If there’s a modern-day composer who’s often strode with the giants while leaving his own sizeable musical footprint, then it would be Chris Bacon. From James Newton Howard to Danny Elfman and Alan Menken, Bacon has seamlessly merged his exciting orchestral talents into such epic beasts as “King Kong,” “Dumbo” and “Disenchanted.” Flying solo with his impressive major debut on the time travel action film “Source Code,” Bacon has been on wildly stylistic ride, especially on television from the comic book antics of “The Tick” to providing a hip stabbing pulse to young Noman Bates’s hacienda. Now he’s given a fresh Gothic beat to The Addams Family’s most famous kid “Wednesday” for the smash Netflix series, drawing on Elfman’s theme to bring equal parts mordant humor and a surprisingly real sense of emotional and physical peril that’s put real flesh and blood into the O.G. goth girl. And in his grandest score ever for the big screen, Bacon crash lands with Adam Driver onto the real Jurassic Planet with “65.” Combining the rampaging, weighty sounds of the movie dino legacy we love and fear, Bacon’s suspenseful score also conveys high tech in an exotic world for the film’s unique spin on a galaxy far far away hitting our globe right before its big bang. With firm command of primeval symphonic forces as well as character, Bacon’s impressive scores for “65” and “Wednesday” show a talent whose droll, and ferociously melodic bite heralds a vibrant journey ahead for a composer who’s absorbed iconic DNA on his distinctive path.
Tell us about your own musical evolution that brought you to Hollywood?
From the time I could imagine what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew I wanted to be a film composer. What that occupation entails has certainly evolved and expanded with the blurring of lines between TV, streaming, theatrical and games, but what drew me to it is pretty much still the same: I love great visual stories and love great music and there was always some sort of magical alchemy with the two combined. I studied music as a performer growing up and played in every type of ensemble imaginable, from klezmer wedding bands to symphony orchestras and big bands. I studied composition at Brigham Young University and attended the graduate scoring program at USC and consider myself incredibly fortunate to be paid to do what I’ve always wanted to do.
Your first major composer collaboration was with James Newton Howard on scores like “King Kong” and “Michael Clayton.” What was that experience like?
When I graduated USC, I was unbelievably fortunate to be hired as an assistant to James. It felt like I was on scholarship because I was watching and learning from a Mount Rushmore-type film composer while being paid to work in and navigate the ins and outs of the industry from a technical and logistical standpoint. “King Kong” was the very first movie in which I had music, and that was an incredibly exciting and surreal experience. James is an absolute machine and wrote around three hours of score in just over four weeks. He threw me a bone with a few minutes here and there, but the reality is he didn’t (and doesn’t) need the help, and you can be sure that any score credited to James Newton Howard is truly a score by James Newton Howard. He is one of the classiest people in the industry and I owe so much of my early development and career to being around him.
Your two big feature breakthroughs were in 2011 with “Source Code” and “Gnomeo and Juliet.” What was it like being out on your “own” so to speak?
As a result of my time with JNH, there weren’t many circumstances, scopes, budgets or problems that I hadn’t seen or experienced. I felt prepared and excited to begin tackling my own projects—where I quickly learned that there were plenty of circumstances, scopes, budgets and problems I hadn’t experienced!
I particularly loved your take on Amazon’s version of “The Tick.” How was it playing a “superhero” comedy?
Thank you! It was a blast. I’ve never looked forward to spotting sessions as much I did on that show because every week there was something so unexpectedly and brilliantly hilarious. The writing and acting was on such a high level that it actually removed pressure from the music to try too hard to be “funny” or “superhero”. There were plenty of moments for both, but I found that much of the time, the cliché about less being more was absolutely true.
On the other hand, you scored a “Wonder Woman” TV pilot that didn’t fly. What was that experience like?
That was a unique situation where there was this huge, David E. Kelley pilot that was really trying to establish a universe for this character for whom there was (and is!) an enormous appetite. However, circumstances meant that I was hired on a Thursday night and the final dub started Sunday so it was an exhausting, but exhilarating turnaround without any time for experimentation. It was a bummer for it to not be picked up, but I think things turned out okay for her…
You’d also score such shows as “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and “Bates Motel” that ranged from black humor to outright horror.
“Bates Motel” is one of my most satisfying professional experiences. Very smart and scary and emotional and funny. That project, score, and the people involved will always be special to me.
