Danny Elfman: The Chili Pepper Thing
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I was weirdly nervous prepping and reading and getting ready to interview you. I don't know what that means. I can't hurt you through the Zoom screen. Just remember that. Welcome. Hello. This is literally, you've come to the right place. It's literally with me. I literally am Rob Lowe. Danny Elfman occupies such a big place in my life.

musical fandom, you know, both in terms of Wingo Boingo and all of the amazing scores that he has done. He's done every single Tim Burton movie, The Simpsons, The Grinch, all the Fifty Shades of Grey movies, Milk, all the Sam Raimi movies. I mean, my man, amazingly, amazingly talented. I've always wanted to pick his brain. And frankly, I've always been a little afraid of what might be in his brain. But we're going to find out right now.

With Danny Elfman. You've been a big part of my musical life, not just the scores, but going back to when you were a rock and roll star. When I did my first movie, The Outsiders, when we did the rumble scene, there was a lot of Dead Man's Party being played.

Oh, I would never have guessed that. There was a lot of Oingo Boingo being played. And am I remembering correctly that oftentimes, do you remember a venue deep in the valley called the Country Club? Oh, yeah, sure. I remember that. You guys played the Country Club, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Quite a few times.

Yeah, we used to bounce kind of between like four or five clubs almost every weekend. It was a great era starting up in a band because you had the Whiskey, a go-go, of course, and the Roxy. And then you had Madam Wong's East and Madam Wong's West in Chinatown and in West L.A. Then you had the Country Club in the Valley.

And, uh, oh God, there's a place I'm trying to remember that was down in like Redondo beach. Yes. And between these, it kind of like created this loop. We would be going into the whiskey or the Roxy and the next weekend, the go-go's or somebody would be coming in and we'd leave notes for them, you know, because there was like a half a dozen of us bands that were, it just seemed like we were playing one of those clubs every weekend X the

The Go-Go's. Yeah, and those were the clubs I went to. So it was the Go-Go's. Let's figure out who it was because that was such a great era. For sure, when I think of it, I think of you guys and the Go-Go's. For sure, that's that era. A band called X was my personal favorite. And I used to, we'd be playing at Madam Wong's Chinatown and they'd be playing at the Hong Kong Cafe just around the block. And on my breaks at Madam Wong's, I'd run over and listen to part of their set.

uh, over at the Hong Kong cafe. And, uh, so we had X, there was a band called wall of voodoo, um, a band called fear, um, Las Lobos, I believe was starting to, I mean, those are iconic, iconic, iconic, insane bands. It was, it was a very diverse group. I have to say, you know, if you looked at the go-go's Oingo Boingo X wall of voodoo and fear or black flag, um, you know, you'd go, uh,

Wow. These bands have nothing in common. And yet you've got a lot of the same audience circulating between all of them. And I remember once somebody was writing about how X and Oingo Boingo, you know, like completely different audiences. And I always knew they were the same kids. And finally, we did a show together in Tijuana.

We co-headlined and of course it was all the same audience and the same kids. And it was a great show. And then the very beginning, the end of our period with Oingo Boingo, when we were playing Universal Amphitheater,

My favorite band that we used to have open for us constantly was the Chili Peppers, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Amazing. And so I was really trying to like bring them into our audience, but it was before they became famous and they used to get booed every night, but it didn't matter. I just like, I would like go out there and personally introduce them because it was like, no, no, you got to understand this band is,

is amazing. And, uh, but you know how it is with audiences. It's like, if they don't know another band, they just don't want to, they just want to see you. Um, and I knew that in a couple of years, they would all be going to every chili pepper show and, and love them. It's funny. It's funny. You say that because you know how you have a memory of something and time goes by and,

And the event you're remembering is so incredible that you think, maybe I didn't see that. Or maybe that didn't happen. Because I have vivid memories of going to see the Rolling Stones in the Coliseum in 1980... In the early 80s. And Prince coming on and getting booed off the stage. Like, literally, they were throwing trash at him. It's the same thing. So it's the Chili Peppers thing. Yeah, it's the Chili Peppers thing. Now, of course...

probably a little bit later, somewhere down the line, all those same people were buying all of Prince's records and like going, oh my God, this guy's a genius. But one year later, literally one year later, one year later. So it's kind of the same thing. And fortunately the chili peppers were tough, so they didn't really care. You know, they just go out there and do their thing. And we used to actually, um, hire, uh, uh,

There was earlier incarnations of the Chili Peppers. One of them was called Anthem and another band. So they used to play with us before they were the Chili Peppers. They were Anthem? I remember Anthem. That was the Chili Peppers? Pre-Chili Peppers, but that was Flea. Oh, wow. And I think Anthony. And I can't, you know, my memory of those days is beyond poor. But when you talk about recollections and wondering if they're real...

No shit. It's like, you know, how much of my memories are acquired memories? And,

And, uh, you know, when I was 18, I spent a year traveling in West Africa and my friend who I went out out there with, I've recently been calling him trying to spend some time together because I want to compare my memories with his. I don't know how many of my early memories at 18 years old traveling through Africa, how many of them are really my memories or maybe part of them are his experiences that I've acquired in my memory bank. Cause I,

evidently we do that. Well, and what I love then is when, like what happened to me the other day, I stumbled on YouTube on a documentary about that Prince appearance. And indeed, he was booed. They threw apples at him. It was a thing. They interviewed Mick. And Mick, like you, was saying, we loved him. We could not understand. And it was so painful for him that he quit the tour. And we had to talk him into coming back

Um, and completing the tour. So I'm like, oh, that is a real memory. That's, that is actually, that's a real memory. And that probably the difference between Prince and the Chili Peppers is that Prince was, uh, sensitive and was hurt by the experience. Um,

And the chili peppers were just like, what the fuck? It's like we get out there and we play. And, you know, if we get negative energy, that's fine too. You know, they just seem to absorb it and like not care at all. They were just wired differently. Like myself, which I understand, you know, some people thrive on negative energy and it kind of fuels them on. So that I've, I've read quotes where you talk about early in your life,

um, career as a composer, the elite snobs in the composing world, like who is this rock dilettante? Well, it's understandable. I mean, I got a lot of negativity and, uh, in hindsight, it's the best thing that could have happened to me, but you know, the fact that I was hated so much and, and I get it, I came from nowhere and, uh, you know, composers tend to be very, uh,

to themselves that you have to go, you have to get trained to be a composer and I get it. And look, I do the same thing when I hear about somebody from a rock band coming into orchestral film scoring, I do the same thing that they used to do to me. I go, oh yeah, bullshit. Yeah.

