: and the things that they did on Batman, and he
2:50
Speaker 2: had a huge influence and I think every film composer's life.
2:56
Speaker 2: And it also transcendent just film Goble was it was,
2:59
Speaker 2: It became kind of a it changed films I think,
3:02
Speaker 2: and the sound of film.
3:03
Speaker 1: What did you notice about it before you started working
3:05
Speaker 1: with them? What had you noticed about it?
3:07
Speaker 2: Well, how much front center the music is in his
3:10
Speaker 2: films and how much they're driving the story and how
3:14
Speaker 2: important it is to the energy into the tempo and
3:18
Speaker 2: the feel of his films. And it's like its own character.
3:22
Speaker 2: And that's something you know when you're getting started in
3:26
Speaker 2: this career trying to write music for a film. You know,
3:28
Speaker 2: you go to the theater and it's not every time
3:31
Speaker 2: you go see a movie and you really and you
3:33
Speaker 2: can really hear the music. Yeah, you know, and I
3:36
Speaker 2: think for with Chris films, that's you go to see
3:39
Speaker 2: his films and it's it's a real experience.
3:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, you know, It's like, it's not often
3:43
Speaker 1: you go to the movies and you feel like the
3:46
Speaker 1: score is so prominent. Like if the music is prominent,
3:49
Speaker 1: it's often a needle drop, and that feels like the song,
3:53
Speaker 1: you know, the NWA song or the one Stone song
3:56
Speaker 1: that you're hearing that you already have an emotional attachment
3:58
Speaker 1: to that becomes a character in the movie. But it's
4:01
Speaker 1: it is very rare in modern cinema to feel so
4:05
Speaker 1: attached to film music as much as you do when
4:07
Speaker 1: you go to see a Christopher Nolan movie. How conscious
4:11
Speaker 1: are you of that while you're writing the score for
4:14
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan movie.
4:15
Speaker 2: I'm not thinking about when I'm in the moment and
4:18
Speaker 2: writing the music, I am thinking about the vision of
4:22
Speaker 2: the director. What is she or she imagining? What's the
4:26
Speaker 2: things that I can't see in the script? What are
4:28
Speaker 2: the things that I can't see when I see the
4:30
Speaker 2: film for the first time? And sometimes I even want
4:34
Speaker 2: the director to talk to me like I'm like I'm
4:36
Speaker 2: an actor, or tell me as much as possible about
4:40
Speaker 2: this film, having as many conversations about the script and
4:45
Speaker 2: as much input as I can get about what their
4:47
Speaker 2: vision is the more helpful it's going to be for
4:49
Speaker 2: me to create the world of music and the sound
4:52
Speaker 2: world for the film.
4:53
Speaker 1: So when Christopher Nolan reached out with the Oppenheimer script,
4:57
Speaker 1: you know what was a message to you?
4:59
Speaker 2: Well, first I he didn't say anything, so I didn't
5:02
Speaker 2: even know what it was about when I sat down
5:03
Speaker 2: to read it.
5:04
Speaker 1: Just gave it to you.
5:05
Speaker 2: No, No, I go to his office and read it,
5:09
Speaker 2: because they don't give.
5:10
Speaker 1: Out the scripts, no clue at all.
5:12
Speaker 2: No, So I go there. I'm obviously super excited, and
5:16
Speaker 2: I sit down in the room and I'm in it
5:18
Speaker 2: for a three hour, three and a half hour journey.
5:21
Speaker 2: It was extremely exhilarating. I remember reading the script for
5:24
Speaker 2: the first time. It was so capturing just just being
5:28
Speaker 2: in his life, like seeing the world through his eyes
5:31
Speaker 2: and feeling what he was feeling in those moments. Like
5:34
Speaker 2: everything was written from the first person perspective. So it
5:37
Speaker 2: was an incredible emotional experience reading it for the first time.
5:40
Speaker 1: Well, at what point do you start allowing yourself to
5:43
Speaker 1: think about music in relation to the script as you're
5:45
Speaker 1: reading that.
5:46
Speaker 2: Well, I'm starting immediately thinking about the possibilities and where
5:52
Speaker 2: to go and I also know that obviously, this is
5:55
Speaker 2: my second film with Chris, so I know that he's
5:58
Speaker 2: open for any ideas. And then shortly after I'd read
6:01
Speaker 2: the script, we have a conversation and the only direction
6:04
Speaker 2: he gave me was that he was interested in He
6:07
Speaker 2: was very interested in seeing how we kid have the
6:10
Speaker 2: violin portray the personality of Oppenheimer.
6:15
Speaker 1: Interesting, so what do you do with that?
6:18
Speaker 2: So and also Chris knows that my wife's Serena Gornson,
6:23
Speaker 2: is an very accomplished violinist, and we're fortunate that he
6:28
Speaker 2: wanted to take that route because that comes very handy
6:32
Speaker 2: would have a wife that's also violinists. And we were
6:36
Speaker 2: able to experiment long hours in the studio with things
6:39
Speaker 2: that kind of, after a while, drive me, drive both
6:43
Speaker 2: of us a little crazy, just kind of try to
6:47
Speaker 2: make the violent sound in ways that I haven't heard before,
6:51
Speaker 2: and trying to manipulate it with audio and sound effects
6:54
Speaker 2: and turning it around. And but a lot of the
6:57
Speaker 2: experimentation also came from the conversations I had with Chris
7:00
Speaker 2: in terms of how we can go from You know,
7:04
Speaker 2: Oppenheimer's is very neurotic, but there's also scenes where he's
7:09
Speaker 2: probably you know, confident, and we wanted to go for
7:13
Speaker 2: something at times very beautiful and confident to something completely
7:18
Speaker 2: neurotic and horrifying. And how can we go between those
7:22
Speaker 2: feelings with the split of a second on the violin,
7:24
Speaker 2: with with just the performance of a vibrato or doing
7:28
Speaker 2: a microtonal glissando up and down.
7:30
Speaker 1: You know. On first viewing, one of the things that
7:32
Speaker 1: struck me was the decision that I loved for essentially
7:36
Speaker 1: the climax of the movie, which is the testing and
7:39
Speaker 1: trinity for just to go silent? Yeah blank, Yeah, was
7:45
Speaker 1: that in the script from the beginning?
7:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's that's what's you know, so many things
7:50
Speaker 2: or in the script, Like I felt when I watched
7:52
Speaker 2: when we finished a movie, and it was like it
7:54
Speaker 2: was almost like reading the script again, and it's it's
7:57
Speaker 2: the footstumps are in the script, the pause of silence
8:00
Speaker 2: in the script. Everything. I feel like he has probably
8:04
Speaker 2: tempo and music in his mind while he's while he's
8:06
Speaker 2: writing these movies.
8:08
Speaker 1: So there was a island the first explorations.
8:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the violin, I was we were recording long
8:14
Speaker 2: hours here in my studio and I was doing half
8:18
Speaker 2: like very long kind of glissandos trying to make sounds
8:22
Speaker 2: like almost like air raid sirens. But after a while
8:25
Speaker 2: I knew that the most important thing to get right
8:30
Speaker 2: from the beginning was the emotional core of the story.
