Speaker 1: Pushkin, this is talk easy. I'm studd forgo soo.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Today in honor of Oscar Sunday, my conversation with music
Speaker 1: producer and composer Ludwig Gorenson. We sat back in early
Speaker 1: August of last year upon the release of Oppenheimer. Since then,
Speaker 1: the film has made over a billion dollars around the world,
Speaker 1: been nominated for thirteen a cat Me Awards, and is
Speaker 1: poised to become one of the biggest winners in the
Speaker 1: history of the Oscars later today. That includes Gorenson, by
Speaker 1: the way, who was nominated for a Best Original Score,
Speaker 1: his third nomination in the category, which he first won
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen for Ryan Coogler's Black Panther. By now,
Speaker 1: I have to imagine, if you're listening to this, you've
Speaker 1: seen the film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, either in
Speaker 1: theaters or at home, or on your iPhone or on
Speaker 1: an airplane, and regardless of your feelings about the film,
Speaker 1: I personally love it. Ludwig's composition is pretty remarkable. It
Speaker 1: manages to both push the film forward while somehow holding
Speaker 1: it all together. It's powerful, but not overpowering. Throughout the
Speaker 1: episode we play some of my favorite tracks and talk
Speaker 1: through how they came to be. We also discuss his
Speaker 1: musical childhood in Sweden, coming to America in his early twenties,
Speaker 1: his decade long collaboration with artists like Donald Glover and Hiam,
Speaker 1: and how his work in Oppenheimer marks a new chapter
Speaker 1: in his already storied career. Two things before we jump
Speaker 1: in here. The first is if you haven't heard our
Speaker 1: episode from last Sunday, it was with doctor Sima Jelani.
Speaker 1: She is a pediatrician that was recently working in Central
Speaker 1: Gaza to provide aid for Palestinians. If you haven't heard
Speaker 1: that episode, I would encourage you to check it out,
Speaker 1: either today or later this week, whenever you have the time.
Speaker 1: It is one of my favorite episodes that we've ever
Speaker 1: made on this show. And to all of you that
Speaker 1: have listened and have written either on social media or
Speaker 1: over email, over text, I don't say this enough, but
Speaker 1: I really thank you for listening and thank you for
Speaker 1: reaching out. It is a special episode, is a difficult episode,
Speaker 1: and to all of you spreading it and sharing the
Speaker 1: conversation that I had with doctor Jelani, I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you again. For doing that and for showing
Speaker 1: up and supporting the work we do here each and
Speaker 1: every Sunday. And so that is an episode with doctor
Speaker 1: Sima Jelani. You can find that wherever you are listening
Speaker 1: to this right now. And the second thing is that
Speaker 1: this is the third year in a row that we
Speaker 1: have rerun an episode with an Oscar nominee on Oscar Sunday.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, it was Questlove for Summer of Soul.
Speaker 1: Last year it was actor ki Wee Kwon for Everything Everywhere,
Speaker 1: all at once. Both of those people took home an
Speaker 1: Academy Award that night, and so we are hoping to
Speaker 1: keep this tradition alive later today. And so with that,
Speaker 1: I want to wish our guest some good luck tonight.
Speaker 1: His work in the film is truly incredible. If you've
Speaker 1: listened to this episode before, or if you're listening to
Speaker 1: it for the first time, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: I hope you like it. And with that, this is
Speaker 1: Ludwig Gorenson.
Speaker 3: Enjoy Ludwig A pleasure to have here.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Sam. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: You know, we rarely have someone on the show whose
Speaker 1: hair is longer than mine.
Speaker 4: And how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: Profoundly insecure.
Speaker 4: I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Should I
Speaker 4: cut it off or should I keep it? But now
Speaker 4: I've passed the stage where I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 4: so much of my personality in it and my identity.
Speaker 1: Are you afraid of like the new person you would
Speaker 1: become if you cut your hair?
Speaker 4: I'm not afraid of that. I'm more afraid of like
Speaker 4: everyone losing interest in me.
Speaker 1: That's it, Ryan Coogler, Donald Glover, Christopher Nolan. They're just
Speaker 1: in it for the hair they don't have.
Speaker 4: That's the secret.
Speaker 1: How has your summer been back home in Sweden?
Speaker 4: It's been incredible. This is the first time and I
Speaker 4: moved to America about fifteen years ago, and this is
Speaker 4: the first time when I'm in Sweden, my home country,
Speaker 4: for more than like a week at a time. I've
Speaker 4: been here for three months now. It's great. I mean,
Speaker 4: the biggest reason why I want to spend more time
Speaker 4: here now it specifically because my kids. I have an
Speaker 4: almost four year old and a two year old, and
Speaker 4: I just want them to have the Swedish identity and
Speaker 4: want them to be able to speak the language. Fluently,
Speaker 4: and so it's important.
Speaker 1: Being back home. Has it forced you to kind of
Speaker 1: like reflect on the last fifteen years of working in America.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know who I am here yet a
Speaker 4: little bit. I feel like everything around me here has changed,
Speaker 4: and I'm a different person. I never I never had
Speaker 4: a professional career in Sweden. It's always a student or
Speaker 4: you know, the kid. Coming back is as someone that
Speaker 4: has some kind of work experience and just trying to
Speaker 4: kind of navigate life here. And I feel like a
Speaker 4: lot of things in Sweden changed too in the last
Speaker 4: fifteen years. So I'm still trying to find the balance
Speaker 4: and trying to find myself here. But it's an exciting
Speaker 4: time to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's been an especially exciting summer for you because
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've been reading, but people seem
Speaker 1: to be liking Oppenheimer. It's brought them back to the movies,
Speaker 1: the Barbenheimer phenomenon. I don't know how it happened, but
Speaker 1: I'm glad it did. In the film, there is roughly
Speaker 1: two and a half hours of original music, which some
Speaker 1: publications have reported you made in five days. How does
Speaker 1: someone make something like this in five days?
Speaker 4: Well, I think start off some of that publication, isn't
Speaker 4: that correct? Beautiful to go back? You can't this is
Speaker 4: not possible during five days. It was published that recorded
Speaker 4: the music in five days, which is also not true
Speaker 4: because I recorded this for about six months with different
Speaker 4: musicians like string quartet, string octet, soloists. But when I
Speaker 4: had the whole orchestra together in the same room, that
Speaker 4: amount was five days. The recording process, when you record
Speaker 4: the full orchestra together, that's kind of the last piece
Speaker 4: of the puzzle. So that's the last final stage of
Speaker 4: putting together a film score. The hard work is often
Speaker 4: way before that. So normally when you hear the orcst
Speaker 4: are playing the score, that's like the climax of the
Speaker 4: whole process, when you can kind of take a step
Speaker 4: back and just listen to the music, almost like seeing
Speaker 4: your birth of your child or something.
Speaker 1: Well, if that's the climax, why don't we just go
Speaker 1: back to act one? Mm hm. You get a call
Speaker 1: from Christopher Nolan, He says one.
