WEBVTT - Snuffy Walden 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.480 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:18.239 My guest today is Snuffy Wall snuffing. Good dat, nice 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.720 to be here, Bob. Thanks. So how does it died 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.360 in the world rocker become a TV composer. Wow, that's 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:30.920 a that's an interesting story. Purely providence. Um, you know 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.400 I had I've spent a long time playing rock and 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.519 roll and then I got sober and was, you know, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:40.800 just working with people. And somebody asked me, would you 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.760 be interested in scoring film and television? Ry Cooter priced 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:48.239 himself out of the business, so I said, sure, why not? 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.560 And Uh, I went up for a couple of films 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.280 and couldn't get him because I had never written a 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.200 queue for music for film. And then I got this 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.920 opportunity to go audition for this little show. And you know, 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.160 it's a long story, but we'll tell the story. That's 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.679 why this is your great day. Well, I got this upper. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.880 This agent approached me. I was playing with Michael Ruff 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.840 and friends down at uh a place called at my 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.759 Place in the leventhon Wilshire and on New Year's Eve 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:21.760 six and the agent walked up to me and said, 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.840 would you be interested in scoring film? And television and 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.399 told me about Ray Couter that he priced himself out 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.959 of the business, and I said, you know sure. I mean, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.199 at that point, I was envisioning holiday in at age 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.959 sixty five, playing for a proud Mary, and it didn't 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.840 look very promising for me. I was I was thirty six, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.120 almost thirty seven years old. So I just said yes 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.800 to everything, and I went up for a few films 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.040 and it didn't really go well because all I had 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.520 really recordings were guitar solos. I differ other people's records 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.400 because I hadn't done anything since the seventies my own. 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:05.120 So I got a call and they said there's this 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.240 TV show and it's a pilot. It probably won't get 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.959 picked up, but they want something different, and they talked 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.240 to everybody in town. Would you go talk to him 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.239 the way I just saw a little bit slower. Is 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.560 this the same agent that came up to you at 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.680 my place? Absolutely? Same agent that came up to me 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.240 at my place. And they sent me over to this 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.760 producer and I met with him and I asked him 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.720 what he wanted and he told me, and I took 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.800 him at his word. I guess everybody else was telling him, No, 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.560 here's what you want. But we listened to a record 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.200 called Penguin Cafe Orchestra, which was acoustic guitar and cello 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.839 and hear and accordion. So I went, okay, I got 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.000 to play acoustic guitar. And I didn't own an acoustic guitar, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.320 but I borrowed one and spent two weeks trying to 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.919 write some cues. I talked to him out of some film. 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.400 Spent about two weeks trying to write some cues, and 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.640 then I would go back and work from my garage 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.360 studio to my bedroom with the sheets over in my 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.960 head because I knew what I was doing was awful, 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.000 and I knew nobody had ever listened to it. And 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.919 finally I wrote, I wrote these three or four ques, 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.200 and I didn't have a studio to record video. So 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:22.079 I called all of my friends who had little recording studios. 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:23.839 They could lay it back into tape, and I said, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.960 if you can help me, i'll split the show with you. 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.280 Everyone said no, except for a guy names except for 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.079 a guy named Stuart Levin, and he said, yeah, come 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.400 over on Thursday and we'll do it. So I took 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.040 this film, which was a little show called thirty something, 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.880 and I took the film over and we recorded these 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.640 cues I had written, and we put them into film 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.840 and sent it and I didn't hear a pete for 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.720 I don't know a month, and I thought they must 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.040 have just hated it. Turns out they only met with 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.000 me because they wanted to see what again named Snuffy 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:03.120 looked like. And when they got the video, ah, they 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.120 didn't even bother listen to it. So right the day 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.440 they were going to sign somebody else up to the 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.920 up to for a deal, they popped the audio cassette 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:13.800 in that I had sent along with it, and they went, oh, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.920 that's that's interesting. Then they put in the video cassette 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:18.839 and they really liked what it did with the show. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:24.520 And they called me and said, would you and and 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.119 Stuart because Stewart's name was on it too, at that point, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:29.880 would you all come down for a meeting. And we 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.839 came down from a meeting, Bob, and we spent the 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.240 whole time they kept asking can you do this? Do 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.640 you know how to do this? And and we kept going, well, 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.359 I don't know, you know, I didn't know if I 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.320 could do it. I had no clue and Finally ed's 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.920 Wick and Marshall Herskovius, who were their creators, left the 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.800 room and the producer I met with, Scott Wyreant, said 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.560 just tell him you can do it. So we told 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.720 him we could do it, and we got the pilot 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.440 and the next thing you know, the party got picked 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.840 up and it turned into thirty something, and that year 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.000 it won the Emmy for Best Drama on Television and 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.800 the first time I was doing it, so it was 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.400 really I look at it as this, I really think 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:20.880 because in sobriety when I when I quit drinking and using, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.440 I was willing to give up my music to live 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.599 and I believe that was just the cosmos giving me 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.160 back times a hundred what I was willing to give up. 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.640 And that's kind of a metaphysical way to look at it, 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.680 but that's really the way I see it. Okay, let's 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.520 go back to your deal with Stewart. Okay, thirty something 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.960 was on the on TV on ABC for a number 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:46.440 of years, So what do you do about your deal 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.039 with Stewart? Well, it's funny Stewart and I got thirty 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.039 something out there. People were really responding to it. Then 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.680 I got a call from a guy named Neil Marlins 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.320 and his wife Carol Black. They said, we're doing this 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.599 little show for ABC. It's going to premiere after the 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:10.400 super Bowl. Would you do the music? So I think, gosh. 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.760 Stewart and I were doing great. A second show that 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.719 was a show called The Wonder Years. We did six 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:22.280 episodes of The Wonder Years that year, and that year 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.400 The Wonder Years won the Emmy for Best Comedy. So 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:27.680 the first year I was in television I had. I 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.680 was doing the Emmy winning drama and the Emmy winning comedy, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.840 and Stewart and I also took on another one, the 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:41.080 Dick Van Dyke Show, which was a half hour sitcom, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.320 and we did a library for that. And what happened 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:50.240 was over the summer, Stewart didn't like the way I worked. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.159 I worked fourteen hours a day. Stewart liked to work 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.200 and I did. To me, we had to it. I 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.400 figured I had to work twice this hard to be 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.039 half as good. So Stewart and I didn't mesh well 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.719 from a work ethic point of view, not that his 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.160 was bad or worse, it was just different. And that 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.760 summer he went to the producers and said, listen, you 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.000 know I'm the only one who really knows how to score, 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.960 because he had scored a television before and he said, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:22.760 I'm the only one who really knows how to score, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:27.160 and uh, I think I should do the show. I'm 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.440 going to break up the partnership. I was actually in 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:34.680 England courting my wife to be, so I didn't know 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.480 about it this until I got back from London. And 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.480 then when I found that out that he had gone 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.480 to the shows, you know, of course I called him 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:49.000 and we had discussions and we decided to each take 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:53.080 a show besides thirty something. He took the Dick Van 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.120 Dyke Show. I took The Wonder Years because The Wonder 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.119 Years was all acoustic guitar and he was a piano 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:03.880 player and thirtysomethings that producers decided they were going to 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:09.840 alternate episodes with us. For the next four years, we 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:14.440 alternated episodes, and he had a great guitar player who 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:16.920 learned to play just like me. Because Stewart had all 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.679 the masters, you know, we were doing on sixteen track, 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.520 I think then maybe if but he had all the 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.320 masters of me playing, so his guy just played the 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:30.400 way I did and that worked in the beginning for him. 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.319 What happened was they didn't grow because they were he 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.320 was kind of doing what I did the first year, 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:42.160 and I was forced to grow because I didn't have 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.320 a clue what I was doing. Didn't I didn't know 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.760 what I was doing. And I ended up getting the 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.080 relationship with the executive producers and the creators and have 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.840 done every show they've done on television since. So that 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.400 worked out well for me. Stewart did me a huge 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.640 favor by kicking me out of the nest, so to speak, 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.600 because you know, that's what it took for me to 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.320 grow and to figure out what this job is. And 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.280 I'm still trying to figure out what it is actually 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.240 about thirty some five years later. But he really did 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.719 me a huge favor, and I didn't feel that way 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.000 in the beginning, trust me. Okay, but let's go back 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.760 to the beginning. We know what you provided. What did 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.880 Stewart provide? Other than the studio to sync to tape? 