8:34
Speaker 2: And it gets easy sometimes when you start working on
8:37
Speaker 2: a project and you start just messing around with production
8:40
Speaker 2: and sounds, and like you're trying to you can hide
8:43
Speaker 2: things behind cool sounds or a bit behind effects and sounds.
8:47
Speaker 2: And I feel like you tend to do a lot
8:49
Speaker 2: of that when you write on the computer, because you
8:52
Speaker 2: use technology and and the way you see music on
8:56
Speaker 2: the computer is very horizontal and vertically. So for me
9:02
Speaker 2: it was important to get the emotional core right, and
9:07
Speaker 2: lately it's mostly the last couple of years, I feel
9:10
Speaker 2: like stepping away from the computers is helping me with
9:15
Speaker 2: feeling more creative.
9:17
Speaker 1: Will you ever just sit down with some staff paper?
9:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean sitting by the piano writing with staff paper,
9:25
Speaker 2: or sitting by the roads, or picking up the guitar
9:28
Speaker 2: or whatever. I mean. I'm not an expert in all instruments,
9:33
Speaker 2: but I can cheat on a few. So a lot
9:38
Speaker 2: of these themes were actually wrote on the piano, and
9:44
Speaker 2: I remember the specific Openheimer theme came about after we
9:48
Speaker 2: recorded eight like hours of like a Raid Sirens and
9:52
Speaker 2: we were kind of going crazy and I just sat
9:56
Speaker 2: down the piano and just played this bass melody, super
10:01
Speaker 2: simple bassline, doude doo do.
10:06
Speaker 1: Do you mind showing me? Yeah, that's Mike, Yes, yes,
10:11
Speaker 1: sir like this. M m mm hm.
10:20
Speaker 2: M h.
10:25
Speaker 3: I put that in like low cellos, low base and
10:29
Speaker 3: cellos in a slow temple m.
10:35
Speaker 1: M added this melody.
10:43
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, mm hm m hm.
10:47
Speaker 1: M m.
10:51
Speaker 2: M m m m hm, m mm hmmm m m
11:03
Speaker 2: m m.
11:06
Speaker 1: M m hmmm. Account it's really stunning.
11:43
Speaker 2: And then right after I wrote that on the piano,
11:46
Speaker 2: I asked Herina to play it, and the way she
11:50
Speaker 2: performed it was just like it's incredible, beautiful, intimate performance
11:56
Speaker 2: with its almost no vibrato, like very fragile, was was perfect.
12:02
Speaker 2: And I sent that to Chris and then he called
12:04
Speaker 2: me back like twenty minutes later, and it's like, this
12:07
Speaker 2: is it, you know, this open Emerus theme?
12:09
Speaker 1: Wow? And did you think of it as a theme
12:11
Speaker 1: or you just think of it as Yeah?
12:14
Speaker 2: I thought I knew it.
12:15
Speaker 1: It was kind of special, you know, that's amazing. Yeah,
12:18
Speaker 1: And did you at this point, again, you don't have
12:21
Speaker 1: that you've read the script? Did you have it yet?
12:23
Speaker 2: I read the script and I had in my head,
12:25
Speaker 2: but no at home, nothing to reference how they get
12:29
Speaker 2: back and they hadn't shot the film. But something that's
12:32
Speaker 2: really cool that that Crystalan does is he brings people
12:36
Speaker 2: in very early. He brings me in very early in
12:38
Speaker 2: the process. So while he's having tests, you know, with
12:42
Speaker 2: visual effects and with also costume tests, and he invites
12:47
Speaker 2: me in to see the screenings of those tests at
12:49
Speaker 2: Imax Theater, and I'm sitting there and I mixed theater,
12:53
Speaker 2: you know, watching these incredible visual effects spot that he
12:57
Speaker 2: worked on with Andrew Jackson and some incredible experiments that
13:02
Speaker 2: I remember at the time, I felt almost like I
13:05
Speaker 2: was dreaming when I was sitting in that room. It's black,
13:09
Speaker 2: dark theater and seeing these kind of fluorescent lights like
13:13
Speaker 2: swirling around you, spinning faster and faster and faster, and
13:16
Speaker 2: then it's cutting into icy fire coming out and it's
13:19
Speaker 2: like just feel very lucky to like, you know, go
13:22
Speaker 2: on on a Monday morning is like watch this in
13:24
Speaker 2: the theater and then then come out of there as
13:26
Speaker 2: like a tremendous inspiration to like, some of the things
13:30
Speaker 2: that I saw really inspired me to help me to
13:33
Speaker 2: realize what I wanted the music to sound like, Like
13:36
Speaker 2: that sense of energy that I saw on screen.
13:39
Speaker 1: It's incredible that he had essentially already had the theme
13:43
Speaker 1: locked in before shooting. Like that gives it almost like
13:46
Speaker 1: I mean, as you say, it's all there in the script,
13:49
Speaker 1: but music does add an extra emotional element. I must
13:52
Speaker 1: I'm sure that must have helped to some degree the
13:56
Speaker 1: emotional contents of what was on Yeah on camera.
13:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I it maybe it wasn't as black and
14:02
Speaker 2: white where like it was like this is his theme.
14:04
Speaker 2: But like I think we both I think we both
14:06
Speaker 2: knew that it was special because we don't want to
14:08
Speaker 2: jinx anything you don't want to like because you know,
14:11
Speaker 2: you never really know if it's gonna work until you
14:13
Speaker 2: actually sit down with and laid in with the edit,
14:17
Speaker 2: and that's when you really can. But but I feel like,
14:20
Speaker 2: I mean, I've done two films with Chris and and
14:22
Speaker 2: so far we've been pretty good at trajectoring the sound
14:25
Speaker 2: and the feeling of the of the music before.
14:28
Speaker 1: Do you think about it thematically? I mean, because there's
14:30
Speaker 1: two things happening here. There's like there's really kind of
14:34
Speaker 1: quiet personal story and then it's almost like the second
14:38
Speaker 1: the co star is nuclear bomb, you know, or a
14:41
Speaker 1: top bomb, which is insane, Like how do you balance
14:45
Speaker 1: those two things?
14:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it was It was very Uh, it was
14:50
Speaker 2: a really tough movie to to write the music for,
14:54
Speaker 2: especially because it is as such a personal journey the
15:00
Speaker 2: feelings that you need to put the audience inside of him,
15:04
Speaker 2: Like the audience shouldn't sit in the theater judging him.
15:07
Speaker 2: There should be there on his journey, feel what he feels.