Speaker 4: He says, I finished a script and I'd love for
Speaker 4: you to read it, and can you combuy and read
Speaker 4: it tomorrow or in two days. Chris is kind of
Speaker 4: in a way where he doesn't really talk about what
Speaker 4: he's working on, even though we spend time together and
Speaker 4: talk and by stim were like, oh, think about writing this,
Speaker 4: and this is about this. So it's always kind of
Speaker 4: a call out of the blue. So I get the call,
Speaker 4: I go out to the studio, I go into a room,
Speaker 4: close the door, and sit with the script for as
Speaker 4: much time as I need. And this was a pretty
Speaker 4: heavy script. I had no idea what it was going
Speaker 4: to be about, and so I immediately get just sucked
Speaker 4: into the story and it's like into Oppenheimer and the character,
Speaker 4: and the way that the script is written is from
Speaker 4: Oppenheimer's point of view. Everything you're living the world through
Speaker 4: his eyes. So that was something that I was quickly
Speaker 4: taken by surprise to read something like that. And I
Speaker 4: was completely floored after the script, and I immediately also
Speaker 4: thought that the music needs to kind of do the
Speaker 4: same thing and the same experience I had when reading it.
Speaker 4: Then music needs to get the audience to feel like
Speaker 4: they're in his eyes and feeling everything he's feeling.
Speaker 1: The first step, or the only specific instrument he wanted
Speaker 1: was the violin, which, as I understand that you don't
Speaker 1: play the violin, but your your wife does when you
Speaker 1: drive back home, what's the pitch you make to her?
Speaker 4: Well, it was kind it was kind of after I
Speaker 4: read the script and secrets. Actually it was not until
Speaker 4: a few days later when he went to his house
Speaker 4: and we talked about it, and it was also we
Speaker 4: talked about the script, we listened to music, we talked
Speaker 4: about movies, and that's when he kind of mentioned that
Speaker 4: I don't really have any ideas other than trying to
Speaker 4: use an experiment with the sound of violin. And Chris
Speaker 4: also knows Serena and my wife, so he knows that
Speaker 4: he's a violinist, and we kind of have that advantage
Speaker 4: to being in the studio with her and an experiment
Speaker 4: and try out some different techniques and spend time on
Speaker 4: just sounds. Was definitely a luxury.
Speaker 1: You two working on it before you bring in this
Speaker 1: big orchestra that you're talking about. Do you remember a
Speaker 1: moment where it kind of started to click.
Speaker 4: I remember, we've been recording the whole day, just different
Speaker 4: kind of glissandos, just one note, little vibratos and long
Speaker 4: notes and doing glazanos up and down and changing the
Speaker 4: pitch and changing the speed of the vibrato, going from
Speaker 4: something somber and beautiful something horrific within seconds. And then
Speaker 4: I think, after a whole day of recording that we're
Speaker 4: kind of both like, okay, this is this is not
Speaker 4: that fun, like sitting there for hours wearing noises, and
Speaker 4: we were like, okay, well, we had to go home
Speaker 4: see the kids. I remember I was like putting down
Speaker 4: something on the piano really quick. It took me like
Speaker 4: five minutes, and I was like, why don't we just
Speaker 4: record this idea over this bassline thatever? And she played
Speaker 4: the melody in one take and it was beautiful and
Speaker 4: haunting and intimate and kind of sad and fragile. And
Speaker 4: we recorded that within ten minutes, and I sent it
Speaker 4: immediately over to Chris, and then he called me later
Speaker 4: that night and he was like, this is an open
Speaker 4: Emer's theme. I think that's the theme.
Speaker 1: Well, since we're telling this story not exactly in chronological order,
Speaker 1: which is kind of fitting I think for Christopher Nolan work,
Speaker 1: why don't we play the titular track from the film
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer not bad?
Speaker 4: Thank you?
Speaker 1: What were you thinking about hearing that just now?
Speaker 4: It brings back a lot of memories because you know,
Speaker 4: we're trying to find a tone of the of the movie,
Speaker 4: and I remember that the way I want I wanted
Speaker 4: to try to find it was to really find emotional
Speaker 4: core of the music instead of focusing on kind of
Speaker 4: like the sounds and production. And I always try to
Speaker 4: have a different way to go about how to start
Speaker 4: a project. I always try to do it different way.
Speaker 4: I always want I feel like I'm doing something for
Speaker 4: the first time. But it was it was just so
Speaker 4: interesting that probably like after writing two three hours of
Speaker 4: music and trying really different type of compositions, and this
Speaker 4: piece that was just kind of one more simple was
Speaker 4: the one that really stuck.
Speaker 1: And then your wife recorded the song that you wrote.
Speaker 4: You know, I wrote it as we were kind of
Speaker 4: packing up the packing up from the pseudo to go home,
Speaker 4: and we're kind of in a rush, and I started
Speaker 4: with that baseline due they form a baseline, and then
Speaker 4: we have the melody on top of it, and the
Speaker 4: other melody that hears is a counter melody to the
Speaker 4: original melody.
Speaker 1: When you're in the process of creating this elaborate score,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating that the thing that landed most the emotional
Speaker 1: core that you were looking at. It came about when
Speaker 1: the two of you were rushed anxious to get back home,
Speaker 1: thinking about your kids, probably more than you were thinking
Speaker 1: about putting down this track. In that process, have you
Speaker 1: found that that typically happens like when you're not expecting it,
Speaker 1: it kind of finds.
Speaker 4: You absolutely, especially when you've done you know, you've been
Speaker 4: doing something for a long time. In a day, you've
Speaker 4: been writing, or you've been recording with your band, you've
Speaker 4: done it for ten hours, like the last two or
Speaker 4: three hours, everything is going to start sounding bad. It's
Speaker 4: like your head gets tired and you start to criticize yourself.
Speaker 4: I like, there's all this noise coming into your minds,
Speaker 4: your brain, and like this voice is telling you that
Speaker 4: you know, telling you what telling telling it? Like you like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is not good, this is not you know, it's
Speaker 4: time to go home with ten trap up. But a
Speaker 4: lot of those times that's also when when the magic
Speaker 4: can happen.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to pinpoint when this like magic started
Speaker 1: happening for you, because, like we said at the top,
Speaker 1: you're back home in Sweden, which is where you came
Speaker 1: of age and a pretty musical household. Your father was
Speaker 1: a guitar teacher, your mother a flo a pianist. Even
Speaker 1: your sister was musical, she played the violin. You, of course,
Speaker 1: began playing music at the age of seven. I think
Speaker 1: it was yeah, you wrote once. I've been making music
Speaker 1: every day since then and tomorrow. But my understanding is
Speaker 1: that the only reason you started playing the guitar was
Speaker 1: because your parents refused to buy you video games, which
Speaker 1: is what you kind of wanted like every young kid,
Speaker 1: and instead of a gaming console, you received a small, portable,
Speaker 1: four channel cassette tape. Is that how this all began?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how my music production and songwriting came about.