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:33.080 Student Stewart had done a cop show, so he had acted, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.840 and he worked in the studios as a studio musician 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:40.160 for my Post and other people, so he understood the process. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.360 He also had a recording studio and he was, he 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.200 could record live to to film. We had all the 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.400 links and everything we needed in those days to lock 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:56.240 it up. So Stewart came in with an understanding of 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.720 what the job is. I had no understanding of what 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.240 the job was. I was just as guitar player who 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.360 wrote a few songs and produced a record and you know, 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:10.400 got got a break. So Stewart and I in the 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.760 very beginning, Stewart played piano and I played guitar, and 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.160 we did it kind of as a duet. It was 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.680 predominantly acoustic guitar because I had written the original cues 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.240 to set the style. But you know, keyboards and sometimes 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.040 sampled Chelly and different things. You know, we were doing 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:32.960 it that way and using accordion and um percussion, hand 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.800 percussion shakers and stuff. It was just really kind of 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.640 a real small ensemble thing. And he brought all the 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:44.240 knowledge of what works in film, what doesn't, how to 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.000 put it together, how to lock it up, how to 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.360 uh not really how to follow a scene. I learned 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.000 that from Ed Marshall, but he knew the mechanics of 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.360 how to do it. I had no idea. All I 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:03.360 could do sit and turn the film on and play 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.679 until something happened emotionally, and then I developed that We 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.640 came from two totally different schools. Okay, so now you're separate, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.800 but you're working on thirty something where there's a you know, 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.400 a sound that has been employed. Do you then hire 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.960 a piano player? How do you get up to speed 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.840 doing it alone? Well? That was interesting. I hired a 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.680 guy named Jay Gruska. I brought him in to work 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.440 with me on my half. Jay was a wonderful piano player. 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:39.080 We knew each other John Williams, son in law, great musician, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.480 and I brought him in and h and we had 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:46.920 a great relationship, you know, for the three or four 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:48.920 years we did it. He did it all the way 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.040 through with me for the next four years. It was 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.920 a little different because I was predominant in it because 0:11:54.960 --> 0:12:00.600 it was my gig. But so Stewart had his guitar 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.560 player who had learned how to do me and I 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.560 had Jay Gruska, who was very talented in his own right. 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.719 So Jay had a record background. He had a background 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.400 that was when he came in. He was doing what 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.560 Stewart and I did. But because we were both learning 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.880 and growing in this film genre, Jay had done it 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.720 before too. We were changing and we were growing during 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:34.200 that process, and I believe that's the reason that I 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.200 ended up with a relationship with ed Swick and Marshall, 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:43.920 Herskowitz and Stewart didn't uh because I adapted, I learned, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.080 I grew, and those guys really gave me a master 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.120 class in scoring. They made me do cues two or 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.040 three times every week. You know, I'd have to rewrite 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.000 CUsing and they really, although they beat me up, they 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.319 taught me so much about the arc of a scene 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:04.680 and the arc of a story, in the arc of 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.840 an episode from a writer's point of view, from us, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:13.280 you know, an actual scriptwriter's point of view. And you know, 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.640 I'll always be indebted to them because they broke me 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.720 in and taught me what I've really used for the 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.800 last thirty years. Okay, obviously they taught you these things. 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.520 Tell me how you grew. Are you talking about just 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.560 with thirty something or just for just for thirty something? 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.920 You were saying you got the gig continually because you 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:39.560 grew doing thirty something. They were constantly morphing and getting 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.800 into deeper and deeper story. You know, originally we started 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.480 thirty something, it was all about a stroller that was 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:51.760 two seventy, you know, But once we got deeper into it, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.760 we were dealing with cancer, we were dealing with divorce, 0:13:54.880 --> 0:14:00.600 we were dealing with all these heavier approaches. And you 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.880 just can't play a shaker and accordion an acoustic guitar 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.760 bopping along too that. So I was I was faced 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:15.160 with much heavier, dramatic h I guess you'd call it 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:21.360 really uh the canvas really a very much heavier canvas 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.280 as we went through the show, growing over the four years, 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.880 and I had to learn how to adapt what I 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.560 was doing to that. I had to learn much more 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:35.360 about melody and and playing around the moment and not 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:40.200 just underlining it but commenting on something. And I had 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.320 to learn how to almost become a like an extra 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:48.480 character and and and I learned that from trial and error. 