And so I get it, but it couldn't have worked out better because that energy became my fuel for a decade and got me through like my first 25 films until I got my, myself, like my feet firmly on the ground. I was coasting on that negative energy because Oingo Boingo used to get that. And before Oingo Boingo, I had this theater troupe called the Mystic Knights and we used to get the worst reviews ever.

And I used to publish them in our ads. I'd pick the worst reviews and I would like put quotes from them in our own advertising. There's something about that. I do the same. Like I remember and I'm happy to quote.

My worst reviews. They make me laugh. And in fact, the use of the word debacle, which I have, it was the first time I ever heard the word debacle was when I ran to news, when I ran to Newsweek, knowing they were reviewing my movie class. And I went to the table of contents to see if indeed it was in this issue, which I heard it would be. And sure enough, it was, it said class, a vile debacle. And I was like, oh, great. A vile debacle.

Oh, wow. And I didn't know what the word debacle meant. I do now. Yeah, that's a nice one. I remember crazy stuff like a dance band for kids who can't dance. That was in the LA Times. It's the same with critics in every country.

They, you know, whether it's classical music, rock bands, film, theater, you know, they're going to have their pets and those who represent everything that's good about what they like to write about and those who can do no right. So it's always been that way. It's always going to be that way. It's, you know, it's the way it is. I turned some people on to Oingo Boingo a couple of weeks ago.

And I was playing little girls for them. I mean, I know that you get asked about that song all the time. The lyrics are, well, they're obviously really, really dark. You know, it's like I was writing about Jeffrey Epstein before I knew who Jeffrey Epstein was really is kind of what it comes down to. Right. I mean, it's what I did back then is I wrote third person, meaning I dropped into characters. Yeah.

And made fun of them from that third person perspective. And I did that a lot because it's interesting that a lot of people thought I was also really right wing because, you know, I wrote a song about middle class socialist brats. So no, I was the middle class socialist brat that I was singing about.

And likewise with, you know, little girls, it was like, I'm writing from the standpoint, the viewpoint of a despicable character. People don't really understand that, you know? So I've tried to, because later I was asked, oh, aren't you ashamed of writing little girls? The lyrics I go, no, not at all. I'd still stand by it. It's like, he's a, that character is a terrible guy. That's the whole point. It's like Randy Newman with short people. To this day, he has to, he has to explain that song.

Yeah, exactly. Some people kind of have a hard time kind of understanding that or they're not really looking at the lyrics. I think has a lot to do with it. They're kind of listening to the vibe, but they're not really looking at what the lyrics are about. Because if you read the lyrics to Little Girls, it's pretty obviously, I don't like that character. Yes. And only a lad, you know, perhaps if we're nice, he'll go away. You know, that's like...

that sort of sentiment of letting somebody run amok and just being afraid to stand up to them. Well, true. But at the same time, it's like, it's kind of,

It's kind of a hardcore attitude, one that is not very empathetic. Let's just put it that way. That's right. Yes. Yes. And then I didn't really realize that it was ska influenced because I, you know, I didn't know musical genres. I just knew what I liked. Well, yeah, the very beginning. And then it just kind of the ska thing got lost in there. But like our first stuff was.

Um, you know, I was really influenced by the specials and selector and madness and those groups. And so, uh, another early song of ours, which I think got recorded called violent love. And, uh, a lot of that stuff had that really kind of fast, upbeat ska thing going. So it was kind of like.

between, you know, I don't know how to describe early Boingo. I mean, look, we never knew what we were. And that was one of the frustrating things. I never knew what we were and we never could figure it out. And I finally, at a certain point in my life, stopped trying to figure it out. This can't be true. Your early musical career in your school, elementary school, were not satisfactory? Yeah, totally.

Totally bombed out. In elementary school, I tried to audition for the orchestra with trombone, I think. And I know that my mother was told I had no propensity for music, was the phrase that the music teacher used. And then as a teenager, I tried twice. I tried taking piano lessons and violin lessons, and I bombed out both times. I could not play in front of a teacher. It's like, I can go home and practice scales, but

And I remember coming in once and, uh, I was doing the, my scales and my teacher asked, where are you on the page? Cause I was trying to read music. And I said, and I had to admit, I had no idea. I just memorized it, but really trying to play simple things in front of a music teacher. I'd be sweating playing an instrument in front of people is really hard. You know, when I, when I got Peewee's big adventure in 85, uh,

I had to play The Breakfast Machine, which was like the kind of the main piece I'd written for them in the main titles for the producers. And it's pretty simple music for the piano. Right. And.