Speaker 4: When I was about six or seven, I started sitting
Speaker 4: down with my dad ten fifteen minutes every day, just
Speaker 4: some alone time and just playing some very simple songs
Speaker 4: on guitar. And I didn't have any opinion really about
Speaker 4: it was nice to spend some alone time with my dad.
Speaker 4: But then two years later, I think it was my birthday,
Speaker 4: and I was like so excited. I was finally it's
Speaker 4: going to be aintendo in the car waiting for me
Speaker 4: like a secret package, and then I got it four
Speaker 4: track tape recorder. Instead, we put it up in the basement,
Speaker 4: and I never left. And then every birthday it was
Speaker 4: just another thing, like a drum machine or eight track
Speaker 4: digital recorder or a new guitar, and there's always something
Speaker 4: musical that replaced those urges of video game consoles.
Speaker 1: Was there a particular day and a particular song by
Speaker 1: an American metal band that kind of fortified your desire
Speaker 1: to make music?
Speaker 4: It was. Actually the way it came about was that
Speaker 4: my dad, he's a guitar teacher. So when he started
Speaker 4: out as a classical guitar teacher, and then you start
Speaker 4: playing blues and they love blues and soul. And then
Speaker 4: one day he's guitar students gave him a Metallica album
Speaker 4: and asked him if you could teach them how to
Speaker 4: play these songs, and he was like, no way, like
Speaker 4: I hate this music. And then but he took it
Speaker 4: home and he wanted to be a good teacher. So
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I'm going to learn this so
Speaker 4: I could teach him how to play this. I remember
Speaker 4: being a kid and just hearing like a crazy noise
Speaker 4: from the basement where the studio was, and I go
Speaker 4: downstairs and I open the door and I see my dad,
Speaker 4: like head bang. Me'sall like a play inner semin and
Speaker 4: like my mind is explodeds, like what is this sound?
Speaker 4: What is what is this music? How can I play it?
Speaker 1: Had you ever seen him headbang before?
Speaker 4: No? I never seen him like that, like unleashed. And
Speaker 4: since I already knew how to play a little guitar,
Speaker 4: I could pretty quickly like pick it up and start
Speaker 4: playing the rifts and stuff and then the solos. Obviously
Speaker 4: I had to practice a lot, but then it became
Speaker 4: a thing, like we got me and my dad went
Speaker 4: to see him live. We started playing the songs together.
Speaker 4: I started a band. I was all in from that moment.
Speaker 1: Were your parents like excited that this was your obsession
Speaker 1: that you would like stay in the basement and just
Speaker 1: like stay in it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were my there were my biggest fans and supporders.
Speaker 4: Like I'm thinking back at it now, like I started
Speaker 4: a band, and my dad was He arranged for us
Speaker 4: to play on the on the square of our hometown.
Speaker 4: He set up our instruments, he drove us around, he
Speaker 4: opened up the rehearsal space. You know all the time
Speaker 4: just now, I just at that time took for granted,
Speaker 4: like that's what you know parents do, but now thinking
Speaker 4: back at it, just every weekend, how much he kind
Speaker 4: of spend his time and energy on that. It's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: When you're in high school and fall in love with
Speaker 1: like American rock and roll, when did you discover the
Speaker 1: possibilities of film scoring.
Speaker 4: I think a big part of that was like Napster,
Speaker 4: and it was a program called DC plus plus.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that one.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, he allowed me to if I found a
Speaker 4: song that I liked on Napster, I could click on
Speaker 4: the user and then I could go into that user's
Speaker 4: like sound libraries or music libraries, and I could just
Speaker 4: pull that user his rehearsal library to my computer and
Speaker 4: find music that, like I had never heard of. Some
Speaker 4: of that music was like like Boston and music, some
Speaker 4: of it was Turkish music from different parts of the world,
Speaker 4: and some of it was also film scores, and that
Speaker 4: was really fun for me, like listening over and over
Speaker 4: to like the mccayvory theme song on the Turtles theme songs.
Speaker 4: And I think a big part of it also was
Speaker 4: like technology, Like I liked being on the computer and
Speaker 4: finding this type of music. And I also had a
Speaker 4: program in my computer call like impulse tracker. It was
Speaker 4: like the first type of sequencer where you don't have
Speaker 4: like an range window. You have is everything's just zeros
Speaker 4: and ones and numbers. So basically when we play the song,
Speaker 4: it just looks like a like a crazy like screen
Speaker 4: of just numbers up and down. And that's how I
Speaker 4: made my first kind of songs in the computer. And
Speaker 4: then obviously I went into qbas and logic and all
Speaker 4: that stuff, but being part of the thing that excited
Speaker 4: me was also how the production of it and using technology.
Speaker 1: Have you listened back to any of those.
Speaker 4: No, and I don't want, I don't feel like what.
Speaker 1: Your debut as an orchestral composer came at the age
Speaker 1: of seventeen. It was called five Minutes to Christmas. The
Speaker 1: night that that was performed. What happened.
Speaker 4: It was kind of out of body experience because you
Speaker 4: were seventeen years old. The only time you've had your
Speaker 4: music performed is with your band with three or four people.
Speaker 4: And then the fact that like sitting and writing orchestral scores,
Speaker 4: we had an opportunity. We had a great school, so
Speaker 4: I had an opportunity to write for a symphony orchestra
Speaker 4: and I was one of the few chosen from the
Speaker 4: class to do it, and since we had such a
Speaker 4: good education, I already knew I how to write it,
Speaker 4: you know, by hand, and write down the sheet music
Speaker 4: by hand. And I was sitting in by the piano
Speaker 4: in our living room and just writing that the whole summer.
Speaker 4: It was very inspired by Star Wars and Night before
Speaker 4: Christmas and had like slabels in it and kind of
Speaker 4: a Darth Vader theme in it. Not that great, but
Speaker 4: you could clearly hear what the inspiration was. And then yeah,
Speaker 4: it was opening. We opened it during a school concert
Speaker 4: and there was the whole concert hall was full of
Speaker 4: people and they played my music and it was really
Speaker 4: wild because everyone loved it so much, and like they
Speaker 4: played it on the Swedish radio and it really made
Speaker 4: me feel special. But the big takeout and that was
Speaker 4: to hearing your music being performed by seventy people in
Speaker 4: a concert hall, to live audience, and just the feeling
Speaker 4: of that. It was like how I just asked myself
Speaker 4: over and over again, how can I do this for
Speaker 4: the rest of my life, and how can I be
Speaker 4: able to do this in as a.