15:11
Speaker 2: And that's so that's what that's what the music needs
15:13
Speaker 2: to do. And the only way to do that is
15:15
Speaker 2: kind of to put I need to put myself into
15:17
Speaker 2: shoes too. And some of it is some of those
15:22
Speaker 2: feeling like sadness and loneliness and emptiness and like kind
15:26
Speaker 2: of have the searching for something how to kind of
15:30
Speaker 2: how the movie stars and how the music starts. That
15:32
Speaker 2: was a little easier for me to kind of navigate
15:35
Speaker 2: through and being able to I've been in some of
15:38
Speaker 2: those emotional states before. But yeah, and then there's the
15:41
Speaker 2: there's that scene of like inspiration when he's going through
15:44
Speaker 2: he sees a picauso painting on the wall and you
15:47
Speaker 2: see that, you see because of painting on imax screen insane.
15:51
Speaker 2: It really had a big effect on me. And then
15:55
Speaker 2: he sees in bed and he sees this atom swirling
15:58
Speaker 2: around and around, like it moves faster and faster, and
16:01
Speaker 2: like writing that kind of exhilarating music is so fun
16:07
Speaker 2: and also at times mathematically challenging for me. And it
16:12
Speaker 2: was really interesting how I had to like combine the
16:15
Speaker 2: emotional but also with the theory, which is also kind
16:20
Speaker 2: of part of my background and education, and how how
16:24
Speaker 2: you can use theory and what is the theory only
16:27
Speaker 2: takes it so far, But then there's also these more
16:30
Speaker 2: complicated emotions and feelings, like when when he's done the
16:35
Speaker 2: first trinity test and he's about to have his congratulatory
16:39
Speaker 2: speech to his team and to his you know, to
16:42
Speaker 2: all the scientists, and he's having a panic attack.
16:45
Speaker 1: One of the most striking things I've seen in a
16:47
Speaker 1: long time.
16:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was just that it's so complex, and
16:52
Speaker 2: it's so that visceral and cathartic that experience. I mean,
16:57
Speaker 2: they had that even reading the script, and that was
17:00
Speaker 2: so hard to imagine. So that that That was the
17:04
Speaker 2: last piece of the puzzle that I that we did
17:06
Speaker 2: on the movie.
17:07
Speaker 1: That score you left it for the end or you know,
17:09
Speaker 1: we're trying.
17:10
Speaker 2: Over and over and over again. It wasn't until the
17:12
Speaker 2: last day of the dub when resolved that piece of music.
17:16
Speaker 1: How did it change?
17:17
Speaker 2: I tied it into another an earlier feeling and earlier
17:20
Speaker 2: emotion and earlier scene in the movie, which is the
17:24
Speaker 2: scene when he goes to those almost for the first time,
17:26
Speaker 2: and then he's he's watching these stars. He's watching these
17:30
Speaker 2: stars getting swallowed of a black hole, and he's talking
17:33
Speaker 2: about what if I could, you know, be here lost
17:35
Speaker 2: almost and do things all the most and work, you know,
17:38
Speaker 2: work at combine my passion with science. And this first
17:43
Speaker 2: time I'm kind of using these synthesizers that it kind
17:46
Speaker 2: of feels like the impending doom and the synthesizers just
17:49
Speaker 2: kind of pulling you downwards in like a downward spiral.
17:53
Speaker 2: And I don't know how I could have thought about it.
17:56
Speaker 2: I was like, what if we take that feeling and
17:58
Speaker 2: that emotion and put it in this scene again and
18:03
Speaker 2: it worked.
18:04
Speaker 1: You were trying something completely new.
18:06
Speaker 2: Something that just had like horror elements, like something I
18:09
Speaker 2: was just I was going with that feeling of like
18:12
Speaker 2: horror and shocking, but it wasn't until it got that
18:16
Speaker 2: kind of emotional depth to it that it started really
18:19
Speaker 2: started to feel real. I also don't want to make
18:22
Speaker 2: it seem like the music had a big part of
18:24
Speaker 2: that scene, but you don't want to.
18:25
Speaker 1: But like the job you have that is very hard
18:29
Speaker 1: is you don't want to put too much of a
18:32
Speaker 1: mark on it, but you also don't want to fuck
18:33
Speaker 1: up what's on the screen, and you can undercut the moments.
18:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, it's it's like it's one of the best
18:40
Speaker 2: I think moments of cinema of all time, that scene. Yeah,
18:45
Speaker 2: and that emotion. How may I never felt like that
18:48
Speaker 2: before seeing a film.
18:50
Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break, then we'll come
18:52
Speaker 1: back with more of a conversation with Ludwig Gorensen. We're
18:59
Speaker 1: back with more from Ludwig Gornsen. Earlier, you said mathematically
19:05
Speaker 1: I think the phrase you use is mathematically complex or
19:08
Speaker 1: what did you mean by that? The score was.
19:11
Speaker 2: There's some parts in the score where I've was able
19:16
Speaker 2: to get ideas out with music that I haven't been
19:19
Speaker 2: able to achieve before. With that, I'm describing those scenes
19:23
Speaker 2: where you feel like there's a constant temple change, like
19:26
Speaker 2: everything's getting faster and faster and faster, And I was
19:29
Speaker 2: trying to channel the feelings of the energy of constantly
19:32
Speaker 2: pushing the boundaries of energy forward, like the spinning atoms.
19:36
Speaker 2: And the way that I achieved that was through math,
19:43
Speaker 2: with having constant temple changes in a way where it
19:47
Speaker 2: didn't make musically sense. So in a way you can
19:49
Speaker 2: kind of only do it on the computer. It's twenty
19:52
Speaker 2: one temple changes and this piece of music. But what
19:56
Speaker 2: made it human was we had it did it all
19:58
Speaker 2: with the live string ensemble recorded that all those temple
20:02
Speaker 2: changes live in one continuous performance. But that was a
20:08
Speaker 2: lot thanks to anthem to the computer that I was
20:10
Speaker 2: able to do this kind of interesting tempo changes with
20:14
Speaker 2: this hexotonic string pattern. That's a six note scale that
20:18
Speaker 2: I was working with at the time, and that six
20:21
Speaker 2: out scale is something that I had in my two
20:23
Speaker 2: books from from college.
20:25
Speaker 1: Did you mind showing us what a hexotonic maybe? Yeah,
20:28
Speaker 1: what a hexatonic scale is, and maybe how that translated
20:30
Speaker 1: to some degree to work.
20:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, So basically, hexatonic scale is a six note scale,
20:36
Speaker 2: and you can make a six note scale from two
20:39
Speaker 2: courts that doesn't have any similar notes with each other.
20:42
Speaker 2: So two courts that doesn't have any of the same
20:45
Speaker 2: notes with each other, is like a B minor.
20:48
Speaker 3: And a C major. Yeah, so that that makes this scale.
21:01
Speaker 1: So and.
21:06
Speaker 3: So and out of these six notes you can make patterns.
21:11
Speaker 1: Right.
21:31
Speaker 3: So that's just that's just.
21:32
Speaker 1: A basic and that's that's combining a B minor scale
21:35
Speaker 1: with the C major.
21:36
Speaker 3: Scale B minor chord, the B minor chord is and
21:43
Speaker 3: then the C major cord is. That's that's six notes.
21:48
Speaker 1: So are patiating both of those.
21:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm starting with the B minor major and
21:54
Speaker 2: then I'm doing the B minor again. By starting by
21:56
Speaker 2: starting the third on the on the minor third and
22:00
Speaker 2: then the major third of the C major, you can
22:07
Speaker 2: make a thousand different different patterns within within these six mills,
22:13
Speaker 2: you know, like.
22:23
Speaker 3: You know.
22:23
Speaker 2: So one of the patterns that ended up making for
22:26
Speaker 2: this movie is this. That's that's the extonic.
22:59
Speaker 1: Why do you think the hexatonic scale came to you
23:02
Speaker 1: as a as a tool for for for this?
23:07
Speaker 2: I think a lot of music ideas come to me,
23:11
Speaker 2: and I think to creative people I think I think
23:15
Speaker 2: you get a lot of ideas in general to anyone
23:17
Speaker 2: from from like your childhood, or from like the times
23:19
Speaker 2: when he felt like sense of inspiration, or and I
23:22
Speaker 2: think maybe seeing the scene when he's he is, I
23:25
Speaker 2: feel like he's in he's in college somewhere studying, and
23:28
Speaker 2: he sees things for the first time. It's because of painting.
23:31
Speaker 2: He sees he's thrown grass at the wall, a glass
23:33
Speaker 2: at the wall, he's listening to right a spring, He's
23:36
Speaker 2: he's like discovering all these things for the first.
23:38
Speaker 1: Time, those early scenes in the film.
23:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and I was maybe that made me think
23:43
Speaker 2: about when I discovered things for the first time where
23:46
Speaker 2: and when I was in college and I was playing
23:47
Speaker 2: these types of skills, and I was, you know, playing
23:50
Speaker 2: with my starting a band for the first time, my
23:52
Speaker 2: first jazz quintet. And I mean, I honestly can't remember
23:57
Speaker 2: exactly what it is, but I think a lot of
23:59
Speaker 2: times you look at yourself and you draw from those
24:03
Speaker 2: moments that that had such an impact on those first
24:06
Speaker 2: time memories. You know, your you know, your first kid.
24:09
Speaker 2: You know you don't you don't remember how it feels,
24:11
Speaker 2: but it's it's deeply rooted inside of you somewhere.
24:15
Speaker 1: An emotional memory or necessity, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, And
24:20
Speaker 1: there is something about that that is a little fractured sounding.
24:25
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah, and it sounds it's yeah, it
24:28
Speaker 2: almost sounds like you scale you're practicing on something and
24:32
Speaker 2: then and then but then I maybe I wanted to
24:35
Speaker 2: make it feel like you're like really mastering it, and
24:38
Speaker 2: you know how he then.
24:39
Speaker 1: Drilling it mastering it. Yeah. I love It's so funny.
24:42
Speaker 1: It's really like feels like three different films in a
24:45
Speaker 1: weird way to me. You know, I could really enjoy
24:48
Speaker 1: any of the acts on their own, isolated, you know,
24:51
Speaker 1: the first acts a great movie. Yeah, second act. I
24:54
Speaker 1: mean just that the Trinity stuff is out of out
24:58
Speaker 1: of how did you start processing the Trinity stuff from
25:01
Speaker 1: a composition standpoint versus the early stuff with the Trinity.
25:05
Speaker 2: Stuff is up until that point when the when they
25:09
Speaker 2: start preparing for the Trinity Test, everything's been scribbles on
25:13
Speaker 2: the note pad or you know, or theories or you know, conversations,
25:17
Speaker 2: and when you see the bomb for the first time,
25:21
Speaker 2: the actual bomb, the physical thing, it's like I wanted
25:24
Speaker 2: the music to change character there, so I kind of
25:29
Speaker 2: threw all the organic elements on the side and just
25:33
Speaker 2: changed the tone of the music a little bit and
25:35
Speaker 2: had focused more on sound design and used like three elements,
25:41
Speaker 2: which is one of them being like this throbbing bass,
25:44
Speaker 2: this stumping bass which almost sounds like a heartbeat, and
25:47
Speaker 2: then you have a little tacking sound like like a
25:51
Speaker 2: Geiger counter like and then these crackling sound effects that
25:57
Speaker 2: sounds kind of like a nuclear reaction or something. And
26:00
Speaker 2: that's just those three elements, and that's it's a big
26:03
Speaker 2: shift of the music in the film to that point.
26:06
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it's already kind of like that
26:09
Speaker 2: shit moment, but like you're literally there at that moment.
26:12
Speaker 2: You're like, they could blow up the whole world, you know,
26:15
Speaker 2: they could kill all of us.
26:18
Speaker 1: They still yeah, and then.
26:22
Speaker 2: I and then I would say one of the other
26:24
Speaker 2: important parts the puzzle was to find the right theme
26:28
Speaker 2: for for the for Kitty and which is kind of
26:32
Speaker 2: the love theme. And you know, she's the person that
26:35
Speaker 2: that really holds him down, you know, and and angers
26:39
Speaker 2: him as a person. And and you can tell that
26:42
Speaker 2: she's making a lot of the big decisions too, I think.
26:47
Speaker 2: And she's such an interesting character and I think the
26:50
Speaker 2: relationship they had, I think was was was very special
26:53
Speaker 2: and beautiful and important to him. So I wanted her
26:56
Speaker 2: theme to feel completely like almost like the yinto yang, and.
27:02
Speaker 1: It certainly seem like he needed her.
27:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but in the end, like the way that they're
27:06
Speaker 2: working together, and then especially the last thing, which is
27:09
Speaker 2: testifying you know how important that God? Yeah, right, And
27:13
Speaker 2: so I wanted her. You know, her theme has this
27:15
Speaker 2: the richness of of the piano and and it's also
27:20
Speaker 2: a wallz and it starts with these cores that are
27:24
Speaker 2: just have these long pauses in between them to kind
27:27
Speaker 2: of highlight the tension because the scenes where she is
27:30
Speaker 2: in like there's so much tension. Like her performance is incredible,
27:34
Speaker 2: especially you know when when she said that the deposition
27:39
Speaker 2: is witnessing and you having these cours and like you
27:41
Speaker 2: don't know where it's gonna go. Is she gonna make
27:44
Speaker 2: it or break it?
27:45
Speaker 1: You know?
27:46
Speaker 2: But they just I feel like the end of the
27:48
Speaker 2: way it grows just kind of makes you feel like
27:51
Speaker 2: how strong of a character she is. And then you
27:54
Speaker 2: have the cello melody playing her theme and then the
27:59
Speaker 2: violent melody whose open hammer's instrument kind of joins in
28:03
Speaker 2: in the middle and it becomes the walls and the
28:06
Speaker 2: two cellos and the violin are playing against each other,
28:08
Speaker 2: and it's almost like they're dancing together.
28:11
Speaker 1: In mind place where it's warm chords. I always love
28:13
Speaker 1: to hear the kind of what you're.
28:39
Speaker 2: H m.