I don't know if you remember a movie called Shine with Jeffrey Rush. Yes, of course. And he's playing Rachmaninoff and he has his mental breakdown. And me playing Pee Wee's Big Adventure was like trying to play Rachmaninoff. It was like sweats pouring down onto the keys. And it's just, if I have somebody watching me play, forget it. I cannot do it. Now, I can play...

guitar or whatever in front of a bigger audience. I can sing in front of a thousand people, but I can't sing in front of one. Does that make sense? Yep, 100%. I can do a one-man show in front of an auditorium, but I am sick to my stomach to make a toast at a table of 10. There you go, exactly. I had to get a speech. I got a prize from the Lifetime Achievement Award from

film festival and i was backstage and who's standing next to me but clint eastwood and i'm like oh my god it's clint eastwood and we're talking and he's like yeah danny i really like your music and i'm listening and i'm like oh my god i'm having the best time it's finally it's time for me to go on and i have this prepared speech and i'm like so i just uh i just want it uh i just want oh crap i

I've become Clint Eastwood. It's easy to do, right? I've lost my voice. Yeah. My voice just disappeared. I just couldn't do it. And I didn't want to seem like I was doing a bad Clint Eastwood impersonation, but without losing my voice, I kind of sounded like that. And it was like, oh, this is awkward.

You must have seen the Kubrick movie Eyes Wide Shut, right? Yeah. Like that score is mental. It's literally one note over and over and over. Right? It's a composer named Ligeti. Oh, okay. And this is a very, very minimalist piece. And I remember Tim Burton talking about the same piece of music saying,

It's driving me crazy. Oh my God. It was driving him nuts. And, uh, I love that, but, uh, it's just a very specific thing where you got done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done,

If you're not really understanding minimalism in that sense, it could be also very aggravating. Well, it's like John Carpenter, who also will, from time to time, the Halloween theme, one of the great. Well, but that's a classic. It's a classic. No, it's an amazing, amazing theme, but like super, super, super, super simple. And then his theme to The Thing. Well, actually, no, no. The Thing was more Coney.

Was the thing Morricone? No way. Yeah, the thing was Morricone. It's one of my favorite Morricone scores. And I've paid homage to that score a number of times, actually, because it's one of my favorites. But you're right, he did write the theme to Halloween. And it isn't even just so much that the theme is really great, but the sound of it is really great. And in Early Oingo Boingo, I remember listening to that and getting that tick, tick,

He got this very great sound, which at that time was hard to get. We didn't have the samples and synthesizers that we have today. And getting that tick, tick, tick,

I loved that sound. And I spent hours trying to kind of figure that out and how to get that kind of sound going for some of my songs. So you've actually just thrown out two pieces that are big motivating pieces for me, by the way, because I spent hours trying to figure

pick apart the theme to Halloween and figure out how it was played and what was making the sounds. It was just synthesizers, but done in a very cool way. And Morricone's theme to the theme with this bass and these chords on this organ kind of playing this descending scale. It's so effective. And yeah, it's just one of those things that

Nailed it. Nailed it. And very simple, but perfect. And I've also studied that score and paid homage to both of these things. So well done, sir. Well, thank you. I'm feeling very puffed up right at the moment here. But, you know, movie scores, I mean, it's such an amazing world because like we've just talked about two of the most spare movies

simple scores in the world and then there are the big lush complexes which you've also done you know tremendously orally active and have you ever written something what's hard because you you start what you're watching a scene but i'm thinking as a as a director like i've thought about a piece of music oh this is going to be great under that sequence

And then you put it into the sequence and it's awful. And you're like, wait a minute. What, how can that possibly be? And that's just, it's an unknowable, right? Until you actually just, you just don't know until you see it to picture. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And I have a tendency as opposed to being a minimalist that I, as much as I love that to be a maximalist, although I try to, you know, compose lean, uh, when I can, when I, when I'm allowed to, but you know, I don't get to do that very often, but on my own, I tend to write, you know, I, I've had a couple of people joke on scores that, um,

If you were getting paid by the note, you'd be a very rich man. I go, yeah, I understand. You know, it's like, that's what I should put in my contract. Just a dollar a note. That's all. Is it Frank Zappa who apparently has wrote some piece of music that has so many notes on it that the page is black? Have you ever heard that one? I haven't heard that story, but, um, I've seen some pretty crazy scores to modern music. Um,

you know, growing up in high school. I mean, look, the only reason I got into music was that I dropped into a new high school and my parents moved between middle school and high school and new friends I made were very musical. It had never even occurred to me to get into music, but one of my earliest friends already was like an avant-garde composer by the time, you know, he was in like the

Wow. 10th, 11th grade. And he was writing these scores with big graphic symbols and black lines. And he was doing that way back in the gazillion years ago era when I started out at Uni High. Uni! I'm Samohai. So I know you guys. You're Samohai. Okay. I know you Uni guys. ♪

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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount. Terms and conditions apply. Did you read music early on? Did you ever learn? I've tried. I write music.

And so when I started writing, which was for, uh, the mystic nights, uh, the Oingo Boingo before Oingo Boingo, I started writing down transcriptions, a big band pieces. Cause we did a lot of early thirties music. I was obsessed with Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. And I did teach myself to listen and write down to transcribe the music.

So then when it came down to doing Pee Wee's Big Adventure, I was writing the music down, but I can't read faster than I write because I learned to write before I learned to read. And people go, musicians go, that's not possible. I go, of course it's possible.

Imagine you're illiterate and you're a storyteller and you finally get to the point where I got to write this story down. It's just too long to just remember the whole thing. And you pick up a typewriter and you teach yourself the alphabet and you slowly type your story. Well, you can get to the point where, oh, after a year or two or three of this, I can type a novel if I take my time because you're typing one letter at a time. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

But that person may not be able to read faster than they write. So they may read this fast. And that's me. I never really learned to read faster than I can write. Writing is rather slow, but I've tried a hundred times. And I mean, I've always felt that I've got some missing circuitry.

And it's applied to learning languages of which I've never been able to retain any other languages. As hard as I've tried, nothing stays. And with music, learning music. And I tried learning the theory and everything. And it's like, I have it for a second. And then a month later, it's all gone. I think that's just me, my circuitry. It's almost like

The way I see it, there's a part of my brain that just isn't there that should be able to do things that other people find very easy. Yep. And learning languages, learning to read music. You know, I have a friend who speaks five languages and it's like, I'm so amazed by that. Yeah. The fuck? And it's like, I could never even learn Spanish. And I live in Los Angeles and I've tried. How are you with math?