Speaker 1: Job After the break More from Ludwig Gorensen coming back.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the five Minutes before Christmas orchestral
Speaker 1: piece that you put together. You then studied jazz and
Speaker 1: provisation at the Royal College School of Music before eventually
Speaker 1: moving to the US at the age of twenty two
Speaker 1: in pursuit of your masters at USC here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: This I think was in the fall of two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, a period that you once described as a
Speaker 1: very difficult time in my life. What did that look like?
Speaker 4: Just crying every night and missing my life that I
Speaker 4: had in Sweden and feeling very lonely.
Speaker 1: That is the opening of Oppenheimer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is, it is. I had those times. And
Speaker 4: the funny thing is that I had that already happened
Speaker 4: once in my life, Like when I was fifteen, I
Speaker 4: moved to Stockholm. I lived in a smaller city, and
Speaker 4: I moved to Stockholm. I started like a music high school,
Speaker 4: and then at that time I moved home again. So
Speaker 4: I gave up and like I moved back home and
Speaker 4: then I always kind of like regretted that decision a
Speaker 4: little bit. I didn't want to do the same thing twice.
Speaker 1: You couldn't give up again.
Speaker 4: I couldn't do that. I knew how much I would
Speaker 4: regret it afterwards. I feel like la is probably like
Speaker 4: one of the loneliest city in the world. Everything is
Speaker 4: just so difficult to know where to go. You have
Speaker 4: to plan everything if you don't have a car. But
Speaker 4: the school, I mean, the school was great and it
Speaker 4: was competitive. The professors and that's why I wanted to
Speaker 4: go there. The professors are all professional, and I think
Speaker 4: one of the things that was difficult was that the homesickness,
Speaker 4: like I didn't understand what that was either, Like I
Speaker 4: didn't know why I was having all those feelings. I
Speaker 4: was just confused, why am I feeling like this? I
Speaker 4: couldn't navigate it and not being in control of that,
Speaker 4: and that was very scary.
Speaker 1: What do you mean scary?
Speaker 4: Just not just it's almost something like a jealousy, if
Speaker 4: you know. Jealousy is like a feeling you can't control.
Speaker 4: At least for me, I remember the times when I
Speaker 4: had those feelings that are extremely jealousy something like that.
Speaker 4: It's just eats that you or it comes like a
Speaker 4: big hole in your stomach, and that's what it was
Speaker 4: like at one night. It can be that can have
Speaker 4: the best time of life, and then like all of
Speaker 4: a sudden and thirty minutes later it can be just
Speaker 4: completely crushing and not knowing why.
Speaker 1: When do you think you started to get some control
Speaker 1: over that? You're like never still.
Speaker 4: Here, No, But it's not until recently where I'm like
Speaker 4: kind of starting to understand how those films came to
Speaker 4: be and what that was all about, and how I
Speaker 4: can try to give my kids some kind of stability
Speaker 4: that so they don't have to kind of go through that.
Speaker 1: It does sound like, i'd say, you, really, of all
Speaker 1: the things we've talked about, it does seem like the
Speaker 1: thing that's most on your mind right now. Oh of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely want to try to understand myself as good
Speaker 4: as I can for my kid's sake.
Speaker 1: In that period when you're in your mid twenties, did
Speaker 1: meeting and beginning to work with Ryan Coogler and that
Speaker 1: Donald Glover did that help you understand yourself in that moment?
Speaker 4: I think that was maybe one of the things. I
Speaker 4: don't know if we had that in common, but like
Speaker 4: one of the things that Ryan and I had a
Speaker 4: common was definitely like feeling like we're far away from
Speaker 4: our families, and having a hard time.
Speaker 1: He's from Oakland.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's from Oakland. And I was like, well, you're
Speaker 4: just two hours from home. It was like five hours
Speaker 4: from home, like you can just but that's not what
Speaker 4: it was about. It was like your community. It was
Speaker 4: everything that's familiar to you and leaving that for something
Speaker 4: new and how difficult that is, and that we could
Speaker 4: talk about that special and then yeah, and then to
Speaker 4: go back to our teacher, Kenny Hall. Kenny Hall was
Speaker 4: an incredible teacher professor at UC He was a music
Speaker 4: editor who worked with John Williams on et and Jerry
Speaker 4: Goldsmith and a bunch of best movies. And he was
Speaker 4: the only teacher at school that had a class for
Speaker 4: both composers and directors in the same class, which is unusual,
Speaker 4: Which is very unusual, but should be obvious because music is,
Speaker 4: I mean, music is one of the most important parts
Speaker 4: of film. And to get some direction from a professor
Speaker 4: for the directors to how to talk about music and
Speaker 4: how to approach that, how to talk to the composers,
Speaker 4: I think was incredibly helpful. And to have a class
Speaker 4: where we can discuss so we can also understand how
Speaker 4: the directors talk about music. And how they think about music,
Speaker 4: because we're all students, We're like, oh, this is you know,
Speaker 4: music is the most important part of the film, Like
Speaker 4: it should be the loudest, you know, the part of
Speaker 4: the whole student film you're doing, and take out the
Speaker 4: sound effects and the dialogue and like and don't give
Speaker 4: me any notes. That's kind of how you approach it
Speaker 4: from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Was that your policy back then? No notes?
Speaker 4: No? I was was? I was pretty open, But I
Speaker 4: definitely remember before I started USC that had like this
Speaker 4: romantic image of the film composer getting getting the film,
Speaker 4: having several months to himself at some kind of lodge
Speaker 4: up in the mountains and just being able to write
Speaker 4: the whole film score by himself, and then taking the
Speaker 4: orchestra and getting performed and magically it's in the movie.
Speaker 1: You had to settle for Los Phillies and Silver, like
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, as your romantic hopes were kind
Speaker 1: of slowly dashed by the real process of making and
Speaker 1: creating these scores. You did like dozens of scores for
Speaker 1: students at USC. What stood out about Ryan and his work.
Speaker 4: First of all, I was friends a little bit with
Speaker 4: Ryan before he did a student film, so we had
Speaker 4: we already had a little bit of a relationship before
Speaker 4: he asked me to score his film, but also like
Speaker 4: his way of you know, although it was this student film,
Speaker 4: it was a student film called Locks for his first project.
Speaker 4: And at that time, the student film he did didn't
Speaker 4: have any dialogue, so it was just music and sound effects.
Speaker 4: And the movie is beautiful. You see this this guy
Speaker 4: in Oakland with long locks, like long dreads, wandering around
Speaker 4: the streets. You see some some gang members getting a
Speaker 4: handcuffed by the police. He goes through the neighborhood is
Speaker 4: hees like other kind of rough things, and you're like,
Speaker 4: what's going on? Where is this story going to go?
