Settling Scores: Ryan Miller Interviews Cliff Martinez About The Anachronistic Score He Wrote For ‘The Knick’

Cliff Martinez is my hero. Well, not specifically my “only” hero, but Martinez and a handful of other Rock-Band-Dudes-Turned-Real-Deal-Composers —I’m looking at you, Danny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh, Jon Brion, Clint Mansell, and Hans Zimmer)— were the guys who indirectly gave me permission to put down the microphone, step off stage and start writing music to picture. Martinez is specifically inspiring in that he has created an immensely varied body of work—I mean, dude is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers!— that nonetheless is threaded with tones, textures and grooves that are singular and recognizable. By that I mean that you, as a listener, know when you are listening to “Cliff.”

Tasked with leading a “composer to composer” chat, it was a joy to discuss some of the politics, dynamics, successes and frustrations of film composition with a true innovator. The Knick, Solaris, Traffic, Spring Breakers (“look at my shit!”), Contagion, Only God Forgives: those are just some of his great scores! (I could keep going, you know…) Way to go, Cliff. Let’s talk about stuff!

RYAN MILLER: I started watching The Knick when it came out, and one of the first things I was told as a composer was that the music should never call attention to itself. That’s why it felt like such a bold move to hear this anachronistic sound during a period piece. I was so impressed that the choice was made and also how it worked, that it actually functioned at supporting what was happening in the picture. I am wondering is that something you drove or were you nervous about that?

Cliff Martinez: It wasn’t my idea. It came from Steven (Soderbergh, creator of The Knick). He sent me the first three episodes, it had temporary music in it—from Spring Breakers and Contagion—but that was the first time he has ever done that. Usually he does give me a temp score, but it had never been my music before. At first it seemed like a risky choice maybe it wouldn’t work, but that was the only question I had for him. “Are you serious?” and he said, “Yes, I am serious.”

At that point, are you excited by it, are you unnerved by it? What is the thought process going on? I can imagine it’s such a range of emotions kind of making such a bold statement, it seems counterintuitive to everything you’ve done so far.

At first it seemed like an idea that might not work, but I think I warmed up to it pretty quickly. I was able to see the first three episodes and it had a strong possibility of working and also being a bold statement, as you call it, and once I started writing, the function of music remained the same. It’s the style that changed.

Yeah, you still have to hit the emotional moments and then all your regular composer instincts probably kick in.

Once you see three episodes with that style of music in it, your brain accepts the sound of the show. So at first it was a possibility that it was not a good idea, but that went away pretty quickly.

Yeah, it’s one of the more impressive things about the show that you end up accepting as a part of the vocabulary for the show. Would you say it was one of the most challenging things you had to do?

With The Knick, often times the challenge is conceptual, but sometimes it is simply the amount of hours you had to put in. I guess The Knick was an extra large challenge because it was essentially a 10 hour movie; at a certain point, I had to deliver music for a one hour show, once a week. That was a challenge I never had encountered in film. Films have deadlines too, but they never go on for five months.

So you’ve never scored a TV series before and had to work with those deadlines?

I scored one episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. This was my first time I had to do something every week, week after week.

Was that something you were actively pursuing for the challenge of it, or was it because it was a great project and an existing relationship with Steven?

The latter. I don’t have the attention span to watch dramatic, episodic television, so I’m not a big fan of it. I never seem to find enough time. I don’t like a story that never resolves, for stories always opening up rather than closing down. I don’t have a big affinity for television, so I wasn’t eagerly seeking television gigs, but since Steven was doing it, I got excited. I knew it was going to be interesting.

I’ve heard the thing with composing for TV is that the really hard work comes during the first three or four episodes, and after that you figure out the language and the texture of the score. Is it enjoyable? Are you still finding joy in doing it? I know it’s an incredible volume of work.

I was a little nervous about the schedule and my agent told me, once you do the first three episodes it’s like this template you refer to, like a music editing gig after that. I didn’t find that true, at all. For episodic television, the challenge is you really need to develop your material to a greater extent than a feature film and I felt that took a lot of effort and a lot of skill just in the material and expanding on it. It’s sometimes easier to write new thing, new thing, new thing. I thought that it didn’t get that much easier until the second season. The second season began to reuse material and actually be more like music editing, with new material as well. I think if I did the third and fourth season it might be a little more like an assembly line endeavor. I found it to be pretty difficult.

There are some big name composers in LA that employ a staff who use their names as a rubber stamp, like “I can do 45 minutes of music in a week because i have five people working under me.” It doesn’t sound like you are using that method at all.

I have one method working at The Knick, I usually have two other people working on stuff. I have a small staff and, yeah, I wouldn’t be able to get through a lot of big stuff. I’m not Hans Zimmer, I don’t have that kind of help. It’s not like I have a factory of minions.

So do you ever have moments when you are working and you get goosebumps? You know, when your work transcends the concept of it simply being a job, where you feel real artistry happening? Those moments where it feels electric?

The Knick was a special project to me, it felt like that was some of my best stuff or my best self. It usually happens to me a couple of times a project, where there’s a couple pieces of music where you feel like it was being written automatically by some higher power. For almost everything I’ve done, there end up being a couple pieces that I actually enjoy listening to after having created every molecule, every measure, every note. Then there are projects where the whole project is like that. Solaris is one, The Knick is one. I’m not sure what causes it, but some stuff is better than others. Maybe it’s the intensity of the coffee, I don’t know (laughs).

