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Interview: Danny Elfman |  |
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Writing for Film and TV SONGS FOR FILM & TV MUSIC SUPERVISION 101 PRODUCTION MUSIC LIBRARIES SONGWRITING DEALS FOR FILMS RESOURCES INTERVIEW: DANNY ELFMAN INTERVIEW: ALAN SILVESTRI |
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< last page | 1, 2, 3 | next page > JB: Do you tend to write stream of consciousness lyrics or do you end up working over them, rewriting them? DE: Both. I spend a lot more time on the lyrics than the melody. If I was just writing melody and beats I'd probably be able to write a song every day. Lyrics are something I can fret over for a long time, especially when I get a framework that I like, but I don't quite know what it's leading to, and especially if I'm writing stream of consciousness, putting that together and making sense of it can take me a long time, whereas if I'm writing about a single subject matter it will happen a lot quicker. JB: Do the lyrics usually come separately or do you usually put them together at the same time. DE: Usually when I write the first part of a song I have just a lyric line or two that gets stuck in my head, and then when I actually start to write the lyric sometimes I'll reach an impasse where I like the way that line sounds in my head and it rolls off the tongue rhythmically in a way that fits the line but doesn't doesn't connect with anything. Then I have to force myself to connect a new lyric with that melody, which is real hard. Once I get attached to one line, I have a horrible time dislodging it from my association with the melody. But, occasionally, I just have to because it's a dead end. I've started to develop ideas for the song, but it doesn't connect with the original line...the original lyric that I had in my mind. JB: What instrument do you write on? DE: Mostly piano, keyboards, sometimes on guitar. JB: Do you use a drum machine when you write? DE: Oh yeah. I have a studio here and I use a Mac and Performer software, and I usually pretty much work up the drums, bass, keyboards, melody line, interlocking lines, and I'll be singing along, and then when I get to a certain point I'll actually lay it on tape, and then maybe lay down some simple guitar lines, then I'll start experimenting with the vocal. So I usually like to lay it all down on multi-track before I submit it to the band. JB: Then they add their own arrangements for it? DE: Yeah, sometimes they'll go down almost identical to what I laid down on the demo and sometimes it will get torn apart and put back together. It's more or less once a song comes in to rehearsal it's open season. Anybody who wants to try any idea on the song says so and we'll try it and it will either stick or not. JB: Do you have last word on that or does everybody just know when it's right? DE: I don't have the last word, no. JB: How does the production process work with John (Avila) and Steve (Bartek). DE: Well, it used to be just Steve and I, and then John more recently. We pretty much had our system down. When the rhythm tracks are being played, we'll do guitar, bass, drums, keyboards usually live, and I'll sing a work vocal, and I'll usually just do the rhythm tracks until the rhythm players are happy; until John, Johnny ("Vatos" Hernandez), Carl (Graves) and Steve, feel that it has the right feel for them. They are the ones most attuned to the feel of the rhythm section. So I wait for them to go, "Yeah, this is the one, this is the one." If I hear something that really bothers me, I'll say so. But, more often than not, I like to step back at that point in the production process. I brought the tune in, I've laid it out as carefully as I can, we've rehearsed it, now I just let them lock together. I'll make comments to the bass player or the drummer about a certain section that I think is too busy, or a certain kind of drum fill with John. Usually, I try to get them to simplify it. Most of my input at that stage would be just saying, "play less, play less," because John and John both have a tendency to overplay because they're both great jammers. I think that's so with most musicians who come from a background of jamming and who play jazz at any point in their career. And my input is always, "less, less, less, less, simplify your drum fill," or sometimes I'll say, "ok, now just for experiment John, all your drum fills, no toms, take your toms away, you're going to play them all on your snare." "Oh no, no I can't do it." "Yeah, yeah, just try it," just to try and force him to really think simple on his fills and on the bass, occasionally, the same thing, just this section sounding to busy. Very often I'll say nothing. Then if I say anything, it's usually something along those lines. Then once the rhythm track is completed, and with a scratch vocal, usually Steve will be next on the guitars. That's where I'll sit with him and I'll listen and comment and then I'll help choose sections pending his approval. Maybe he'll lay down two solos and I'll say, "I really like this section of this one and this section of this one," or "Can you play it more this way, can you try this kind of line?" And that's where I have my most involvement in the recording part of it. Then I'll start singing and then John and Steve are totally in charge. They're sitting there listening to the vocals and giving me input. I don't even want to listen after I'm done singing. I don't want to hear it and usually I try to limit myself to three passes at a vocal. The first one is just usually finding an attitude, warming up my voice. The second or third would be actually the stuff that we'd end up keeping. Then I'll say, "Pick the stuff you like the best out of these two and make a single combined vocal and when you're done let me listen. I don't want to hear a note of it until then." Very often I can't even hear objectively until the next day and then I'll come in and listen and I'll go, "I guess that's ok, but you know I can't live with this one line." Then I'll listen to the other tracks and see if there's anything I like better, something that my voice is doing. And if there is, I'll have them drop that in. Very often, depending on how it is, I'll say, "Okay, now that you've got a combined vocal, I want to try one more pass and try to get the whole thing." Sometimes I'll beat the whole thing straight down because, now that I've established an attitude, I've got something that I feel I can try to top. I can hear what I liked or didn't like about what I did. Sometimes not...sometimes the original stuff will have the best attitude no matter what I do after that. The horns are usually the last thing put on. Although sometimes we'll have them play along live while we're doing other stuff with the rhythm track too. JB: Do you write the horn lines or do they? DE: Well, Steve and I do it. I come up with certain lines early on, on the keyboards, like the melodies, the horn lines. Steve will do the actual horn arrangement. He is more or less in charge of the horns. He'll conduct the entire horn section and I'll just listen and make some comments. But when it comes to the horns, it's them playing. Steve is basically in charge and I'll just wander in and out, try to keep my ears fresh, then just make comments. "I don't like the way this is sounding, this sounds too muddy," or "the trumpet being up here is just jumping out too much." And then we'll try alternate lines. Or sometimes I'll think of stuff as we're recording, "Let's try this little riff here." JB: Well, tell me about the films. When you're seeing the film, what cues do you get from it about what kind of music it needs? DE: Well, the feel of the music for me comes from seeing the film. It's all just an instinctive thing, and where it starts and stops is something that I talk over with the director as much as I can. I try to get as much non-musical, but visual and or emotional, input from the director as possible and find out what scenes he thinks need the most help. Because sometimes you're just trying to find the right tone for the film and you want to get input from the director in terms of how the film...what these scenes, characters mean to him and then that will help translate into the musical feel, or it's not feel actually, that's rock and roll talk, rather a musical style and how intense we want to make it, how big we want the dynamics. These are things I'll try to find out from the director. How far he wants to let me wander off my leash is what I determine very early on, whether I've got a lot of freedom and I can just wander like crazy, or whether he's very concerned about how sometimes a part of the movie will play, and he's got very definite ideas, he or she I should say, and whether I should be very attentive during this part of it, but maybe I can wander a little more in another part. < last page | 1, 2, 3 | next page > |
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THE LOS ANGELES SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE - SITE MAP