Speaker 4: And then he goes into the barbershop and he gets
Speaker 4: his hair cut off. They sweep it up and they
Speaker 4: put it in a plastic bag, and then he walks
Speaker 4: on his way home. And then he enters his apartment
Speaker 4: and he opens a bedroom door and you see his
Speaker 4: little sister sitting there who has cancer, and it doesn't
Speaker 4: have any hair. And that's the short film. And I
Speaker 4: wrote some music for it. And at that time I
Speaker 4: was living in a I was living on twenty eighth Street,
Speaker 4: which in La is like fraternity street. I didn't know
Speaker 4: what fraternity, so Storties was before I moved, and I
Speaker 4: wasn't part of the fraternity, like they had gone thrown out,
Speaker 4: so it was only for grad students. But I was
Speaker 4: sitting there in that little little room trying to write
Speaker 4: music and it was like crazy parties going on every
Speaker 4: night on the street. You know, all the dudes look
Speaker 4: the same and drinking from the red cups. And I really,
Speaker 4: I literally felt like I was in an American pie movie.
Speaker 4: And then Ryan comes in and we sit down and
Speaker 4: I have headphones and I give it to him and
Speaker 4: he's like, oh my god, is this guitar? Oh what's
Speaker 4: this instrument? And he was just so excited and having
Speaker 4: that reaction and like learning about the instruments and we
Speaker 4: talk about the you know, the techniques that we played
Speaker 4: and the take in and that was the That was
Speaker 4: the beginning of our working relationships. And that's still how
Speaker 4: it still feels like that.
Speaker 1: Why don't we take a look at that first collaboration
Speaker 1: for a moment so people can get a sense of
Speaker 1: what it sounded like. This is Locks directed by Ryan Coogler.
Speaker 1: H What do you think seeing that.
Speaker 4: It sounds so very early in my career, you know,
Speaker 4: like all your teacher at the time, like us, you know,
Speaker 4: you have to find your own sound and all this
Speaker 4: what are you talking like? What are you talking about?
Speaker 4: How do you find your own sound? What is that?
Speaker 4: And I'm not saying that that was my own sound,
Speaker 4: but you can definitely hear some an interesting balance between
Speaker 4: like melancholy and happiness.
Speaker 1: You seem almost skeptical to say the word.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's not the word you want to describe
Speaker 4: your music. Maybe, but maybe maybe it is. Of course
Speaker 4: it should make people happy, but it can be melancholic
Speaker 4: and make you happy in that way.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's an amalgamation of both. But the
Speaker 1: idea of finding your own voice that is something we
Speaker 1: all have to try to find. Was that a challenge
Speaker 1: for you now?
Speaker 4: I mean I think for a lot of people, the
Speaker 4: way that you think about when you have to find
Speaker 4: your own voice is like, Okay, I need to spend
Speaker 4: a lot of time by myself in a room and
Speaker 4: find my own voice. Well, at least for me, the
Speaker 4: way that I did it was the complete opposite. It
Speaker 4: was opening doors to other rooms with other people and
Speaker 4: talking to them. Or jamming with them and learn what
Speaker 4: they do, and like being interested and you know, wanting
Speaker 4: to discover and have a musical exchange with people that
Speaker 4: came from completely different backgrounds or cultures or play different
Speaker 4: genres and to see if we can do things together.
Speaker 4: And looking back at it now, I think that was
Speaker 4: kind of what really shaped me to become who I am.
Speaker 1: When you started working with Donald Glover, this is like
Speaker 1: before he became Childish Gambino. You were scoring community at
Speaker 1: the time. Was it around then that you developed this
Speaker 1: approach where you would say, what we're making can be cool,
Speaker 1: it's just not cool yet.
Speaker 4: Well, well, to me, when I first heard his music,
Speaker 4: I was hesitant before he even sent me into music
Speaker 4: because I knew him as being an actor and I
Speaker 4: was like this in my mind, I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 4: a lot of actors probably think they can do music too.
Speaker 4: And also in America, like people have the confidence that
Speaker 4: you don't really demonstrate like that in Sweden. So when
Speaker 4: he was like yeah, he wrote me an email like
Speaker 4: I'm also a rapper and musician and I don't know
Speaker 4: a lot of people in LA so maybe you can
Speaker 4: take a listen to the song and recommend or help
Speaker 4: me with the mixing of the track, and then he
Speaker 4: sent me a song and I was so surprised. I've
Speaker 4: run back, this is incredible. But what if we just
Speaker 4: add some drums or add some live drums, or we
Speaker 4: work a little bit on the arrangement. And he was
Speaker 4: really receptive to that, and we met up and we
Speaker 4: started to just work together for fifteen years. But I
Speaker 4: thought his music was cool from the jump, and I
Speaker 4: just I was like, is there any way we can
Speaker 4: make this better? If there any way I can just
Speaker 4: help in any way, I would love to be part
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 1: In those early collaborations, first on Cul de Sac, then
Speaker 1: Camp then because of the Internet, did it feel like
Speaker 1: it was uncharted territory for you?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? I mean I listened to rap music, not like
Speaker 4: the standard ones. Like the record I had listened to
Speaker 4: the most was a fox A Brown album because I
Speaker 4: just thought it was so cool how she had like
Speaker 4: Egyptian music on there, and like how they use those samples,
Speaker 4: and I was listening to that and like midnight culture
Speaker 4: is like over and over and over again. I didn't
Speaker 4: have that deep knowledge of hip hop at the time,
Speaker 4: and I wasn't and I had never really done a beat.
Speaker 4: But that's also what's so exciting. He was kind of
Speaker 4: introducing it to me and showing me like all these
Speaker 4: incredible songs that didn't know and it was like to me, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: learning and a new instrument, and it was the most
Speaker 4: exciting thing for me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Around the time you too started really getting going, you,
Speaker 1: Donald and a bunch of your friends starred in a
Speaker 1: short film directed by Hiro Maria called Clapping for the
Speaker 1: Wrong Reasons. Now, this is a movie I personally obsessed
Speaker 1: over with my friends as as soon to be freshman
Speaker 1: in college back in twenty thirteen. Why don't we take
Speaker 1: a look at one scene in particular where you are
Speaker 1: playing on the guitar a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I haven't seen that in ten years.
Speaker 1: And what do you think.
Speaker 4: I think we're all like searching. I think Donald was
Speaker 4: definitely searching. And I didn't know, you know, how big
Speaker 4: part of I was going to have on the record,
Speaker 4: or if I was going to be part of it.
Speaker 4: It was a very kind of uncertain time for me
Speaker 4: at least. And then there was those there was those
Speaker 4: jump joy of moments where we were in the studio
Speaker 4: in that it was like one of the libraries and
Speaker 4: we were in the studio there and I think it
Speaker 4: was Chris bosh Old House, just out of nowhere. Like
Speaker 4: I was, I was always kind of on the spot
Speaker 4: to come up with something in the moment, really really quick.
Speaker 4: I was both stressful but also kind of exciting. And
Speaker 4: because Donald had a lot of that time, I was like,
Speaker 4: because I had a lot of things on his mind,
Speaker 4: so if something was going to stick, we had a
Speaker 4: very short amount of time in a suit of where
Speaker 4: where he could just kind of get into the music.