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.640 I also learned it from getting beat up a lot. 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.280 And I was just stretching, you know. I was an 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.280 electric guitar player who also picked up an acoustic guitar. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:02.600 And I was doing hammer ons and guitar electric guitar 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.400 technique on an acoustic and it hadn't been done on 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:12.640 television before, so I had to adapt and you know, 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.040 so I learned a lot more about melody. I learned 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.400 about pacing. I learned about timing. I learned about color, 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.480 how important it is when you know you don't need 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:26.320 to say. I learned about silence, about silence is so important. 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:31.000 You can be playing a queue and stop and and 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.320 make that moment the most dramatic moment of the scene 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:40.480 because you're not playing music. And so all these techniques 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.160 I had to develop on my own, and Jay helped 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.440 to Jay had a good film since, but I was 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:54.200 developing mine from zero, and so I just kept expanding. 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.640 I really thought when I did this that this is 0:15:57.680 --> 0:15:59.560 gonna last a couple of years, and they'd find me 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.560 out and I'd be out of a job and I 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.560 go back to you know, tour and with Shaka or 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.840 whatever I was doing. And what happened was I learned 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.440 enough in that first five years and doing one to 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.160 years on the other side where I was doing it 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:23.040 completely by myself. I just learned enough to start getting 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.320 calls for other things. And the next show I got 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.600 was a show call I'll Fly Away, And I knew 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.520 if I did one more acoustic guitar show, I would 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.040 always be the guy who does acoustic guitar scores. So 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.840 I bought a piano and I scored off fly Away 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.720 from a piano basis. Did you have any history playing 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.800 the piano? No, not past it five or six years old. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.680 You know. I could bang out a triad and active 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.520 in the base, but no, I wasn't a piano player. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.440 But I had to learn. I had to grow. So 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:05.280 I kept getting in these positions where and and challenging 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.040 myself where I had to grow, where I had to learn, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.400 where I had to be a list, where I had 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.840 to become something that I wasn't. If you'd have told 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.119 me the first year when I was doing thirty something 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.159 score West Wing, you know, you could have put a 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:21.679 gun to my head. I couldn't have done it. I 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.000 just couldn't have done it. It would have been impossible. 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.919 Yet twelve years later I did. So you know it 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:35.680 was a huge uh growth right for me, and a 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.960 steep incline really, But I just I dropped everything. I 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.240 dropped all the rock and roll. Uh. I got married 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.840 and had two kids, and my wife said to sheer time, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.399 just go do it. And I worked fourteen hour days 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.919 every day, seven days a week, let's go back to 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.240 something you said color. Can you define that? Wow? Color 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.160 is hard to define. Or it it can be anything from 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.600 using a volume pedal on the guitar, through delays, or 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:11.080 using a some strange synthpad. It's just a way to 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:18.280 create or support an emotion. And for me, color can 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.920 be you know, it can be anything from the palette 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.080 you're of instruments that you're using, to the way you 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.359 approach them, whether you you know, you can use a 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.120 string quartet or you can have a piano playing one 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:35.480 note with delays and it will create a feeling. Now, 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.040 it may not create the feeling you're looking for, but 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.800 that's what you've got to kind of work on. Uh. 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.520 You know, color was expanding my palette, expanding myself from 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.840 just an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, getting into 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:55.000 other instruments, understanding other instruments. I started working more apt 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.639 in the first seven or eight years with Woodwinds. Fellow 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.000 named John Clark, who don't know if you know, but 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:06.719 played with Loggins and Messina and the most brilliant double 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.800 read player I've ever come across, as far as emotional. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.480 Randy Cerber as a piano player, you know, I used 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.240 Randy for years and years and years because he just 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:24.720 approached the instrument with such grace and emotion, and those 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:29.760 are the things that mattered to me. It wasn't the technicality. 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.240 And I'm still that way. I can go here somebody 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.000 and if they got chops for days, I can listen. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.399 But a couple of minutes in, I'm no longer moved. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:45.160 I'm impressed, but I'm not moved. And John Clark, Randy Cerber, 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.199 Mike Fisher on percussion. These were the guys that I 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:54.320 called into my my little army, my little small ensemble 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:59.520 army that that I was scoring with and really utilized 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:07.360 the or really unique talents. And and for me now 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.359 I do it with George Daring. George jarring Is plays 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.440 on every episode of every television show I do, even 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.199 if there's no guitar in it, because he just brings 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.600 such beautiful music and such a musicality to it always 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:32.240 makes it better. Okay, you're talking about the producers of 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.879 thirty something teaching you about television, about art, etcetera. Can 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.680 tell us some of those lessons. You know, I didn't 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.640 understand story. I wasn't a big story guy. I had 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.000 never gone to movies and said I want to do that. 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:47.520 I kind of didn't even know it was a job 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.760 when I got this offer. So what they taught me 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.959 was that you've got to find the arc of a scene. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.639 What is the emotional arc of the scene, So what 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.600 is the pinnacle the turning point in the scene, and 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.480 you lead You've got to either not do anything and 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.520 comment after it, or you've got to lead up to 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.639 it and open up for it, or you've got to 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:22.280 do something. Whether you're dealing with action, primarily, I do 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:28.800 small character driven dramas. That's what I really gravitate towards. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.560 That's what I was trained in, That's what feels natural 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.119 to me. It's the same with action. I mean, you 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:36.600 have to you have to have a shape, you have 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:38.320 to have a build, you have to have an arc. 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.240 But what once I got that, I thought, Okay, well 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:47.239 I've got this thing down. Then they said, no, you know, 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.879 you don't understand. You're peaking the episode. Two fit quickly, 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.439 there's an arc to this, not only this scene, but 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:58.199 this whole episode. So I had to put on my 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.000 thinking cap and go, Okay, how whom I build the 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.040 story to a peak? And how do I find the 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:09.160 peak of the story, the pinnacle of the story, and 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.960 build to that. And I started figuring out how to 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.800 do that, and I would judge everything. I would go 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.160 back and look at the whole episode once I'd written 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.320 queues to see how it built in the episode. About 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.160 the time I got that kind of under under my fingers, 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.800 they said, oh, but you're not building an arc of 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.240 the series. You know, we're building an arc of the series. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.520 So all of a sudden had to put it on again, 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.440 and then I had to stretch it over five years. 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:45.800 And you know, they they were so patient. They never 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.920 threatened to fire me. Even though I made every mistake 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:52.399 in the book, they would have me ride it again. 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:57.480 And as much as in the young composer haste to 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:02.919 hear this, it served me greatly. Getting couched and getting 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:07.239 schooled by guys who knew how to tell story is 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:13.040 absolutely the one piece that has been instrumental in all 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:17.399 my work. Okay, let's talk a little bit about process. 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.960 So just in general, on a series, what is the 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:26.440 schedule for you? The scheduling of television used to be 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:30.400 a couple of weeks from the time they would lock 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.480 the film to the time they would dub the film. 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.159 In other words, from the time they quit editing, you 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:38.879 got the picture that was going to stay that way 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:41.479 until it got to the dub stage to be added 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:46.640 with effects and dialogue picture. What slowly has happened as 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:51.359 the advent of technology came across Within twelve fifteen years, 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.160 I was getting twenty four hours to make that same 0:23:54.200 --> 0:24:00.600 turnaround a show like West Wing h By or three. 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.399 I was sometimes getting one day from the time I 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:08.840 saw the film to send them the music. So originally 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:11.320 you would take time. You would you would meet with 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.800 the producers and you would watch the episode and decide 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:17.520 where they wanted music and talking about the nature of 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.200 the music, and then you go off for a week 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:22.680 and write it, and then you'd hand it to orchestrators 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:25.520 and copyists and you'd go into the studio. That's the 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:29.760 way it was before I came on the scene. When 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:33.199 right when I came on the scene, everything was getting 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:39.639 smaller since we're happening, computers were happening. So I dialed 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:43.280 it down to I write it as I go, I 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.480 perform it as I'm as I'm playing it. It never 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:50.800 went to paper, so I missed that whole other step 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:53.960 of getting booking a session and getting twenty five players 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.639 and having it copied and orchestrated. So I skipped that 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:00.240 a whole step so I can do it fast stir, 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:05.800 which in some ways was great, but it also gave 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:09.800