An evening with John Debney on the phone

Versión en español

Being as he is now the most talked about composer of the moment, we did not want to pass the chance of interviewing “The Passion” composer. John Debney. In our 40 minute conversation (that passed like a heartbeat) we discovered a great person as passionate in his work as the last film he has composed. Before we begin we would like to give our most enthusiastic thanks to Ray Costa, great agent and better person, who made this interview possible.

Seville, April the 2nd. 20:30(10:30 in Los Angeles)
A distant bell rings…

John Debney (JD): Debney’s Studio, Jennifer speaking…

BsoSpirit (BS): Hi, can I speak with John Debney, please?
JD: Who’s calling, please?

BS: His 10:30 interview
JD: Hold on one second please. Your Name?

BS: Sergio
JD: Hi Sergio

BS: Hi John!!
JD: How are you?

BS: Fine thanks, and you?
JD: Very good, thanks

BS: Okay. First of all I would like to know how much time we have to do the interview…
JD: I’ll probably say about half hour..

BS: Half hour, okay….
JD: It’s that okay?

BS: yeah, well, we wanted to talk with you about your early works and after that centre the interview on the Passion, I suppose I will have to shorten the questions…
JD: Well, we can do this. I’m looking at my list and I have another interview at 11:20 so we can take a little more. I just want five or four minutes before the next one, so…

BS: That would be great, then…

BS: We’re going to begin then with your TV works, if that’s okay with you…
JD: That’s great

BS: Fine then. Beginning with the now extinct Seaquest DSV TV series, what influences did you have when composing this music?
JD: Well, people may guess many influences in that work, but I must tell you that probably one of the greatest influences for me on Seaquest was, this is rather obscure so pardon me (laughs). There was a composer by the name of Paul Smith, who wrote some wonderful scores for Disney in probably mid to later fifties. Paul Smith wrote a score for a film called “20.000 Leagues Under the Sea”, if you might recall that…

BS: Of course I do…
JD:…and I think that, interesting enough, that was one of the earliest influences on my writing for Seaquest. And I’ll tell you why. When I was a young child I used to watch movies that my father brought home (he worked for Disney for a number of years). One of the movies I used to watch was that, and I used to watch it very often ,I liked it a lot and…I’ve always loved science fiction and the work of Jules Verne…so when I got the opportunity of working on Seaquest I remember this was the first thing that came into my mind, it has sort of beautiful movement and I rerecorded that piece many years ago for Disneyland actually… so I listened to that and to the score of “Beneath the 12 Mile Reef”…

BS: The one from Bernard Herrmann…
JD: Yeah, those two scores influenced me most greatly. The idea of reliving two hearts on the show was very interesting for me and obviously to try to represent the ocean orchestrally was very interesting for me…so if you noticed there are a few cues that are very impressionistic, and I believe one or two were greatly influenced by those two…

BS: From Seaquest to another of your TV work. This time we we’ll talk about The Justice League of America (DC’s comic adaptation). How were your experiences in working on an animated series…
JD: Justice League? That was a pilot that never sold…

BS: Yeah, you’re right
JD: I thought you’ll bring you will bring up Young Riders actually (laughs)…But it’s fun you should mention Justice League. I loved that pilot but it never sold. And the music I did for it it’s quite interesting. It’s all synthesized because we never had the chance to work with a full orchestra. But actually it was fun composing that, and the theme I quite liked it and I have never used it for anything else, so I might do that someday (laughs). But yeah…I would say that the other major TV show that I did for more time was Young Riders and that was a really wonderful experience. I had influences from all over the place for that one. I drew a lot from my youth playing on a rock-n-roll band, and we did a lot of scores that were sort of more contemporary and guitar oriented. I would say that one out of every 5 scores was done with the orchestra; we would wait to do some of the more special shows with an orchestra. And I believe I won an Emmy for that which was my first Emmy if I recall it correctly…

BS: So, did you have in mind when composing Young Riders the most obvious influences when composing a western?
JD: I think the western genre is filled with different styles; everything from Elmer Bernstein to Ennio Morricone to people like Mark Knopfler…

BS: Dire Straits guitarist?
JD: yeah, there was some talk early on the development of the series where the producers wanted the score to be sort of Knopfler music. So we did a little of everything and that’s why it was so much fun. ‘Cos every week there would be a different attitude towards the show and it was quite enjoyable for me because every week I could do something different…

BS: And how much time did you have to write those scores?
JD: Basically a week…

BS: A week?
JD: Yeah, episodic television it’s very fast and many times we will have a new episode on Monday and the following Monday we would record, literally a week….