Speaker 4: And even though we spent a lot of time in
Speaker 4: the studio, but I feel like when I was there,
Speaker 4: like we had to do something quick, and it was
Speaker 4: a little it was stressful, and then something great came
Speaker 4: out of it and it was like it was like
Speaker 4: kind of a moment of joy and I was and
Speaker 4: and when that little moment of joy happened, it's like,
Speaker 4: how you know I had sustained that, you know, Okay,
Speaker 4: five minutes, ten minutes, okay, fifteen minutes, Oh this is
Speaker 4: turning through song twenty you know. So it was like
Speaker 4: it was a strange time. And also like with all
Speaker 4: the albums that he's done, like I don't know where
Speaker 4: he's taking it, and don't know where we're going. We
Speaker 4: just start off like driving blindless. At least me on
Speaker 4: that album, I thought we took it to some really
Speaker 4: interesting places.
Speaker 1: The way you're describing it, like that period of searching.
Speaker 1: Even now a decade removed, it still sounds as if
Speaker 1: it's kind of a miss to you.
Speaker 4: It was a mystery because I was also in a
Speaker 4: situation where I didn't like, I didn't understand those feelings
Speaker 4: that I had. It was all about like trying to
Speaker 4: get these music out, and I guess I think like
Speaker 4: the feelings came out in the music. I mean, I
Speaker 4: know that the feelings came out of music, and that's
Speaker 4: why it's so interesting to hear that now, you know,
Speaker 4: I can hear that anxiety and stress, but the magic
Speaker 4: in that and just those little few guitar chords that
Speaker 4: I heard, and it's like a calming thing, especially that
Speaker 4: song like the Flight of the Navigator. They all kind
Speaker 4: of feel like you're a kid or you know, and
Speaker 4: playing that in your room. And I think a lot
Speaker 4: of it comes back to maybe sitting there being a
Speaker 4: kid and being feeling lonely and sitting in your room
Speaker 4: and trying to figure out what life's about.
Speaker 1: Back in the basement. Yeah, it sounds to me like
Speaker 1: it was like a self soothing sound, like you're feeling
Speaker 1: all this anxiety and yet that track we just heard
Speaker 1: is extreme calming and kind of self soothing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's it's I don't know if you have kids,
Speaker 4: but it's definitely a thing you see when you start
Speaker 4: to understand a little thing a little bit with the
Speaker 4: self soothing thing and how everyone finds their own ways
Speaker 4: to self soothe. Some kids suck on her thumbs, some
Speaker 4: kids like touch their face in a different way.
Speaker 1: Some you know, some kids jam out to Metallica.
Speaker 4: Some kids jam out to Metallica. Makes sad, melancholic.
Speaker 1: Songs that are also happy.
Speaker 4: Also happens in them because you have great support from
Speaker 4: your parents. But yeah, there was I was definitely, I
Speaker 4: think when I think back at it too, I was
Speaker 4: lonely also a lot as a as a kid. You know,
Speaker 4: my parents they also they also worked a lot, and
Speaker 4: my sister was six years older, so spent a lot
Speaker 4: of time just by myself too.
Speaker 1: You've clearly used that loneliness and channeled it into the work.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to pinpoint those two moments with Coogler
Speaker 1: and Glover, because at least to me, they seem like
Speaker 1: the foundational building blocks of what would become a decade
Speaker 1: long collaboration, going from Black Panther with Ryan for What
Speaker 1: You Want an Oscar to producing This Is America with
Speaker 1: Donald for Which You Want a Grammy, which, of course
Speaker 1: through this decade brings us back to Oppenheimer. And part
Speaker 1: of this film is about a man obsessed with his work,
Speaker 1: a man who moves further and further into this project
Speaker 1: and farther and farther away from his family. And as
Speaker 1: I was rewatching it last night, I was reminded of
Speaker 1: this quote you had where you said, when I go
Speaker 1: into the studio, regardless of whether I write the music,
Speaker 1: produce an album, or write a film score, you just
Speaker 1: immerse yourself into this other world. You become obsessed. Most
Speaker 1: artists are extremely You close yourself off and the work
Speaker 1: becomes your world. That obsession that's central to Oppenheimer. Did
Speaker 1: you feel that kinship and making the score for it.
Speaker 4: I think that's very true, but I don't consciously. I
Speaker 4: don't think about any of that when I'm in the process.
Speaker 4: It's more afterwards, like the conversation we have now where
Speaker 4: I see that being a pattern in the way I.
Speaker 1: Work, with the pattern of obsession, and for me.
Speaker 4: That's the only way I can do it, really, And
Speaker 4: I think also with age comes, you know, you get
Speaker 4: a little bit of different. You're having your starting family,
Speaker 4: You're starting to see your priorities in a different way.
Speaker 4: But I'm not saying that I'm doing having the wrong priorities.
Speaker 4: But I've definitely been the last fifteen years just non
Speaker 4: stop doing that, you know, without breaks, like extremist world
Speaker 4: to extremist and they're also extremely different too. It's also
Speaker 4: why I think it works for me, because it's so
Speaker 4: I'm like a different person, different world every time, and
Speaker 4: it's so exciting to discover these places. But it also
Speaker 4: takes a toll.
Speaker 1: What toll has it taken?
Speaker 4: I think more now for me it's more important to
Speaker 4: kind of take the time after you finish something like
Speaker 4: this and think about how it affected you and think
Speaker 4: about how what happened, you know, how it happened, how
Speaker 4: it came together, and where the places you went and
Speaker 4: reflecting more. I guess I'm just more interested in that now,
Speaker 4: where before that I was just on a train, on
Speaker 4: stuff train, and I realized now how all these experiences
Speaker 4: had such a deep impact in me, both on music
Speaker 4: levels but personal levels. And I'm excited because after I
Speaker 4: finished Appathheimer, now I've had I've had some time to
Speaker 4: engage with everything else in my life, and that's kind
Speaker 4: of a very exciting chapter for me.
Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the personal side of making music and the process, your process.
Speaker 1: But when we take a step back, this film is
Speaker 1: like coming out at a very fascinating time, especially in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: because of course there's this strike that's happening, and one
Speaker 1: of the big existential fears and issues at play is
Speaker 1: the use of artificial intelligence, which throughout the film's release,
Speaker 1: Nolan has explicitly made the comparison between Oppenheimer developing the
Speaker 1: A bomb in the early forties and the theoretical physicists
Speaker 1: that faced backlash an uncertainty from the US military in Congress,
Speaker 1: much like the tech industry is facing today in its
Speaker 1: race to make AI more powerful. He said, quote when
Speaker 1: I talk to leading researchers in the field of AI
Speaker 1: right now, they literally refer to this as their Oppenheimer moment,
Speaker 1: they're looking to a story to say, Okay, what are
Speaker 1: the responsibility for scientists developing new technologies that may have
Speaker 1: unintended consequences when it comes to making music? Where are
Speaker 1: you at on what AI can do, will do? How
Speaker 1: will change the job itself.