How did you first team up with Danny Elfman? And what have you learned through working with him writing additional music on “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “American Hustle?”
Danny and I share the same agent and were connected 12 years ago when he was bringing a Cirque de Soleil show across the finish line. We’ve collaborated on 20 or so projects since. Danny is one of a relative few composers who has a “sound” that is present regardless of the type of score it is, from “Edward Scissorhands” to “Silver Linings Playbook” to “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. He’s a melodic composer who is excellent at adapting melodies into any number of variations to fit the story, who also has a knack for turning typically mundane elements like chord progressions or ostinatos into identifiable musical signatures.
“Wednesday” is a wonderful smash hit for Netflix. How did you want to put your own spin onto the “Addams Family” sound, especially given that we were dealing with a “troubled” teen daughter who prided herself on showing no emotion?
Tim Burton was emphatic that it be played serious, not tongue-in-cheek, leaning in to the gothic horror sensibility. Insofar as Wednesday could experience joy, she found it in the macabre and the grotesque so we tried to play to that musically. It actually made the humor funnier and supported the fact that she was not putting on an act—she really is what she says she is. There were one or two places where we would subtly conclude a phrase with the iconic Addams family “duh-duh-duh dum” followed by two snaps, but other than that, this was approached as a standalone score where utilizing contemporary electronics somehow seemed to work with things like harpsichord, pipe organ, and choir, with some theremin thrown in for good measure.
There’s a real sense of menace and tragedy in “Wednesday,” which is quite different from the Addams family in that all of the bad happenings in those past films, and cartoons are played for comic relief. What was it like bringing that suspenseful element to the score?
For all of the comedy and deliciously dark one-liners “Wednesday” would drop, there were still very real, malevolent forces involved, and people really were being attacked and killed—some of them children. It wasn’t hard to score those elements with suspense and fear because they really were suspenseful and scary. It was fun to lean into that and be dramatic with the instrumentation, textures, and melodies. The “haunted house” episode was especially fun to play with, trying to amplify the fear and suspense as they move their way through the classic abandoned house littered with cobwebs, melted candles and secret doors while slowly building the music until the monster finally arrives. Also, the final mix for the series was generally quite music-forward, which is very gratifying as a composer and I think it contributed to the music being an integral part of the suspense, horror, and drama.
How did you want to bring Danny’s voice into “Wednesday’s” scoring while making your own approach distinct?
As he is known to do, Danny wrote a distinctive and memorable theme for “Wednesday” in the “Main Title,” and if you watched the series, you’ll know that I used that theme A LOT across the episodes. It could be adapted for action, horror, comedy, and emotion which really helped tie all of the dramatic elements together and provided a very Elfman-esque thumbprint, while still allowing me to score in a style very comfortable to me and who I am as a composer.
Two of my favorite-scored sequences in “Wednesday” are the canoe chase, as well as the big climax with the preacher from hell. Could you talk about them?
There were many opportunities in this series to really be overtly cinematic with the music and those two sequences are standouts. The canoe chase was just a really well-executed chase/action scene that would be at home on any screen, no matter how large, so relatively big and active music with full brass, strings, percussion, and choir fit nicely against that sequence. Crackstone (the preacher from hell) was an opportunity to support his larger-than-life perception of himself with larger-than-life music. The moment when he (spoiler alert) was resurrected was one of my favorite moments to score, as I was able to go full pipe organ, choir, and a mass-like melody in the horns and trombones which combined into a giant, hopefully coherent stew of supernatural, semi-religious, and bigoted bad-guy vibes.
What is “dinosaur music” to you? And how did you want to apply it for “65?”
For me, dinosaur music will always be John Williams ca. 1993 with equal parts awe, wonder, and abject terror. “65” didn’t spend a lot of time on the majesty of dinosaurs, instead portraying the people as the ones out of place in the home environment of the dinosaurs and just how terrifying and dangerous that would be. In many ways I played the dinosaurs (especially the T-Rex’s) with a monster movie approach using big, long brass chords that are thematic, but not necessarily overtly melodic.
Mills is our guide into “65.” How did you want to get across the idea of him being haunted by the family he’s left behind to transport the colonists?