29:02
Speaker 1: M. We're gonna pause briefly, then come back with more
29:31
Speaker 1: from Ludvig Golorensen. We're back with the rest of my
29:38
Speaker 1: conversation with Ludvig Gorensen. Jazz was sort of early on
29:44
Speaker 1: where you're interests laid musically.
29:45
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's kind that's where it went in high
29:48
Speaker 2: school and college.
29:49
Speaker 1: When did classical music enter your life?
29:51
Speaker 2: If ever, it was right before I got into jazz.
29:56
Speaker 2: Actually it was like around the same time I got
29:58
Speaker 2: into jazz a little a little earlier, and first I
30:02
Speaker 2: was into heavy metal and rock and instrumental rock and
30:06
Speaker 2: guitar shredding and heavy dark metal. Then I get into
30:11
Speaker 2: pop music and try to I wanted to be part
30:13
Speaker 2: of the Shay Run studio in Stockholm, like like working
30:17
Speaker 2: on Britney Spears and Vester Boys and like that.
30:20
Speaker 1: That was the factory.
30:23
Speaker 2: Part of that was in that was in high school
30:25
Speaker 2: being part of mix Marna Studio, and I think that
30:28
Speaker 2: was that kind of went hand in hand with me
30:30
Speaker 2: being very interested in technology at an early age. Like
30:34
Speaker 2: I loved being able to record myself. I had like
30:36
Speaker 2: a four track portal recorder that was experimenting with at home,
30:40
Speaker 2: and if you're trying to cassette tape on the other side,
30:42
Speaker 2: like some half of the tracks went backwards. And and
30:46
Speaker 2: then I got an eight track eight at recorder and
30:51
Speaker 2: just messing around with that and and drum machines, and
30:54
Speaker 2: it was there was something about technology that the kind
30:56
Speaker 2: of spruced my interest in in in recording myself.
31:00
Speaker 1: And and.
31:03
Speaker 2: I mean I was always playing, you know, recording myself
31:06
Speaker 2: and playing it for my parents and listening to it
31:09
Speaker 2: obviously over and over by myself. I guess it became
31:14
Speaker 2: a way where you could hear, you could really hear
31:15
Speaker 2: yourself how you were playing, and you could get better,
31:18
Speaker 2: and you could like hear like, Okay, we really need
31:22
Speaker 2: to practice on this, practice on that. And then I
31:25
Speaker 2: had a program on my computer called like Impulse Tracker
31:29
Speaker 2: where I was able to program like one zeros and
31:32
Speaker 2: ones and make music that way. That was before I
31:34
Speaker 2: had cubas, and that stuff pre cubas yeah, pre cubased,
31:38
Speaker 2: pre pre daw yeah, and then getting a synthesizer and
31:42
Speaker 2: being able to just play around with that and hearing
31:44
Speaker 2: those like creating weird sounds. And I also went to
31:48
Speaker 2: music elementary school, so all my friends were all in music,
31:51
Speaker 2: and I was able to start a band and.
31:54
Speaker 1: We had a.
31:56
Speaker 2: Very very cool band together called Thromosis in sixth grade,
32:01
Speaker 2: like a hardcore band.
32:02
Speaker 1: Did you record the group?
32:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah I did. I was the recording engineer in
32:06
Speaker 2: the mixer, and we made a little tape and we
32:09
Speaker 2: sold it at the local record store for two dollars,
32:12
Speaker 2: and then we got a review in our local newspaper
32:16
Speaker 2: two out of five.
32:17
Speaker 1: Exhilarating, no heartbreaking.
32:20
Speaker 2: Really we were so depressed.
32:22
Speaker 1: That's your first go.
32:23
Speaker 2: You know, to even get picked up something about in
32:26
Speaker 2: our man's this was the best music ever created.
32:28
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, do you remember anything that they
32:32
Speaker 1: said in the review.
32:34
Speaker 2: I think they were trying maybe a little to make
32:36
Speaker 2: it so nice, like where these guys go in sixth
32:38
Speaker 2: grade or starting out, but it was kind of like
32:41
Speaker 2: there was was it felt like belittling? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
32:45
Speaker 2: because we were like we thought we were like competing
32:47
Speaker 2: with the real gang, so the real boys dogs, Yeah,
32:50
Speaker 2: the big dogs.
32:50
Speaker 1: It's very unique, I guess to have grown up so
32:53
Speaker 1: far away from you know, like New York lam and
32:57
Speaker 1: to have had like a Max Martin making music round
33:01
Speaker 1: you know.
33:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that this was before that I was into
33:04
Speaker 2: that mix morning pop music. This was in This was
33:07
Speaker 2: when like our town where we were from was was
33:09
Speaker 2: all in like hardcore scene, Like we had Melancholin in Sweden,
33:13
Speaker 2: and then we had some other they were not from
33:16
Speaker 2: my hometown, but we had other hardcore bands from my
33:18
Speaker 2: town called one was called nine and one was called Outlast,
33:22
Speaker 2: and there was a It was a very pretty cool time.
33:26
Speaker 2: And then and I remember seeing when I saw My
33:27
Speaker 2: Sugar for the first time in like seventh grade or
33:31
Speaker 2: sixth grade, and that was a cool experience.
33:33
Speaker 1: Does that stuff still resonate with you? Yeah?
33:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely, they're They are like my probably the only metal
33:39
Speaker 2: band I still listened to. Yeah, yeah, one of my
33:42
Speaker 2: favorite live bands.
33:43
Speaker 1: Did you guys view American hardcore and metal as being
33:47
Speaker 1: a little watered down?
33:49
Speaker 2: It was hard to have access to that music for
33:52
Speaker 2: me at least.
33:53
Speaker 1: I guess Metallica though would have been like that was
33:56
Speaker 1: something right, of course that.
33:58
Speaker 2: Was that was like the dream right, that was I
33:59
Speaker 2: mean least my that was at least my dream band
34:02
Speaker 2: my and I think also in our culture in Sweden
34:05
Speaker 2: a Scannavia, it's like you always look up to you
34:08
Speaker 2: always look up to America, and I think that it's
34:10
Speaker 2: in every kind of fields.
34:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
34:13
Speaker 1: Is it true that you discovered USC just on the
34:16
Speaker 1: internet that you had no idea what USC was, you
34:20
Speaker 1: had never heard of it.
34:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was very complicated to try to find colleges
34:24
Speaker 2: and try to find schools. And I had to do it,
34:27
Speaker 2: you know, all by myself, no counseling, no, all that
34:32
Speaker 2: was so foreign, Like this was two thousand and six,
34:35
Speaker 2: so the websites were still kind of ugly looking and
34:39
Speaker 2: very Yeah. And I had never been to the States.
34:43
Speaker 2: I didn't know anyone in the States. It is very very,
34:46
Speaker 2: very very very far. The closest laceship at the States
34:51
Speaker 2: was probably like the Brett Easton Ellis books that I
34:53
Speaker 2: was reading at the time.
34:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a great view of America. You must
34:57
Speaker 1: have gotten Jesus surprised he came why la over New York?
35:03
Speaker 2: Or was I knew that I wanted to do film?