I was okay. I wasn't great, but I wasn't terrible. So math, I think I was kind of medium. You know, they always say musicians are so good at math. Well, not in my case. But I wasn't terrible at math. But, you know, I think I was what you'd call like a B student. I made the mistake of having my IQ tested. Terrible. Please, I beg of you. No. Don't ever. It was the worst thing I ever did.

No, I'm not even curious. I have no doubt I would score low. I was so low on the chart that I was like, I don't even know what the correct word would be. And, but like, I was like almost like a non-functioning human being. And then, and then on the other side of it, on the communicating, reading, reading comprehension, I was equally, but off the charts on that one.

So it was, I was, I'm literally like half a person. Yeah. I, I'm totally with you there. I get it. It's like, I could remember inner voicings of scores that I wrote 10 years ago on a big, long, a dense score. But on the other hand, I can't do real basic, simple stuff. And, and one thing also, I have no memory for words. Yeah.

trying to remember lines. I could never be an actor. I knew that really early on. It's like, it's never going to fucking happen. Just because of memory? Just because literally you couldn't? Oh, yeah, yeah. And the more I try, the worse it gets. Look, I had this terrible experience once. I'll tell you like one of the worst experiences of my life. Sam Raimi, the director. Oh, yeah. He's shooting a movie called The Gift. He wants me to play this part of a Cajun fiddler in a swamp.

And he says, Danny, can you like grab a violin and run down to wherever we're working in, uh, in Georgia and, uh, and do this scene. And I go, ah, all right, Sam. Sure. Whatever. I'll do that. And I, I was actually in New York at the time. I didn't have my violin, any violin. So I just grabbed the cheap one from a store. I learned a little piece in like Cajun style where you're holding it down low and I flew out and joined him.

And I get to the set and he goes, okay, we shoot tomorrow. Now I'm going to give you a dialogue coach to work with you. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean dialogue? He goes, oh, didn't I tell you, you have some lines. I go, oh no, Sam, don't do this to me. And I have about, you know, like, I don't know, like five or six lines, you know, it's not that much. And I have to do them in dialect. Yeah.

And I got this dialect coach and the dialect makes no sense to me because it's not like a Southern dialect. Like I'm like one is used to hearing if one is doing a Southern dialect, it's, it's very weird. And I stayed up late at night and trying to learn this dialect and learn these lines. And I finally, they put this big beard on me and they put me in this water and I got my fiddle and, um,

I'm trying to do these lines and all the actors are sitting around kind of looking at me and, oh my God, it, it was the worst. And the more I did the lines, the more I started to blow them. And the more I started to blow them, the worse I got. And eventually I could just see the actress, they're shaking their heads like,

couldn't they just get a fucking actor come in here and do this thing you know this this thing should be taking 10 minutes and we've been here for 45 minutes and we're all waiting to get back on the set and it more than any time i could ever remember was my beam me up scotty moment because i was just i'm sitting there in the sun with all this makeup with this beard and a

Trying to play live fiddle and then do this lines and I'm just getting worse and worse and worse. And, oh, it was such a clear indicator to me that,

I was not meant to be doing this shit. It's like, uh, I don't know how you get in front of a camera and just stay calm and do lines, but it's one of the great mysteries of life for me because it's like, if a camera's rolling, if it's on at that moment, it's like, I can't even do promos, you know, like,

Coming up live concert, uh, you know, get your ticket set, you know, do like four line promos. I start blowing those. I'm completely the opposite. Like I I'm, I'm a big golfer and if I'm fucking up my golf game or there's money on the line, I will actually secretly, they don't know why I'm doing it, but I'll ask somebody to videotape my swing. Just having a camera on me in any capacity, uh,

Makes me elevate. And this was Cate Blanchett, by the way. Oh my God. And so Cate Blanchett is across from me, prompting me with my lines, and I'm going, I'm just fucking dissolving into a puddle of goo in front of Cate Blanchett and all the other actors who are off to my side. Oh, man.

I I'll never forgive Sam. And in fact, I'm going to see him tomorrow. I'm going to fucking hit him. I hit him and hit him and tell him I said, hello. I, I, I haven't seen him in years, but I, you did one of my, probably my favorite Sam Raimi movie, which is a simple plan. Oh yeah. Simple plan. That was so much fun. I really had a blast on that. And that's where I met my wife.

That's where you met Bridget. I met her on that set. Of course. I never put it together, but of course. Well, I mean, it's funny because we didn't really talk, but we just met. So I came onto the set and they're in between lines and Bill Paxton and Bridget are on this kind of phony porch, you know, on a stage. And.

And, um, Sam introduces me and they're both kind of like waving, but Bill Paxton, he's so like, he kind of gets in front of Bridget and he says, Hey Danny. And he's like running this conversation. He's like, God damn. I love Duengo, Boingo. God, you should have seen the days I used to go to the country club. I got, you'd be there with a red hair. God, it was so gregarious. You know, you know, Bill was like a really gregarious, friendly guy. Yeah. And, uh, God bless him. And, uh,

And Bridget's very shy. So, but you know, we said hello and it wasn't until five years later at a party where she's like sitting there knowing nobody. And I didn't really know anybody. And she goes, oh, I know him. I saw him on that set. And she came up and says, hi, remember me? It's Bridget. And we started talking. Oh, okay.

Do you know that I'm an honorary fonda? Are you aware of this? I'm totally not aware of this. Yes, and I take my responsibility totally seriously. Bridget's father, Peter, deigned me an honorary fonda because he said, you remind me of my dad.