BS: of very rough work…
JD: Yeah, a lot of work. In Seaquest and Young Riders, every week I was turning out for each show twenty to forty minutes of music. So it was tough but again, free…

BS: Moving now from TV to large screen. We want to talk about what is probably your most known work, and I’m sure you know which one I’m referring to…
JD: Well, there’s a couple I should say…(laughs)

BS: Cutthroat Island being one of them?
JD: (laughs) I thought you were going to say that or Hocus Pocus…

BS: that would be the second one… but concentrating on Cutthroat Island, there’s a sort of Urban Legend around that work. Being considered one of your best works up to date…
JD: I’ll consider it one of my best works…

BS: I totally agree with you. The thing is that when the teaser poster first came out the composer attached to the project was David Arnold
JD: Yeah, that’s true

BS: but finally you were the one who did the work. What happened in between and what truth is to be found in that some of Arnold’s work still lives in your composition?
JD: I’ll tell you the whole story. Basically is the classic old story...David Arnold was on the movie, and I love David’s work actually I think he’s a very fine composer, but for whatever reason the music he had done for the film wasn’t the liking of the director…and there were some added difficulties to his work…I think he was here in Los Angeles, and he was trying to demo his music with the synthesizers, and some of the demos weren’t accurately enough…I’m guessing here…but David was not to be a part of the film anymore at a point and they hired me. There are two reasons why Renny hired me: number one is that I have a very successful first meeting with him, number two is that he decided to call Steven Spielberg after our meeting and Steven was very kind and gave me a very good recommendation…

BS: Because of your work on Seaquest…
JD: yeah, and a pilot I did for Steven called Class of ’61, which was a Civil War pilot. I also gave Renny a cd of my music and interestingly enough I gave it to him on a Friday and I didn’t get a phone call back until that following Monday. And I was quite depressed about it (laughs) and what really happened is a really funny story….what happened was that over the weekend I was at home, Renny had called my office on Saturday morning and wanted to hire me then but he left the message there and I didn’t get the message until Monday morning…

BS: So you were hired and you weren’t aware of it (laughs)
JD: Yeah (laughs) and that was that. And to answer the second part of your question I have never, to this day, never ever heard one note of David’s music because I would have never wanted to be influenced by his music at all and I’m curious now about what he did, but no, I didn’t hear a note of his music.

BS: So that settles this…
JD: By the way if I had I would tell you because enough time has gone off…

BS: Yeah, we’re talking 1995…
JD:…almost ten years so…and I remember writing the main theme (I actually wrote almost 15 main themes) and I think the one who stood was number 5 or 6…

BS: I don’t what to do now, jump into the Passion or continue with some of your other works, because we’ve been talking now for 15 minutes and…
JD: I’m sorry I’m going on so much time…

BS: No, no problem I’m enjoying very much what you’re telling me…Well let’s talk about two years ago…
JD: Okay

BS: In 2002 you wrote some outstanding scores for Dragonfly or The Scorpion King…let’s centre on the Scorpion King…
JD: Okay

BS: Being a movie that was sort of the third part of the saga initiated with The Mummy and followed by The Mummy Returns (in which the character of the Scorpion King first appeared)…did you (again) listened to the music that Goldsmith and Silvestri wrote for those movies?
JD: well, this is a different case where I did hear both scores…I wanted to hear both scores because, number one I admire both composers very much and number two I wanted my score to be different…because I felt that as you mentioned, and it’s true, this was a Mummy movie because the principal character it’s from a Mummy movie, and yet it’s not a Mummy movie, so I wanted to explore a little bit different territory. And the story about this score is interesting because there were a lot of battles in Universal about the direction of that score, some people wanted it to be pretty much a rock-n-roll score with some orchestral influences, other people wanted it to be all orchestral. So really, it ended up being a little of both, I think it’s more of an orchestral score, as the director wanted actually, but it combines a number of different attitudes…and I’m not saying that’s a good thing, I’m saying that’s sort of what happened. Although it was fun, working on a score like that, because we had the opportunity of doing different things than in the Mummy pictures, bringing’ in some drums and guitars and things like that because after all this is a different character, and it’s The Rock and its’ audience, young guys that still watched him as the wrestler. So that was sort of always spoken about, but also I wanted to write the kind of score that integrated elements of that time period, I also remembered the score of Lawrence of Arabia and to me it was sort of a retelling of that story. In the Scorpion King the Rock was a character the began being a bad guy and ultimately becomes a hero, and it was like Lawrence of Arabia in that sense, a guy that changes his mind and becomes a hero and hero bigger than life. So in writing the music for The Scorpion King those were thoughts that were in my mind. I definitely wanted to be a little bit different of what we’ve heard in the Mummy movies, therefore that’s why I changed consciously as much as I could…