35:04
Speaker 2: Scoring got it. I had gone really into film scoring.
35:08
Speaker 2: I'd gotten to work with an orchestra in high school
35:11
Speaker 2: and having them perform my music for the first time,
35:14
Speaker 2: like having written music for orchestra seventy people that was
35:18
Speaker 2: playing my music in a concert hall, was that feeling
35:22
Speaker 2: was transcending everything else. So it's like trying to think
35:25
Speaker 2: about how I can do that again. And also the
35:29
Speaker 2: mus that I wrote was very much like John Williams
35:32
Speaker 2: and If Star Wars was in Nightmare Pro Christmas, and
35:38
Speaker 2: I knew that after that that I wanted to become
35:41
Speaker 2: better on my instrument. And also in Sweden, like the
35:44
Speaker 2: only kind of route you can take is through education
35:47
Speaker 2: and the most one of the most difficult schools to
35:50
Speaker 2: get into was the Royal College of Music in Jazz
35:53
Speaker 2: and Guitar, which you did and after I didn't get
35:56
Speaker 2: in the first time, so I had to take a
35:58
Speaker 2: year off and like practice more, and I went to
36:01
Speaker 2: another school called the People School, where you just in
36:03
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere just play on your instruments and
36:05
Speaker 2: you just play around, you know.
36:06
Speaker 1: The countryside by high country side, and.
36:08
Speaker 2: There's everyone in your class is just there to play
36:10
Speaker 2: and it's it's amazing. Uh, And then I got in.
36:14
Speaker 1: What did you have to audition? Yeah? Yeah, what do
36:16
Speaker 1: you have to do to get in?
36:19
Speaker 2: It was nerve wracking because it was I think, I
36:21
Speaker 2: don't know one hundred people applying for two spots, you know,
36:26
Speaker 2: and these are one hundred more like I would say
36:29
Speaker 2: half of those hundred are really good at their instrument.
36:33
Speaker 2: And it's a first day of edition. You play, I
36:36
Speaker 2: think you play a song, you play standard and any standard.
36:40
Speaker 1: You want, and leaves maybe whatever.
36:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I played.
36:44
Speaker 1: Uh.
36:47
Speaker 2: I think my first edition I played a Pat Metheni
36:49
Speaker 2: song that's on his trio album. It was a song
36:54
Speaker 2: called never Too Far Away from Pemine's album Questions and Answers.
37:00
Speaker 2: And so you played the first day, you play one song,
37:03
Speaker 2: and then you stay at school the whole day and
37:07
Speaker 2: you're just nerve wracking, just waiting that list to get
37:09
Speaker 2: put on the wall.
37:10
Speaker 1: Who makes the next cut.
37:13
Speaker 2: And you know, and there's twenty I think twenty people
37:17
Speaker 2: go to the next round, and then day two. If
37:20
Speaker 2: you're lucky enough to be able to make a day too,
37:22
Speaker 2: then there's I think a site reading test. There's I
37:27
Speaker 2: think just improvisation tests where they put some cores in
37:30
Speaker 2: front of you and just improvise, and then the band
37:32
Speaker 2: is playing like five different tempos and all different time signatures,
37:36
Speaker 2: and then you have to After that, you have to wait.
37:39
Speaker 2: And then there's also like a theater test, a piano test,
37:41
Speaker 2: and then they have to wait for three months or
37:43
Speaker 2: something like that. Crazy yeah, and there and so you
37:46
Speaker 2: do that test in like Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malma, which
37:49
Speaker 2: is the three cities that has the College of Music.
37:53
Speaker 1: Goddamn was it gutting to not get in? Yeah?
37:56
Speaker 2: Ah, because I was most of I mean most most
37:59
Speaker 2: of the times. I always kind of most of my life.
38:01
Speaker 2: I had kind of like a in music. I always
38:04
Speaker 2: kind of got I set up goals for myself that
38:07
Speaker 2: I always made.
38:08
Speaker 1: Most about some confidence in yourself. You're showing up playing
38:11
Speaker 1: some ATHENI figured me.
38:13
Speaker 2: I definitely had confidence because of like my band is
38:17
Speaker 2: in high school and got to write the music for
38:20
Speaker 2: the orchestra and then but I was very important part
38:24
Speaker 2: of my career to go to finally get into the
38:27
Speaker 2: College of Music and then not being the best of
38:29
Speaker 2: my instrument, being like feeling like shit. I had to
38:32
Speaker 2: practice for two years every day three four hours a day.
38:35
Speaker 1: Do you think you really got much better? Oh?
38:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how I spent the first two years. And
38:40
Speaker 2: then the last year I started my own band and
38:42
Speaker 2: we want a bunch of competitions, and it was kind
38:44
Speaker 2: of like, oh, look I was able to You didn't
38:47
Speaker 2: think that was going to do this.
38:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you did that, and then you felt like
38:54
Speaker 1: just moving to la without some sort of structure felt
38:59
Speaker 1: maybe a little do you put yourself out too far
39:01
Speaker 1: out on a limb and that's why you decided to
39:04
Speaker 1: try out USC.
39:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I don't think you can even move
39:08
Speaker 2: to la as a as a tourist. I mean you could,
39:10
Speaker 2: you could live it for three months.
39:11
Speaker 1: It's if I had to have a job. How would
39:14
Speaker 1: you get a job? If you and you can't get
39:17
Speaker 1: here without.
39:17
Speaker 2: The job, that would have been impossible. So I had
39:21
Speaker 2: won a couple of film music competitions in one of
39:24
Speaker 2: them was in Netherlands, and the first prize of when
39:27
Speaker 2: I won that competition was to score a commercial. So
39:32
Speaker 2: I got a job for like a music commercial house
39:36
Speaker 2: in Netherlands and I was still in Stockholm. This was
39:39
Speaker 2: right before I finished college, and but that was like
39:42
Speaker 2: a very to me. Winning that competition and and talking
39:47
Speaker 2: and doing like a film scoring job was like pretty cool,
39:51
Speaker 2: and I knew that maybe I had potential in this.
39:55
Speaker 2: And I also scored a couple of student features in Stockholm.
40:00
Speaker 2: So I applied to you see, I found you know,
40:02
Speaker 2: I found the website. I think it was I found
40:04
Speaker 2: the school in New York. I found a school in LA,
40:06
Speaker 2: maybe one in England and one in Australia. And I
40:09
Speaker 2: only applied to the one in LA because I wanted
40:11
Speaker 2: us to film the type of films that I wanted
40:13
Speaker 2: to work on. And I got a phone call from
40:18
Speaker 2: the professor, Brian King, and he was he was ahead
40:21
Speaker 2: of my program at the time, and he was like, hey, man,
40:24
Speaker 2: this is Brian calling it from LA. It's sunshine every day.
40:28
Speaker 1: You have to move here.
40:29
Speaker 2: You're gonna love it, bro. It's I was like, okay,
40:32
Speaker 2: sounds amazing, this sounds great, great California. That's with that
40:38
Speaker 2: like super positive voice.