And so when I hear that, I'm taking it and running with it and I'm putting it on all of my business cards. Sweet. Honorary Fonda. Nice. Yeah, I like that. It goes along with also being an honorary Baldwin, which I also am, but that's not as cool. I don't want to, look, I don't want to cast aspersions in the Baldwin family. They're both pretty damn cool. You're an honorary Baldwin and an honorary Fonda. And you can kind of see it when you think about it. I mean, it's not like totally far-fetched.

How many people can say that? I don't think so many. Exactly. All set for your flight? Yep, I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm gonna leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

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It's time to get retro with Ashley. Shop more Labor Day deals in-store and online. Subject to credit approval. Minimum monthly payments required. No minimum purchase required. See ashley.com for details. I want to know the scoring session where somebody called you Mozart and you fired them.

Oh my God. That was a rough moment. Okay. It's my fifth film. Cause I remember Tim's films was my first, fifth, 10th and 15th. Um, and Tim would go, how come you're doing four films in between each of mine? And I'd say, I have to, I'm trying to learn how to score. And, uh, but I was on my second Tim Burton film, Beetlejuice. And, um,

We're looking for a conductor because I definitely don't conduct, still don't conduct, will never conduct because that's its own talent, right?

And, um, which I want you to, by the way, which I want you, I want you to explain to me because to the uninitiated like me, it looks like a guy waving a stick. Exactly. And to some composers because of their ego, they want to be that guy waving the stick because you're kind of the leader, the director, but it is a skill. And, uh, on a film session, uh,

The musicians aren't following the stick so much as getting quick information to guide them and lead them on. So the conductor, uh,

The best way I can explain it is, for example, I use this guy named Pete Anthony for about 50 scores here in Los Angeles. And he can look at 25 staves of music simultaneously and hear them all in his head at the same moment. And what makes a good conductor is you finish a passage, two musicians raise their hand and they'll go, in bar 147, I hear an E flat coming from the second violins, but I have an E natural on my clarinet. Is that correct?

And it's like, for me, I'm on the other side of the glass and I'm following, I'm going to go, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, where am I? And I'm trying to catch up with the moment. And he just looks in three seconds. He goes, yes, can you please change that to a natural? The E flat is coming from the second violins. And that's correct. So it's looking for typos, looking for mistakes, because when you have a 90 minutes of music and it's going out to 85 musicians, you have a lot of music being copied. There's going to be a hundred mistakes and

And, um, the conductor is absolutely essential to like really sift through it live on the spot and get quick, quick, quick, quick, quick answers. Move it along, move it along, move it along. That's what a conductor does in film music. And there are some composers that are also very good conductors. John Williams is the most famous. He's an excellent conductor. Aside from film music, he can conduct music.

And, um, I think there are composers, I believe Alan Silvestri and, uh, Alexandre Desplat, you know, they, they like conducting and they're good conductors. But according to the musicians, when I talk with them, there are also a number of composers out there that should not be conducting. Amazing. And it really impedes their progress because they're

They're not making things go quickly. They're doing it because they love it. Now for me, I want to be on the other side of the glass. I do not want to be in front of the orchestra. I want to hear the music playing through speakers because that's how film music is played. It's not for a live concert. It's for a film. You're going to listen through speakers and I'm making judgment calls about balances, not based how it sounds in the room, but how it sounds through the sound system.

And that's essential for me because I'm making a hundred adjustments while we're playing and notes based on how it sounds in the control room through the speakers. If you walk into the live room, everything sounds great. It's like a magical thing. You walk in the room and you've got the acoustics and everything's very live. And it's like, wow, this sounds so great. You get on the other side of the glass through the speakers. It's much more clinical. It's, uh,

It's drier. You hear everything closer to you because you're hearing what all the microphones are picking up in the back of the room. You're hearing stuff that you don't hear so well in the room because it's blending with everything. And so...

Wow. Talk about making a short story long. No, that was fascinating. You kidding me? I'm so sorry. It's like, yeah. No, this is like you remind me what tangent. No, no. This is why I do podcasts. Okay. So here's what it all comes down to. It's my fifth score and we're going, oh, we need a conductor. Danny, is there anybody you'd like? I go, no, I don't really have any conductors at that point that I work with.

And they said, oh, let's give him Lionel, Lionel Newman. Famous, right? I mean, Lionel Newman. Famous. Famous. Lionel Newman. And the whole family of Newman's is insanely musical. Alfred Newman wrote about 100 film scores, amazing scores. Lionel Newman was a conductor and musical director. And he also had his name on a gazillion scores as musical director.

And or conductor. And then of course you've got Thomas Newman and, uh, David Newman, you know, both related to the same family and Randy Newman, uh, who I think is a little more distantly. I don't know quite how it works out, but they're all related to the same Newman lineage, incredible musical family. And so I go, wow, that'd be insane. Lionel Newman. So, uh,

At this point, I'm the new kid on the block. I'm this punk. And Lionel Newman is like this hero, this god. He comes in there for the first day to do Beetlejuice. And it's just a terrible mismatch. He does not understand this score. And so he's like, he's used to being in charge and running it. So I'm on the other side of the glass. I'm in the control room. He's in front of the orchestra. And the first thing we're doing is trying to record the main titles. And he's like,

And the main titles of Beetlejuice is very, very rigid and quick. It's very difficult, surprisingly so. Sounds simple, but when you're a tuba player and brass player playing really hard and he was swinging it.