Speaker 4: I'm very interested in these type of questions and in
Speaker 4: the technology. And it's not even at their doorshep's already
Speaker 4: entered our houses, enter our living rooms and our listening experiences. Especially,
Speaker 4: you know, with that Drake Weekend song that everyone you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know how many million views it has, but
Speaker 4: it's quite a lot.
Speaker 1: I still haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 4: So you can't like deny that it's going to change
Speaker 4: music forever. You can. You can have anyone sitting in
Speaker 4: the room and just like, oh, I want to have
Speaker 4: a beat that sounds like Michael Jackson from the seventies,
Speaker 4: and I want Brunan Morris to sing a happy birthday
Speaker 4: message to my wife because he loves him. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't think there's a way to stop that from happening.
Speaker 4: I think we all just need to embrace it and
Speaker 4: know that it's here. I think it's going to be
Speaker 4: a big shift in music about you going to be
Speaker 4: able to hear the difference, you know, I think people
Speaker 4: are really going to be able to hear the difference
Speaker 4: in what's made with computers and what's not made with computers,
Speaker 4: and how much computer was a part of this and
Speaker 4: how much what computer wasn't a part of it.
Speaker 1: Do you think people will be able to distinguish between
Speaker 1: the two? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I think maybe there'd be a different service like
Speaker 4: AI music will be cheaper and music that people put
Speaker 4: their own minds and hearts and brains to would be
Speaker 4: more expensive. And I think everyone's going to start using
Speaker 4: these tools that are going to come to place, and
Speaker 4: it's just like what shortcuts do you want to take?
Speaker 4: Like how much you want to shut your own creativity off?
Speaker 4: And I think that's going to be some important decisions
Speaker 4: you're going to have to make.
Speaker 1: Have you been thinking about that for yourself? Like what
Speaker 1: you're willing to use and not use? Shortcuts?
Speaker 4: Taken?
Speaker 1: Not taken?
Speaker 4: No, I want tot try it all, give it all
Speaker 4: to me and see what I can how I can
Speaker 4: customize it as much as possible and make it. But
Speaker 4: I don't have any tools yet, so I don't I
Speaker 4: haven't worked with any AI software or things yet. But
Speaker 4: I think that's just a matter of like probably months
Speaker 4: or weeks, or it's already things out there that I
Speaker 4: think people are using. No, I want to see what
Speaker 4: it's all about.
Speaker 1: You sound completely unafraid about this future. You're kind of
Speaker 1: one of the first people I've talked to that seems
Speaker 1: only optimistic.
Speaker 4: I'm just talking about the music aspect of it. There's
Speaker 4: other problems obviously, think it's going to other consequences, but
Speaker 4: the music aspect of it, I I don't think, at
Speaker 4: least for me, I don't see any threats in computers
Speaker 4: making music. Some people are going to listen to it.
Speaker 4: Something's going to be great. It just it just kind
Speaker 4: of depends on who's who's making it.
Speaker 1: Well before technology changes, how this job is fundamentally done.
Speaker 1: Why don't we celebrate a human fear? Is there a
Speaker 1: track from Oppenheimer that you are most proud of, like
Speaker 1: one that you want people to hear as we leave
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we should probably play the can you hear the music?
Speaker 1: Track?
Speaker 4: And for me that was one that was like a
Speaker 4: breakthrough moment I had on this project. But also in
Speaker 4: a way I have made music in kind of in
Speaker 4: a technical level, but also but also it was like
Speaker 4: kind of like a Eureka moment for me, like on
Speaker 4: a technical level writing a composition that goes faster and
Speaker 4: faster and faster, but after a while, after a couple
Speaker 4: of hours, you don't even the listener and the audience
Speaker 4: doesn't even feel it, and sort think about it. It's
Speaker 4: just it all, it's just an emotion. And then one
Speaker 4: of the important parts of the process was to figure
Speaker 4: out a way how we can get the orchestra to
Speaker 4: perform this in one take, because if you see the charts,
Speaker 4: it's literally like twenty one to ten changes. It goes faster, slower, faster, slower,
Speaker 4: and if you just see it on the page, you're like,
Speaker 4: this is not You're not going to get fort to
Speaker 4: string players who play this in a way where it's
Speaker 4: going to sound good in one take. But we worked
Speaker 4: on this for three days and kind of banging their
Speaker 4: heads against the walls, like how can we get this
Speaker 4: performance right? In the ends, like Sereno, she was like, well,
Speaker 4: these musicians are incredible. She's been playing with them for
Speaker 4: fifteen years. Their like the Hollwood Studio Symphony and they
Speaker 4: this is their job. They sit in the studio and
Speaker 4: played seven hours a day to click to a metronome.
Speaker 4: And we figured out a way to give the musicians
Speaker 4: a click in their head, the temple change, the time
Speaker 4: change in their mind and their heads before it happens
Speaker 4: on the page. And when we gave them that track,
Speaker 4: it just this magic happened. So that's really interesting how
Speaker 4: you combine technology and computers, because this music, you couldn't
Speaker 4: have really written it without computers. But then putting that
Speaker 4: organic element into it with the live string players playing
Speaker 4: an all in one taken organic way gives it so
Speaker 4: much life and makes it timeless and makes it feel
Speaker 4: like it's human.
Speaker 1: I guess we should listen to how that all turned out.
Speaker 1: All right, this is Can you hear the music from
Speaker 1: the film Oppenheimer when you're listening to that? Could you
Speaker 1: have ever imagine that that young, lonely kid playing music
Speaker 1: in the basement would one day create something like that?
Speaker 4: No, I don't, I don't. I don't see that in
Speaker 4: the courts. My dream, sup was to become a member
Speaker 4: of Metallica. That's never there's still time. It's still time. No,
Speaker 4: but it's like it's like my dream was, you know,
Speaker 4: I was. I was streaming about playing my instrument, being
Speaker 4: on stage and playing big crowds, and we've done that,
Speaker 4: you know, we did that with Childish and and then
Speaker 4: I was streaming of being a pop producer and being
Speaker 4: producing music and that happened too. And then I was
Speaker 4: dreaming about being a film composer, and then that happened too.
Speaker 4: And musically, all all those goals and milestones and stones,
Speaker 4: just I guess I was.
Speaker 2: I was lucky.
Speaker 1: I kind of bring up that basement once more as
Speaker 1: we leave, because I've heard that this past summer you
Speaker 1: went back down and to that basement with your mother
Speaker 1: where you were looking for toys for your kids. What
Speaker 1: was that like to go back to that place, not
Speaker 1: for you but for your children.
Speaker 4: It was kind of magical, you know, kind of stepping
Speaker 4: into that at that time was just all the reality
Speaker 4: and now it's a memory. But it was my safe space.
Speaker 4: It was my soothing place, you know, where where I
Speaker 4: felt calm, and that's where I felt most like myself.