It seems like there are those two kinds of composers in LA, the people that came up as music students and the people that feel like they came from the outside.

Yeah, I definitely feel the rock band vibe.

Does that feel like it served you well from the beginning? Have you sensed any resistance from the classically trained composer crowd?

No, I never felt unqualified. There are always people who have done that: Peter Gabriel, Stewart Copeland, Hans Zimmer. There was a precedent of people coming from not a European, Classical art-music background that were doing film, so I never felt like an oddball. Like Danny Elfman, he’s another one. A lot of people I’ve looked up to and respected came from the rock world. No, I think if I really had a great demand, a great orchestral challenge, I’d be a very different composer. Sometimes I regret that I don’t have that in my background.

One of the interesting things I’ve found in transitioning from being a composing artist to doing this film thing is, one, it’s a much more lonely pursuit. The times I’m sure you are spending working on a tv show, the hours you are spending to get it done, it seems like there is no through line in between being a performer and being a composer slugging away in the studio. Do you miss performing live?

I don’t miss it at all. That’s what, in part, what drew me to film composing. I don’t really like being out on stage, repeating the same material night after night. So no, I don’t miss it at all. I certainly don’t miss the messy interaction of band dynamics. I enjoy the social structure of film music much more, but sometimes you do get kind of isolated. That’s why people work with me or collaborate with other people, from keeping it from becoming too inbred, but no I don’t miss trying to be a rock star in the least.

Another challenge I’m learning during my transition is how your ego gets subsumed. You basically become a craftsman working on someone else’s vision, usually the director. Was that a hard transition to make? Taking orders sounds very dramatic and I know that’s not really how that works, but you are in charge of someone else’s vision rather than your own. Is that also part of the dynamic that you enjoy?

Yeah, that’s probably the one take away from life as a rock and roller I was able to use. And that is as a drummer, your job is to make the other guy look good. You are kind of in a subordinate position. It was hard to write music from the position of being a drummer, because that’s not really a component of the band that is respected very much. You don’t play a pitched instrument, it’s hard to demonstrate your ideas. That is the key that a lot of people that come from singer/songwriters don’t like taking orders or being subservient to a larger vision. No but with me that was fine, that’s why I never really made a solo album. I’m about the picture, and the project, which dictates the structure and the direction. I feel kinda lost, so I like being part of a larger endeavor.

I think for me the thing was rather than making a great record the limitations felt kinda freeing for me. Having the box to work with felt like one of the most liberating things, because once everything is possible you can kinda get in it and do work.

I think you still have great freedom to approach it however you want, but I think its the broader parameters that are defined for you. Where the music goes, how long it lasts, where it leads, and its function. Within that, you still got plenty of room to screw it up, but I like that definition of that structure.

Have you ever found yourself to be in a position where you were taking notes that you didn’t agree with or are constantly counterintuitive, where your instincts did not align with the director’s?

Sure, of course. Yeah, not agreeing with director’s ideas can happen often. There’s so many different ways to score stuff. There’s not a right way or wrong way, but the person that hired you you have to sort of see a way to get into their ideas, their vision and make it work. And also to make it seem like it was all their idea. (laughs) There’s still lots of room for your own individual expression. Sometimes I come around, sometimes I understand the ideas that initially sound weird. Like Steven’s ideas about all electronic score, from the first 48 hours felt like a pretty bad idea, but then I just saw the brilliance of it. Getting into somebody else’s head is a job requirement, but it’s usually just one other head as opposed to a band, where you might have to get into the heads of several people who aren’t in agreement with one another.

But, is that even true? I’ve only done indie films where it does work that way. I’ve heard, though, once you get into these big budget things there an entire administrative staff and a studio and people justifying their positions so they want to constantly suggest that things get fixed. Has it been your experience that it is between you and your director, that you agree that it gets done that the score is not sort of politicized by executives?

No that’s true, but choose to work on mostly low budget independent film where the directors have artistic control. Some of the bigger works that I’ve done, like when Soderbergh did Contagion, no studio mettles with his vision. So it depends. Usually, it’s the larger studio projects where other people get involved in the musical direction and you have to satisfy other people. But I think that on the few studio films I’ve done, the directors have a lot of control. I’ve done commercials, too, and the commercials are probably the most challenging for that exact reason. You don’t even get to meet some of the people, but you get these notes these criticisms from a third party and it’s really a challenge because…

Yeah, I can image because they are not even living in the art world essentially. Even the people in the studios are creative people and trying to making a piece of art, where commercials that’s not even remotely the case. Do you find yourself being proactive in terms of making things happen for you artistically?

Not very much. I emailed Chan-wook Park, the Korean director, once and he said “I’ve never heard of you, I don’t have any money, leave me alone.” Yeah, I haven’t done it very much. I’m pretty lucky. I got a lot of offers to do things where I was in a position to be choosy, but potentially pass on certain things because I can’t do everything I haven’t been as proactive as I probably should, but I’m pretty happy. It seems like the auteur guys like Steven Soderbergh are the type of people I like to work with. I like the rugged, individual type of directors. I seem to get enough phone calls from guys like that to keep me pretty happy. If I start to slip into “I’ve been retired” mode, then maybe I’ll pick up the phone again.

[You can watch Season 1 and Season 2 of The Knick on Cinemax or their MaxGo app]

Ryan Miller is the lead singer of the band Guster, composer on a slew of rad indie films (Safety Not Guaranteed, In A World, Kings Of Summer, Tig), bon vivant and Xiao Long Boa aficionado. He is also handsome in low light.