I used the same theme for the Mills/daughter relationship as I did for Mills and Koa. It helped convey the idea that Mills saw his daughter in Koa, and while he might have resented her for reminding him of his daughter at first, it connected them as the story progresses and he finds himself respecting and trusting Koa as they fight to survive.
How did you want to evolve Mills and Koa’s relationship, especially given that they don’t speak the same language?
Koa ends up saving Mills as much as he saves her and they end up filling gaps in each others’ lives both in terms of what they do for each other and what they come to represent to each other. Again, connecting them with the same melody as I used for him and his daughter spoke to the emptiness that he was experiencing, which Koa gradually starts to fill.
Despite all the threats this pair go, there’s also a sense of wonder to the pre-meteor earth. How did you want to capture that?
“65” has been widely described as a sci-movie, and there’s some truth to that. However, it was also important to convey the beauty and majesty of the unspoiled planet and it felt like an organic instrumental approach was the way to do that. Broad orchestra with earthy wood flutes and solo cello helped capture the wonder of the planet itself as a character.
How did you want to throw the futuristic musical sci-fi elements into “65’s” primeval world?
There are a lot of electronic elements in the score, especially towards the beginning when Mills is disoriented and in shock after the crash before he discovers Koa and the mission to find a way off the planet takes shape. I used the electronics to capture the chaos of what Mills knew and didn’t know before he (and the audience) really discovered what Earth was. We also processed a lot of organic elements like solo cello and string quartet in a way that blurred the lines between electronic and acoustic that seemed to fit his world.
Tell us about what ethnic flavors you drew from for the score’s more exotic elements?
Pedro Eustache is a treasure, and he provided the “exotic” woodwind elements with instruments that he has built and customized himself over the years. Koa’s theme in particular draws on this earthy, natural sound which seemed to connect with her being unable to communicate with Mills while still playing to the innocence of her being a child and her single-minded purpose to re-unite with her family.
What dino attack sequence was the most difficult to score, and why?
I don’t know about most difficult, but I enjoyed the sequence where Mills and Koa were attacked by several dinos at once (we called it the Lago attack) in the forest. It was challenging in that there was a lot of intercutting between the panic of Mills being injured and trying to re-gather himself while we see the Lagos slowly but menacingly approaching. It was fun to follow Koa as she ran to the beach while we could still hear the commotion in the forest, only to have it slowly revealed that she had landed herself in another frying pan of curious and seemingly hungry dinos on the sand.
A lot of film scores are about getting out just before the big explosion, and “65” has just about the biggest one of all. What’s the trick to playing that sort of “countdown” here?
There’s a motor that appears in the very opening which I used throughout the film to convey the sense of a ticking clock all the way up until the film’s big bang. As far as getting out before that, it doesn’t really make sense to play through it, as there is so much other sound happening that not only does it make sense dramatically to let that moment play on its own, but music would very likely not be heard through all of the sound anyway.
Given how well you’ve channeled yourself alongside t-rex sized composers while impressing with your own styles, what’s your advice to those musicians seeking similar collaborations?
I didn’t necessarily choose that path, but I definitely have been fortunate to be able to collaborate with several of the composers who I grew up listening to who made me want to pursue this career in the first place, like JNH, Danny, Alan Menken, Marc Shaiman, etc.
My advice is to be open to all forms of collaboration and music making. Several of my most cherished solo projects have come as a result of my relationships with other composers so I encourage anyone to be as collaborative as possible in every relationship, whether with a student film director, a teacher, a music editor friend, or other composers, and of course, the people making the things you want to work on, whether directors, producers, executives, music supervisors, etc. If you can establish sincere relationships based on trust and empathy (sounds like a marriage…) and not what the other party can do for you, all sorts of doors can be opened.
What’s up ahead for you? And could you imagine a sequel where another colonist might land in “64.” If so, where do you think your music might go for it?
I’m working on a couple of theme park worlds and attractions that should be a lot of fun and I can’t wait for people to experience them once my NDAs have expired… Also, I’ll never put it past Adam Driver to survive another million years and be back for the sequel. A.I. will likely score it by then…
What survival skills did you learn from scoring “65?”
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” ― Calvin Coolidge
“65” is now in theaters with Chris Bacon’s score on Sony Music HERE
Watch “Wednesday” on Netflix, with Chris’ score on Lakeshore Records HERE
Visit Chris Bacon’s site HERE