Speaker 4: It was a beautiful moment going back there, and everything
Speaker 4: obviously felt super small, So I feel like I was
Speaker 4: a giant now and the limpid land. See all those
Speaker 4: guitars still hanging on the wall, seeing those old tape machines,
Speaker 4: old tape records that I used to use, and how
Speaker 4: they're all still there. And yeah, just thinking about like
Speaker 4: where it's you know, what am we gonna do with
Speaker 4: all this when I get old and I'm my kids
Speaker 4: are gonna do the same thing?
Speaker 1: Like what it?
Speaker 4: It's a lot of also a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: Did you find the high school report or something like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I found a high school report, right, I guess
Speaker 4: you talked. Did you talk to my mom?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I called her up. I called her up right before
Speaker 1: this and now I hadn't doctor. So how do you
Speaker 1: know you said it in an interview? Oh okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that you'd think I called your mother
Speaker 1: before this podcast. It means we've done our job.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I was like, yeah, you really don uh no?
Speaker 4: But I yeah, I found the high school report of
Speaker 4: my five Minutes of Christmas when I wrote about the
Speaker 4: process how I created it, and it's still in my
Speaker 4: in my backpack, Like I don't know why. I like
Speaker 4: I see it laying there, like I know that I
Speaker 4: want to read it, but at the same time, I
Speaker 4: don't want to go back to that kid that I
Speaker 4: was and the way I was thinking about music then,
Speaker 4: because it's it's uh, I feel like it's because like
Speaker 4: I thought I had it all figured out, you know,
Speaker 4: I was like, rite the report about it, this is
Speaker 4: how you make music, And but now I can I
Speaker 4: know now that I didn't know. You know, I didn't
Speaker 4: have it figure it out.
Speaker 1: You've been really putting it off.
Speaker 4: I've been really putting that off. Maybe I know it's
Speaker 4: who's going to bring back like a lot of memories
Speaker 4: and emotions, and I just need to find the right
Speaker 4: space to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, whenever that is, I'm excited for you to revisit
Speaker 1: that past self. But until then, I want to look
Speaker 1: ahead a little bit because one of the other main
Speaker 1: components of a Nolan movie is time, how we use it,
Speaker 1: how we try to bend it to our will, how
Speaker 1: we regard time that has passed or time that has
Speaker 1: yet to come. But time is also something I think
Speaker 1: you've long been preoccupied by, well before you began working
Speaker 1: with Nolan on Tenant, Because isn't it true that when
Speaker 1: you left for America at age twenty two, landing here
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, enrolled at USC Did you map out
Speaker 1: how you wanted your career to go?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like I've always had like I always
Speaker 4: had the five year plan, a tenure plan, and like
Speaker 4: I always know where I'm going to be the next
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know how that's where that comes from,
Speaker 4: but it's always been kind of milestones in my mind
Speaker 4: about where I want to be and what I want
Speaker 4: to do. And I guess is some kind of magic.
Speaker 4: You create your own future.
Speaker 1: Your mother said when you moved here, here were the
Speaker 1: big three things. Get a job as an assistant one
Speaker 1: year after graduation, score your own projects after three years,
Speaker 1: win an Academy award within twelve years. Sometimes, she said,
Speaker 1: he's much faster than what he planned the all times reality,
Speaker 1: I guess, but yeah, that's interesting. Well, now that you're
Speaker 1: back home and you're sitting with this past year and
Speaker 1: thinking about what's to come, what do you want down
Speaker 1: the line?
Speaker 4: I think right now, I'm just I know how I work.
Speaker 4: I know what makes me happy. I know what type
Speaker 4: of process makes me happy, what kind of collaborators makes
Speaker 4: me happy. And if I can get that and have
Speaker 4: the time to enjoy with my family as well. I
Speaker 4: think that's the only thing that I mean, I'm asking
Speaker 4: for a lot, but I'm not sure how I'm going
Speaker 4: to do it, but I think I know a way,
Speaker 4: and I feel like every day I'm I'm getting closer
Speaker 4: to the answers of all those questions you have and
Speaker 4: also all those questions I had and feelings that I
Speaker 4: didn't even think about as a kid. And it's like
Speaker 4: I'm trying to trying to like going back into those
Speaker 4: times and understanding it now. And I realized how important
Speaker 4: that is from like a musical clarity of it. I'm
Speaker 4: probably more excited than I ever been to to kind
Speaker 4: of step back into it and discover new paths and
Speaker 4: new ways and new worlds. And that's also why I
Speaker 4: wanted to take a little time off and to really
Speaker 4: get back into the that space again.
Speaker 1: Well, the first thing you said when we sat down
Speaker 1: was I'm afraid to cut my long hair because it
Speaker 1: may make me a different person. I may be someone new.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, after having sat here with
Speaker 1: you for this last hour, I kind of think you
Speaker 1: don't need to cut your hair to become a different person.
Speaker 1: Feel like it's already happening. Right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, thank you. Yeah, I'll keep it.
Speaker 1: If not for me, then then for Ryan Coogler. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, and whatever person you end up becoming and
Speaker 1: whatever you make because of it, I am so looking
Speaker 1: forward to it, and I just want to thank you
Speaker 1: on a personal level for making so much of the
Speaker 1: music that was kind of a soundtrack to my formative
Speaker 1: high school college years, without which I don't think I
Speaker 1: would be the strange other long haired person sitting in
Speaker 1: this zoom call.
Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate that, and we should meet up some
Speaker 4: time in real life and be that's too strange white
Speaker 4: guys with long hair sitting in the back of the
Speaker 4: coffee shop.
Speaker 1: I look forward to Ludwig enjoy the rest of the summer.
Speaker 4: You too, Sam. It was a great time talking to you,
Speaker 4: and I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Until next time, and that's our show.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us
Speaker 1: five stars on Spotify and Apple wherever you do your listening.
Speaker 1: I want to give us special thanks to the teams
Speaker 1: at Online Voices in Stockholm, the Academy Library here in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, IDPR Universal, and of course our guest today
Speaker 1: Ludvig Gorenson. To learn more about the works discussed in
Speaker 1: this episode, visit our show notes at talk easypod dot
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Speaker 1: Wesley Morris, Hero, Maria sd Him and Willin Dafone to
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Speaker 2: Like to listen.
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Speaker 1: a special thanks to our team. Talk easy is produced
Speaker 1: by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Genick Sabravo. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by
Speaker 1: Caitlin Dryden and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our music is
Speaker 1: by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Tricia Chenoy. Our
Speaker 1: graphics are by Ethan Seneca. I also want to give
Speaker 1: a special thanks to our team at Pushkin Industries, justin Richmond,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Johnsnars, Kerrie Brody, Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Chornament Millan,
Speaker 1: Tara Machado, Justin Lang's, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Gretacon, and
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberd. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week with
Speaker 1: a new episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.