40:39
Speaker 1: He's gonna love it, bro.
40:41
Speaker 2: And I was like, hell, yeah, I'm totally doing this.
40:47
Speaker 2: My parents were a little hesitant, but yeah, I made
40:50
Speaker 2: the move. Didn't know anyone in LA. First couple of
40:55
Speaker 2: first year was very difficult.
40:57
Speaker 1: It's hard when you don't know people, and you don't
40:59
Speaker 1: know the lay of the land.
41:00
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's not very forgiving if you just no.
41:03
Speaker 2: It was like I was crying every night for like
41:06
Speaker 2: at least the first three months I can own on
41:09
Speaker 2: the bus back back from UC on Venice Boulevard back
41:13
Speaker 2: to Kover City.
41:14
Speaker 1: Wow.
41:15
Speaker 2: And so I found I moved closer to UC, and
41:21
Speaker 2: I moved into a it was a fraternity house that
41:23
Speaker 2: that then they had thrown out the fraternity so it
41:25
Speaker 2: was only open for grad students. And and then it
41:29
Speaker 2: literally felt like I was walking into American pie. I
41:33
Speaker 2: didn't know that culture, but everyone on my street was
41:36
Speaker 2: partying every night and it was great. I mean I was.
41:39
Speaker 1: It is a strong error for USC. Got it's falling
41:42
Speaker 1: on hard times right now, but that two thousand and
41:44
Speaker 1: six or seven USC, Yeah, it's a strong era.
41:48
Speaker 2: It was amazing. I was just I was in my
41:50
Speaker 2: little room working with headphones every night and just like
41:53
Speaker 2: opening up the blinds and seeing like these dudes and
41:56
Speaker 2: no shirt and drinking alcohol from those red cups and
42:00
Speaker 2: having the life. And that's so that's also where I
42:03
Speaker 2: met Ryan in the in that housing.
42:06
Speaker 1: Like pretty quickly, it seems like you started getting war,
42:09
Speaker 1: you know. Within a couple of years, I got Marley
42:12
Speaker 1: and Me.
42:13
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I was I was the assistant for
42:15
Speaker 2: Theodore Shapiro, who scored Marlon Me and he was working
42:19
Speaker 2: on he was scoring Tropic Thunder at the time. So
42:21
Speaker 2: I just finished college and that was my first job
42:25
Speaker 2: and it was amazing.
42:26
Speaker 1: Must have been incredible. Yeah, Marlon was a huge movie,
42:29
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, it was.
42:31
Speaker 2: It was like Marlon Me and and yeah, and Trump
42:35
Speaker 2: Costilla was in the room when we were recording. That
42:37
Speaker 2: was just obviously a fly on the wall sitting in
42:39
Speaker 2: the back, you know. But like I had to pinch
42:41
Speaker 2: myself a couple of times, like see that I had
42:45
Speaker 2: really gotten this job. And then I was also teddy.
42:48
Speaker 2: I was working with Shapiro. He was also an incredible guy.
42:51
Speaker 2: Like I had a lot of my friends in my
42:52
Speaker 2: class got jobs for other composers that were not nice,
42:57
Speaker 2: you know, and my but the Eddy that I was
43:00
Speaker 2: working for, it was incredible.
43:02
Speaker 1: He seemed to just really take a liking to you.
43:03
Speaker 2: Mentored me, you know, taught me so much about, you know,
43:07
Speaker 2: the crafts of film scoring, because it's it's writing musical
43:11
Speaker 2: film is there's definitely a craft to writing music, especially
43:16
Speaker 2: when I mean timing is everything.
43:18
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to figure out the
43:21
Speaker 1: just the process, the various processes that are involved.
43:24
Speaker 2: I think I worked for I was head as assistant
43:27
Speaker 2: for about two or three years, and I was just
43:29
Speaker 2: looking at the craft and looking at how you craft
43:32
Speaker 2: the scene and our craft, where the music ends, where
43:35
Speaker 2: it starts, how you build it up. And also I
43:38
Speaker 2: had and also you see, I had some great and
43:40
Speaker 2: some great professors, and the reason why I wanted to
43:42
Speaker 2: go there was that all of the professors are kind
43:45
Speaker 2: of working in the business too.
43:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
43:47
Speaker 2: But after I think it was about twenty and ten
43:51
Speaker 2: or two thousand and nine, two thousand and nine, I
43:52
Speaker 2: think I got my first job, which was a community
43:57
Speaker 2: and there was an incredible chance for me to get
43:59
Speaker 2: that TV show and it was a big chance for me,
44:04
Speaker 2: and the Russ brothers hired me and Dan Harmon.
44:07
Speaker 1: How did you meet How did you meet? Them?
44:09
Speaker 2: Big on Teddy's recommendation because they had worked with him
44:12
Speaker 2: before and he didn't have time to do the show
44:14
Speaker 2: and he was he said, like, my assistant's great, and
44:18
Speaker 2: that show was I put, you know, all my time
44:22
Speaker 2: twelve hours in a day in making music for that show.
44:25
Speaker 2: And it was the greatest training because you know, there
44:29
Speaker 2: was her brothers really cared about the music. Dan Harmon
44:32
Speaker 2: really cared about the music. We scored it with live
44:34
Speaker 2: orchestra a couple episodes and one episode was Lord of
44:38
Speaker 2: the ringspoof one episode was like a Star Wars fool.
44:41
Speaker 2: Like I got to do all these styles of music. Yeah,
44:43
Speaker 2: so I got really kind of trained my chops and
44:47
Speaker 2: the music had a huge part in this show. And
44:51
Speaker 2: then after that I got because the music supervisors on
44:53
Speaker 2: that show referred me to it was a bit Meriweather
44:57
Speaker 2: who did New Girl, and she hired me for that show.
44:59
Speaker 2: And then that would have been like twenty twelve eleven
45:02
Speaker 2: or something, and then Happy Endings. It was another show
45:06
Speaker 2: that I did, and I was really into, like the
45:08
Speaker 2: sitcom show. I had like three shows on network on
45:11
Speaker 2: air every week.
45:13
Speaker 1: It's huge. Yeah, that must be it must be a grind. Yeah.
45:16
Speaker 2: And I was like twenty seven maybe.
45:18
Speaker 1: Where you still feeling like, dang, I want to get
45:20
Speaker 1: a movie.
45:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like I was starting to get a
45:23
Speaker 2: little bit not nervous, but I was I definitely felt like,
45:26
Speaker 2: oh I can I can do this furtherest through my life,
45:29
Speaker 2: I can see how you can, really just because it's
45:33
Speaker 2: so hard to say no. Like someone's asking for another
45:35
Speaker 2: TV show, Hey, do you want to do this TV show?
45:37
Speaker 1: Yeah?
45:37
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, Like I'm going to meet new people,
45:41
Speaker 2: going to get another good paycheck, and I can like
45:44
Speaker 2: make my team bigger, and and there's you know, I
45:48
Speaker 2: could easily taken on ten TV shows a week and
45:52
Speaker 2: like kind of made myself, you know, an incredible life.