So the way he was doing it was... He was like doing what he thought was musical. And I kept going in there like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And...

we're starting to get more and more problematic because we'd finished a rehearsal and he'd start talking to the orchestra himself without getting my input. And what he's saying is the opposite of what I need the music to do. So then I have to go out there and say, excuse me, Mr. Newman, uh, but no, actually it's gotta be like this. And, um,

And he's getting really grumpy with me and it's going on and on in this very, it's going downhill quick because he doesn't get the music and he's trying to make it musical, what he considers musical. And I'm just trying to get it the way it's supposed to be, which is really, really straight up and down. And, um, so there's a certain point where Steve Bartek, my orchestrator and myself were writing notes, uh,

and to musicians because we can't get a word in edgewise. And every time we're done with the take, we both run in there and he'd hand out a notes to like some musicians and I'd hand out notes to others. And I'm handing a note to the pianist saying something about a certain bar, how he's supposed to play it. And Lionel goes, excuse me, Beethoven, we're trying to work in here. Oh boy. And once he said that,

The mood in the room dropped. It's like people are looking at their feet. It's like everybody was just embarrassed and feeling horrible. And I skulk back into the room and we got to the lunch break and I went to Gary Lamel, who was the head of music at Warner Brothers at the time. And I go, and he goes, this isn't working out, is it? I go, Gary, it's really not working out. In fact,

It's the first session I've ever done where we got no music recorded at the end of a whole session. And so Gary got on the phone. We called another guy. His name is Bill Ross, a conductor and a composer. And he was free the next day. He just came in cold. Actually, I think he even came in after lunch. It's possible that he just drove down there.

And he just did a great job, just a professional, you know, never seen the music before, didn't matter. You know, he just talked to me, understood, okay, this is how you want it, this is how we'll do it. We got the score recorded and that's it. And it's historic. Oh my God, I felt so terrible to be the one guy ever to fire Lionel Newman. And I really did...

I respected him and, you know, I was in awe, really. But on the other hand, I had a job to do. I had to record this score for Tim and for Warner Brothers. And it just wasn't going to get recorded with Lionel. It was just a mismatch. He came from the old school of music being a right way and a wrong way. And I came from the school of, no, there is no right way or wrong way. There's just the way it's supposed to fucking be. And that is...

is what it is. And that comes from the composer that doesn't come from the conductor. And he just didn't understand it. Didn't think of it that way because, uh, the artistic decisions of how music is played comes from the composer conductors, uh,

interpret music on a symphony orchestra. You know, when they're doing actual Beethoven or Mozart, they can interpret it. But when you're on a film score stage, the conductor's not supposed to interpret the music. It's just not what you do. So we were just a clash of eras and a clash of styles and unfortunate. That's such an amazing story. I did not... How did I not know that you...

wrote the Simpsons theme. That's, I mean, you've had a lot of famous themes, but I think it's going to be hard to top that.

Well, I mean, look, that was my lucky. Everybody's got, you know, anybody who's gotten successful in arts has some lucky break somewhere out there. And, you know, you get a few lucky breaks and you take a shit ton of hard knocks. Right. I mean, that's kind of how it works. For every 99 hard knocks, you hopefully get a lucky break that helps compensate it. Yep. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I do. It's just like, it's just like coming up.

is hard and establishing yourself as hard. And the Simpson was just, I had two great lucky breaks in my career. One of them was meeting Tim Burton and Paul Rubens and getting Peewee's big adventure out of the blue, which I didn't expect. And the other was, uh, the Simpsons. And, um,

Okay, so there's a funny story here too, because this goes back to the Oingo Boingo days. We're playing at the country club. Oh, talk about coming full circle. Yes, I like the way you do it.

We're doing a show at the country club and during the encores, evidently a critic, a music critic came stumbling in there. It's a little bit intoxicated and heard the last couple of songs of the encore and then wrote a review for the LA reader the next day. And, uh, that film, that music critic was none other than Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons who used to write a column for the reader. And, uh,

I got really offended. I was used to getting bad reviews, but I wrote this letter saying, Hey, if you're going to fucking trash me, at least sit through the show.

You know, don't just come to like the last couple of encores because you made a comment like huffing and puffing his way through some song. And I go, you're right. I just finished 30 songs without breaks. You know, we don't do many solos. I'm going the whole time. And yeah, I was out of breath by the end of all that. And fuck you. Yeah, exactly. And basically they printed it. They printed this letter. So it's like, oh, right on. So now it's years later.

And there is a comic strip. Was it called Life in Hell? Yes. It might have been. And it was Matt Groening. Yep. And reluctantly, I'm like, this thing is really funny. It's really good. And I hate the fact that it's this guy that I hate. You know, this asshole is actually talented.

And so some years go by and I get a call saying, we have this TV show. It's called The Simpsons. And the creator, Matt, is interested in meeting you. I go, really? Matt Groening, the same guy. All right. This will be interesting.

So I go down there and we have this great meeting and Matt is wonderful. And he shows me a pencil sketch, uh, animation of the Simpsons opening. And I look at it and I hear the music in my head right on the fucking spot. It was just one of those moments. And I said, look,

Matt, if you want something retro and kind of like 60s, because that's the feel I'm getting from this intro. It reminds me actually of the opening of the Flintstones. Yes. With the car, you know. 100%. And I said, I hear this as like a kind of crazed version of a Hanna-Barbera theme that never was, you know. And it's.

He says, yeah, go with that. And I actually wrote the whole thing in my head in the car on the way home. But the point is, is as I'm leaving that meeting, I'm saying, you know, goodbye to everybody. And Matt takes me aside. He goes, hey, Danny, you may not remember, but I go, I remember. I remember. And he goes, I'm really sorry about that. But, you know, what can I say? You took me to task and I go, look, it's all good, man. That's amazing.

Um, and it led to the lucky break of my career, which was doing this one theme one time. And when I recorded it, it's like, oh, I need, I'm opening with these three notes, the Simpsons. So I said, I'll do that. I'll hire two other people. And I joined SAG in order to sing those three notes.

Best decision of my life. Best decision of your life, my friend. Yes, because my health insurance for me and my family still comes from the Simpsons. And at this rate, you could live to be a thousand years old and it would still be coming. It was just, I never expected anybody to see it. It was one of those things. Really? Yeah.

