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You recently scored the movie Coyote
- in a few words, what is the movie about, and what's your score like?
Coyote
is about a mentally ill man who day by day slips further down
the rabbit hole to madness. I TRIED to capture that feeling as best
as I could through the music, so that the audio matches Bill's descent
into darkness. What
were your inspirations when writing the score for Coyote,
and to what extent were you inspired by the movie directly? And asking
this, had you even seen the rough cut of the movie berefore writing your
score? My main inspiration was the movie itself.
Trevor Juenger [Trevor
Juenger interview - click here] was a huge help in that regard, sending me scenes as he was editing
them, so I had those to work with. I started writing the score
before he had finished with a rough cut though. I should also
mention that Trevor had sent me the script long before filming started, so
I already had a good idea what the movie was going to entail. I
wasn't able to be present on set much, but I did record all of Bill Oberst
jr's
voice over (Bill was excellent to work with by the way. A consummate
professional, and a sweet man as well) [Bill
Oberst jr interview - click here].
Do you approach scoring a movie any differently
from writing a standalone tune? Absolutely. When
making my solo project music, it's all about ME ME ME. When doing
the music for a film, I had to realize that it's not just about ME, it's
about the FILM, and how to best complement what is visually happening in
the movie. So that means restraining myself sometimes haha...
How did you get hooked
up with the project to begin with, and what can you tell us about your
collaboration with Coyote's
director Trevor Juenger [Trevor
Juenger interview - click here]? And how did the two of you first
meet even? Such an odd thing... totally happened by
chance too... I was living in St. Louis at the time, and was in a
local shop, and Trevor & Carrie were also there. I'm PRETTY sure
one of us complimented another one of us (don't remember who) on a T-shirt
one of us was wearing. We struck up a conversation, and it came out
that I was a musician. They became fans, and we became friends!
It still blows my mind that a chance encounter led to what it did.
Working with Trevor was easy. We understand each others
sensibilities well, which makes our working relationship fairly smooth.
Hopefully he'd say the same about me hahaha. What can you tell us about your time in the
studio scoring Coyote as
such?
I can tell you that I went half mad working on it...
just kidding... sort of. It was a challenge. Probably my
biggest musical challenge to date. My experience scoring a feature
was ZERO. My only experience composing music for video was 2 short
films previous, both under 10 minutes, so going from that to a 70
something minute FEATURE was intimidating to say the least.
Based on your experience with Coyote,
will you ever score another movie - and/or other future projects of yours? Well
that depends. I certainly would LOVE to... It's just up to the
other directors in the film world I suppose, and if I ever get contacted
to do that for someone else. As of now, I work a typical,
unfulfilling 9-5 sort of job, but I would much rather be making my money
from composing... that's my dream I guess you could say.
Hopefully it isn't a "pipe-dream". With any luck, Coyote
will get the recognition it deserves, and with that, if I'm lucky,
maybe a couple gigs will come of it for me. If not, I can still look
back at Coyote and be proud of it. What
got you into making music to begin with, and did you receive any formal
education on the subject? Ever since I was a wee lad I was
a music lover. I started playing the snare drum in 6th grade, but
that was the only "formal" music education I got (wasn't much).
Then in 7th grade, my parents got me an electric guitar for christmas.
That was when it REALLY began for me. I taught myself how to play,
other than getting some very important tips from my stepbrother Matt
(https://m.soundcloud.com/matt-sonnicksen/tracks).
Over 2 brief lessons he taught me about the power chord, the pentatonic
scale, and how to read tablature... That was enough to get me
playing to all my favorite albums of the day (Sabbath, Metallica,
Misfits). I was in a few bands in high school, but eventually moved
on to electronic music, which has been my primary output since probably
2001. Taught myself that as well, as I didn't know anyone else who made
electronic music, and that was before the YouTube days.
As far as I know, you have had
some experiences scoring movies prior to Coyote
- so do talk about those for a bit!
The only experience I had scoring movies was this:
http://vimeo.com/33646118
Crabs in a Dollhouse was my 1st collaboration with Trevor
& Carrie Juenger. I had about 5 days to pull the music together
(pressure!) but it came out beautifully in my opinion. Also, on the Coyote
DVD special features, I scored the silent short film Trash
Man (I was also the lead actor but please don't hold that against me
;) ).
You apparently have
to talk about your project H.P. Sneakstep, and what's your music like? Well,
I take influence from all sorts of styles. Industrial, drum and
bass, techno, house, braindance, IDM, funk, African bush music, footwork,
metal, and most everything else. All my releases as H.P. Sneakstep are
too varied to pigeonhole. I try and write music that makes both your
ass AND your brain cells dance. Any
other musical projects of yours you'd like to talk about? I
have a couple aliases in the underground electronic scene but I don't want
to out myself just yet. I have a feeling people wouldn't believe me
anyway considering I've never told anyone and one of the projects has
quite a following now... :) How
would you describe yourself as a musician? Not sure how to
answer this... insecure? Haha... Musicians
have inspire you?
Goddddd so many. I love so many styles of music, but it
doesn't always show in my musical output. I guess I will make a
list... in no particular order: Aphex Twin, The Misfits (nothing post Danzig era though that
should be obvious...), Dopplereffekt,
Pantera,
Ceephax Acid Krew,
Venetian Snares,
Igorrr,
Sound Tribe Sector 9,
Hank Williams sr,
Skinny Puppy,
Grateful Dead,
Squarepusher,
Shpongle,
Mitch Murder,
EOD,
Machinedrum,
DMX Krew,
Luke Vibert,
Type O Negative,
Wisp... the list goes on... I could list MANY more.
And since this is a film site, your
favourite movies? Another list for ya:
Gummo, The Thing, Slither, the Evil Dead-trilogy,
pretty much every Lynch film (Mulholland Drive probably is my fave), Brain Damage,
lots of Cronenberg, lots of Tarantino, Coyote
;) ... and of course, films you really
deplored?
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Just about anything Michael Bay-related, romantic comedies,
Lords of Salem, American Beauty. Your website, Facebook, whatever else?
Well, I don't have a proper website (if anyone wants to help me in that
regard please email me - I don't expect you to work for free but
obviously I won't have a huge budget for the site).
https://www.facebook.com/sneakstep
https://soundcloud.com/sneaksta303/
http://www.karakasamusic.com/2011/04/hp-sneakstep.html
https://hpsneakstep.bandcamp.com/
Anything
else you are dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I'm
available to score films! Directors who want an original score,
contact me! Tanks
for the interview! No, thank YOU!
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