45:56
Speaker 1: That's another version of an incredible Ludwig gorens In life.
46:01
Speaker 1: You know.
46:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, But creatively, maybe I wouldn't have been as content
46:06
Speaker 2: as I am now.
46:07
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm sure. I'm sure. I just pride to degree.
46:09
Speaker 1: Is there anything that to this day that if you
46:11
Speaker 1: think about, makes you WinCE a little wins just an
46:17
Speaker 1: experience like you fucked something up or where you just
46:20
Speaker 1: sort of feel like I wish I'd done that different
46:22
Speaker 1: even or I wish I wish I had Just.
46:25
Speaker 2: Maybe I can look back and it's like, Okay, well
46:27
Speaker 2: I didn't need to do that project. But it's when
46:30
Speaker 2: you started, When you get started, and like it's you know,
46:32
Speaker 2: you do. You're also learning when say no and but
46:35
Speaker 2: I think probably, I mean definitely the most challenging projects
46:40
Speaker 2: I worked on was definitely like the last two years,
46:43
Speaker 2: going from Wakana straight into Open amer Like it's just
46:47
Speaker 2: the weight of both projects and like them being so
46:50
Speaker 2: a huge movie, two huge movies, two back to back. Yeah,
46:54
Speaker 2: and that had both of them had I have a
46:57
Speaker 2: weight to it.
46:58
Speaker 1: We're talking before I got a five and a seven
47:00
Speaker 1: year old. So Troll's World towards big in my in
47:03
Speaker 1: my house, I got to say, that soundtrack is banging.
47:07
Speaker 1: How how was working on that with, like with Justin
47:09
Speaker 1: Timberlake and Anderson Pack And Yeah.
47:13
Speaker 2: That was a lot of fun. I was, man, I was,
47:16
Speaker 2: I'd done Awaken My Love, I was about to do
47:20
Speaker 2: Mandalorian or I was starting I had started out with Menlorian.
47:25
Speaker 2: I think I'd gotten an oscar for Panther one, and
47:30
Speaker 2: I was doing Troll's World Tour right for Tenant and
47:36
Speaker 2: but I didn't do the school. I was doing the songs,
47:38
Speaker 2: and I thought, I just thought it was so fun
47:40
Speaker 2: because it's that obviously the whole story was driven by music. Yeah,
47:44
Speaker 2: so we get we get the chance to do all
47:46
Speaker 2: these covers and to do all these original songs and.
47:49
Speaker 1: Were you able to help in the selection of some
47:52
Speaker 1: of the songs.
47:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, I was that was that was very
47:55
Speaker 2: very much part of everything. Like me, like Justin and
47:57
Speaker 2: me worked close together on the selection of songs, and
48:02
Speaker 2: then also in terms of like how we made the originals.
48:05
Speaker 2: You know, we got Anderson Pack on this on one
48:08
Speaker 2: or two songs.
48:09
Speaker 1: I had originals on there. So good, they're really good.
48:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
48:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
48:13
Speaker 2: And then I got to work with next Morning on
48:16
Speaker 2: this song Sizza James James Follinroyd did a song with him,
48:22
Speaker 2: good group People, fun people.
48:24
Speaker 1: Your ranges, your range. As you're listening that off and
48:26
Speaker 1: it's a black panther tenant and controls world. Toward that,
48:30
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, the range is just
48:33
Speaker 1: out of control.
48:34
Speaker 2: Behime song too with the rock and roll rules.
48:37
Speaker 1: It was like the rock rock rock and roll rules. Yeah,
48:40
Speaker 1: that's right, it's so good. Yeah. What So you're trying
48:44
Speaker 1: to kind of thin out your schedule a bit, I
48:47
Speaker 1: guess what's kind of gonna How do you you're guiding
48:51
Speaker 1: sort of light or principle going forward? How are you
48:53
Speaker 1: going to know what to say yes to and what
48:55
Speaker 1: to say no to?
48:56
Speaker 2: I mean I feel like I have I have a
49:00
Speaker 2: pretty good sense of my next five years, from my
49:04
Speaker 2: next ten years, that the type of partists that I
49:07
Speaker 2: want to do, I constantly want to challenge myself. And
49:13
Speaker 2: I also feel very I'm very fortunate to be working
49:16
Speaker 2: with the collaborators and people that I think are really
49:20
Speaker 2: pushing the format and film forward and pushing the music forward.
49:24
Speaker 1: And so.
49:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm right now. I'm just I'm like, I'm just
49:31
Speaker 2: taking a little like a breather and waiting for the
49:36
Speaker 2: craziness to start up again maybe and maybe middle next year.
49:39
Speaker 2: I actually don't know.
49:41
Speaker 1: Are you committed to a couple of projects? Ready?
49:43
Speaker 2: I know, I'm just I'm just working on my own
49:45
Speaker 2: music right now, my own album.
49:47
Speaker 1: Yeah great, Yeah, how far into that are.
49:51
Speaker 2: I started twenty eighteen and then Black Panther one came along,
49:54
Speaker 2: so I got like fifty percent done, and then I
49:57
Speaker 2: started again to twenty nineteen and I got like eight
50:01
Speaker 2: percent done, and then another movie came along, so it's like,
50:03
Speaker 2: I'm just like, Okay, I need to finish this now
50:05
Speaker 2: before the next thing starts.
50:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, and what's it? What's its sound? What's the It's
50:11
Speaker 1: kind of like.
50:12
Speaker 2: Second Ellly quirky, uh proggy, all organic elements and I'm
50:19
Speaker 2: trying to sing too cool man.
50:21
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much, man, Congratulations on all the success, man,
50:24
Speaker 1: all the thanks for all the incredible music. Man from
50:27
Speaker 1: more stuff that I just enjoy putting on myself to this,
50:30
Speaker 1: you know, give him my kids something to put on
50:32
Speaker 1: that won't make me want to jump out the car.
50:35
Speaker 1: It's like, just, yeah, I appreciate you having you out
50:38
Speaker 1: in the musical universe.
50:39
Speaker 2: No, thank you for having me on this podcast. And
50:42
Speaker 2: it's so nice to talk to you. And yeah, I
50:44
Speaker 2: really appreciate your time.
50:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you man. Thanks to Ludvig Gornson for having
50:51
Speaker 1: me to a studio to break down his approach to
50:53
Speaker 1: film scoring and composition. You can hear his work on
50:56
Speaker 1: the Oppenheimer's soundtrack, along with his sample of his other
50:59
Speaker 1: music on a playlist app Broken record podcast dot com.
51:03
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
51:06
Speaker 1: Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
51:08
Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
51:13
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
51:16
Speaker 1: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
51:19
Speaker 1: is Ben Tolliney. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
51:24
Speaker 1: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
51:27
Speaker 1: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
51:31
Speaker 1: that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
51:34
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
51:38
Speaker 1: podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember
51:42
Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
51:44
Speaker 1: Our theme music's back an the Beats. I'm justin Richmond.