The Simpsons was so weird for its time and it had no laugh track. And I said, this'll run three episodes and be gone forever. And I don't care. I really like Matt. I like the little piece of music I came up with. I said, it'll be fun to do. I'm doing this for me because no one's ever going to hear this. Okay. Wrong. Wrong. And the other was Batman. When Tim was finishing the first cut of Batman, I go, I love this, but no one's going to get it. No one's going to understand this. It's so weird. Wow.

The footage I was looking at was so dark. I mean, it ended up getting brightened up by the end. But on video, I remember I'm scoring the scene up the cathedral, it's called, in this big clock tower. And I couldn't even see what was happening on the screen. I mean, it's like I'm hearing...

crunch, bang, going, okay, I'm guessing that's a punch and a punch. I don't see anything. It's like, so I'm almost scoring to the sound more than the picture because it was just so dark. Was it an untimed version you were seeing? I'm so curious. Yeah, it was untimed. You know, this is all just like rough stuff off the editing machine. And so it just hadn't been timed and corrected yet. But the movie just seemed so whacked and weird to

to me compared to, you know, the only other superhero movie really at that time was Superman. And, uh,

It seemed so the antithesis of Superman. So, so whacked compared to it. I just figured, okay, this would be like a little weird cult movie. And I was wrong there. And I've been wrong a few times. You just don't know. I remember I'd worked with Winona Ryder on her. She'd done a little movie. She was in a movie called Lucas. And then we did a movie together where she was the star called Square Dance. And I remember her saying she was going off to do this movie Beetlejuice. And I remember...

I mean, I don't think I'd ever heard the word. I now know it's, of course, it's a moon or a star or something. Star. Beetlejuice the star. But I remember going, Beetlejuice? That sounds like the worst title ever. That movie will never go anywhere. And, of course, it's, you know, one of the great, great classics. But, you know, even when the movie was coming out, it was considered to be gone before, you know, DOA, Dead on Arrival, because...

The studio even didn't understand, what is this Beetlejuice? And there was a point where it was going to be renamed House Ghost. Oh, no. Yeah. House Ghost. And I think it got one of the worst preview scores ever. And I just remember when it opened, my daughter was in kindergarten or first grade. She was like, all the kids are talking about this movie called Beetlejuice. I go, yes, that's all I need to know. It's like, that's going to...

It's going to do well. And, um, that was another movie that nobody expected to do anything. I mean, I worked on some of the lowest scoring movies ever, uh, amongst them, I believe dark man for Sam Raimi might've been the lowest scoring movie in universal's history, uh,

I saw Darkman. I remember Darkman. A lot of people saw Darkman. And another one was Edward Scissorhands. Wow. It's like the preview audience did not understand that movie. Why does he have scissors in hands, they asked. Why does he have scissors in hands? How come they don't get married? You know, I remember the focus group afterwards. And it was like women were asking...

I'd like it more if they got married, if Kim and Edward got married at the end. Oh boy. And Tim is sitting in the back of the room and he's like, I'm going to throw up. And I go, this is like really miserable. Tell me about the new album. Big mess. Of course, with my luck, in 2000...

Uh, 20, I took no film work and because I had a lot of concerts booked. No, sure. Yeah. That's a good year. And, um, I decided I'd give the whole year over to concert work. Cause for one thing I had shows for a nightmare before Christmas live. Um, I had shows for this big orchestral thing we do called Elfman Burton, where we do 15, all these suites of Tim Burton music live with orchestra. Uh,

uh, all over the world. And I had my violin concerto premiering in London and several other cities. Um, and I had a cello concerto that I was commissioned to write and a piece for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain that was going to premiere at the proms in August. So I had just had so many pieces of music playing all over the place that I said, I'm going to, for the first year ever, do no film. And of course we all know what happens. Yep. I was pretty depressed. Yeah.

And I went up to my out-of-town house with my family and holed up there. And I started working on this commission for National Youth Orchestra for August. But, you know, there was that point in March where summer concerts had not yet canceled, but we all knew they would. You know, it was obvious there was going to be no proms in London, no summer concerts in London. It was all going to go down. And it took the wind out of my sails and

I had this new song that I was going to premiere at Coachella called Sorry, which I'd actually written the year before as a concept piece for orchestra and rock band. And I was doing it for a festival in Tasmania called Dark Mofo that I love. And I pitched it as a thing called Chamber Punk at that point. I said, it's like,

put a rock band with a chamber orchestra and some female voices. I wasn't singing on it. It was just an instrumental, but it never came together. But I turned it into a song, 2019 for Coachella, and I couldn't believe how much venom I had in me when I opened my mouth and started to sing. I mean, and then when things went under after March, I

I was just angry and frustrated. And I said, you know, I'll do a couple more songs just to go with, uh, I'm so sorry. Or now it's just called sorry. And, um, it just opened the Pandora's box. I mean, I was just so angry and pissed off and frustrated. And, and I realized that this was really cathartic for me because before I knew it, I had 18 songs. I remember it was like August and, um,

I called my manager and I said, Laura, I said, you know, I don't have a deadline. Nobody's waiting for this. It's like, I'll keep fucking writing forever. I mean, we're going to end up with 118 songs unless we like, we got to call it. Okay. We're going to start marketing. We'll start playing this for some record companies. Let's stop at 18. That's, that's enough. That's fine.

Because I'll never stop because I'll never get it right. You know, I'll always be like, one more song, I'll get it right. One more song, I'll get it right. I mean, that's how I'm wired. Right. I would still be writing the score to Pee Wee's Big Adventure if I didn't have a deadline trying to get it right. Our world is deadline-oriented, right? Yes, for sure. It's like we have to deliver work in such and such a timeframe. And for the first time...

for a gazillion years, I have no deadline. Nobody's waiting for me. I'm just writing this for myself. Some of the stuff was so personal, I wasn't even sure I wanted to release it. And, you know, I'm used to writing, like I was telling you earlier, third person. And while I was writing for Big Mess, I realized that that is also a protection.

You know, when you're writing third person, you're protecting your own feelings aren't necessarily being exposed. You're not exposing yourself. You're taking a character's point of view. You're writing a short story based on the point of view of a character. And here, there's no character to protect me. I'm just writing as myself. Except for, you know, there's two or three songs that I probably fall into third person. And so...

When I came out of it, it was kind of like, I don't know what this is. All I know is it's a big fucking mess because it was a constant competition between these two writers that live inside of me that don't like each other. And one of them is heavy and the other one is absurd, likes ridiculous. And they were just going one and then the other. And by the time I had six songs, I already knew.

okay, this is going to be an A side and a B side thing because these aren't lining up. And by the time I had 12 songs, I got six and six now. This is weird. By the time I had 18 songs, it's like, all right, I got two albums and they're both completely different from each other. And I said, fuck it. I'm just going to put it out there, all of it. It's a big mess and that's what I am.

I love that. I, I'm the same though. I so related when you said that there's two people in you, it's like, I have the absurdist in the dark, you know, and, and I try to find, I really, I try to find an outline in my work for, for, for both ends of it. You know, it's, it's cause if I just do one, I get bored.

Well, exactly. And that was, for me, the beauty of going to film music from being in a band, it was really hard to define what we were and I was frustrated. But getting into film music, I could just let both sides go because you're going from one extreme to the other. You're going from big and dark to ridiculous and light to very romantic to completely absurd. And you're able to just like go boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, and...

I was so relieved by being able to like go to these extremes, which I couldn't really do in a band very easily. But then when I came here years later and started writing, those two sides of me had like definitely established themselves and had not, neither one had receded an inch. So it's just what you're saying. You know, I get bored if I'm just doing one thing or the other.

Well, keep both of those parts of you alive there. We, we, we love it. We love the music. We love the scores. Um, you're a champ for coming on the show. This has been so excited. I was so excited and this is great. I'm such a music nerd. So I love to nerd out about music. It's the best. Well, good. Cause I'm a nerd also. And, uh, you could see, I could ramble on endlessly on ridiculous and, uh,

you know, tangents. So forgive me my rambling. Well, well, Beethoven, it's been great talking to you. Thank you. I had so much fun. Oh my God. I could, I, like I said, I could nerd out and I learned what a conductor did. And so did you come on, admit it. You, you thought like I did.

It's probably because we grew up watching that Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs Bunny holds the stick up until the guy keeps singing. And then the Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood Bowl, see the Hollywood Bowl falls down. Right. But now there's a lot more to it. I realize that talking to Danny Elfman. Let's check out the big red phone in the lowdown booth. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line.

where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hi, Rob. This is Bill from Ohio, and I'm a fan of your movie Youngblood. I was watching it the other day, and I was just wondering if maybe you might have some interesting hockey stories from that movie. There's some pretty intense action in there, and you look to really be moving around the rink really well, so...

Didn't know if you were a natural hockey player or this is something you'd picked up, but usually when actors are called on to do these very physical parts, there's usually an interesting story or two to go with these. So I was wondering if maybe you had something to share from there and maybe one of your future budding stars that were in that movie, Keanu or Patrick, or maybe even Cynthia. So if you have anything from there that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear about it.

And by the way, I think I partied with your producer, your new one, Rob Schulte in Las Vegas. So if you ever get the chance to do that, I recommend it because it's a lot of fun. Thanks. Have a good day. Rob Schulte. You're famous. My new producer, Rob Schulte.

You're making your mark wherever you go. Thanks for calling in. Youngblood is, yeah, first of all, I didn't know how to skate. I knew how to like fake ice skate with like the toe pick. I didn't know what a toe pick was then. You know, with your girlfriend and hold hands around the rink. That was my skill level. I don't think I'd ever had a pair of hockey skates on in my life. So I went from that to what you see on screen, which is a big, big improvement.

And I trained every day for, I think, four to six weeks. Every single day. That's all I did. I woke up in the morning. I had an actual proper skating lesson. Then I would go to the gym. It was the first time I ever had a trainer in my life and the first time I ever properly trained.

Had a training regimen, which is stuck. That's the gift of Youngblood for me. But I remember I hated it at first. It hurt so much. And now I do it. It's just a part of my life. Then I would do a power skating lesson, which is like, you know, the technical aspects of your core and how you, you know. And then I would play a game, a hockey game.

Even though I couldn't really play, I would play. And I remember I would skate over the boards and vomit. I was so fried. And so did Swayze. Swayze, though, who was great at everything, this was the only thing that he wasn't so great at. He was still better than me because he was just a gifted athlete. But...

It was fun to see Swayze struggle because he was an expert at everything he did. And I also remember that it was the summer. And so the rink would obviously be cold and then you'd go outside and be a hundred. And there's nothing like the kind of cold summer, cold flu that you can get from doing that day after day after day. Brutal. And then the other thing I remember was lacing up your skates every single day, multiple times.

The, I still, I think have the calluses and the cuts on my, the outsides of my little fingers got to the point where I couldn't even, they're bleeding. I mean, little weird stuff like that, that you don't think about. And so in the movie, all of this, I got to be really good at skating actually. Um, and stick handling takes a little bit more practice. So if there's ever a shot with, with me and a puck, it's not me, but any skating that does not involve a puck, um,

is me. And this is pretty good stuff. I'm just saying. So anyway, hope that was illuminative and thanks for calling in. More good stuff to come next week on Literally.

You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn. And music is by Devin Tory Bryant.

Make sure to leave us a rating and review, and we'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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