BS: well, before beginning with The Passion, this is just a curiosity; you’re credited Joe Dante’s Looney Toons: Back in Action. Where in the movie does your music appear?
JD: Well my music appears on the end of the film is quite a bit of the last reel. I was contacted to come in and work with Jerry, because he wasn’t feeling so well…it was an incredible honour for me to have been asked to work on that film, and I did… I came in and helped out in the end of the movie…

BS: So your work was basically to follow the patterns that Jerry had set?
JD: Yes, absolutely, they wanted me to fill in the blanks and that’s what I did…

BS: Okay

BS: Well we finally arrive on The Passion. Again you weren’t related to the movie from the time it was first announced…
JD: Yeah, I was not on the movie…it was a shock for me when I got the phone call (laughs)…

BS: (laughs)…and it was a shock for…
JD: …everyone… and I must tell you Sergio, I knew that, I knew that going in…I like to tell people that I believe if you were to had a list of twenty composers I wouldn’t have been on that list, because I’m not known for doing dramatic movies…

BS: Yeah, that’s right….
JD:…but not by choice, believe me, I would love to do more dramatic movies, but needless to say that being the case, I got a call from the producer, whose a friend o mine, in October and…it’s a very long story and I don’t want to bore you…but basically they were having trouble…they’ve hired a gentleman to work on the sound, he had been on the sound for about a year and he had been recording a lot of folk music of all around the world. At that point Mel was thinking having the score being all indigenous music from every part of the world…

BS: Not original music…
JD: Totally, so when they started to work on the film on post-production I think they realized they wanted the flavour of that music but they really needed somebody to write a score that would unify all that. SO when the producer called me in October ant told me “John we’re in trouble and we want you to write some music…” …so that was on a Thursday and I spent the whole weekend writing some music and told my friend “if Mel’s interested I would like to play this music to him, no strings attached, it would be an honour to play this music”. So the first thing I wrote that Mel heard was the music for the trailer…

BS: Don’t tell me, the one with the female voice…
JD: Yeah, that one

BS: I love that piece…
JD: Thank you. Well, believe it or not, that was the first piece Mel ever heard. He became on a Monday and I played the music against the trailer (which was already done) and he responded, he loved it, he liked the rhythm and the female voice… so then I played to him a few other pieces of music one of them being a piece for Satan, and a couple other pieces…and we sat about an hour together, and a little later that day I got a phone call that Mel wanted me to join him on the film. And that’s how it happened, so the very first piece of music that he heard was what became the trailer music, and I might add that a lot of people really like that piece of music…

BS: yeah, it’s very powerful…
JD:…yes, and for whatever reason that was the first thing that I came up with and Mel liked…he’s a very interesting guy, he cut very quickly he’s got a very musical ear and he understood that the music for the trailer was in three-four, it’s in triple time and therefore it always seems like it’s moving forward and propelling itself through the visuals and he liked it very much. And that’s how it happened; I kept very quiet once I got the assignment I must tell you, we didn’t publicised it and therefore you had all the stories going around, and I tell you I didn’t even visited the websites because I knew (laughs) that the controversy was whirling around…

BS: You were right (laughs)
JD: I though so…and I was smart enough not to get into that stuff, because you know what Sergio? I figured that ultimately if I was going to make it, if I was going to survive it would be through hard work and my own personal prayer. And I did not wanted to be distracted by all that…I kept myself rather isolated…and I have great support, I have a great family and a great agent…

BS: I agree with you, I have spoken several times to Ray in trying to set this interview and he’s a very nice person…
JD: He’s a good guy…

BS: What you were telling me about isolating yourself is that what you usually do, or was that only for this movie?
JD: No I usually do, but more so with this film, a lot more with this film: I just came in and did my work and did it very quietly. I asked Ray to not say a thing because the things going around were crazy, there were composers mentioned almost daily…so I’m always sort of a little bit isolated and write my music working with the director, but in this case I just kept me more to myself, I’ll put it in this way…

BS: Being that isolated and regarding what you told me about not listening to what other people has wrote to similar films…
JD: If I can comment about that, there’re times when I want to hear what other composers had done. Let’s say for example that I’m being hired to replace someone else on a film and I have t rewrite the score or parts of the score, and in that case some times I do want to hear what another composers have write simply because then I can make my own mind as to “Okay, I see the problem”…or, there have been cases, recently…which I won’t talk about…I was brought in to re-score a very big film, and I liked the score and I told them that I didn’t think the problem was on the score…so there’re those times when I have to sort of look at it very objectively, and…but I didn’t do that in the case of The Passion…I knew the problem with some of the music that had been written originally by this gentleman (whom I like a lot)…it’s called experience…I have 20 years of experience and this other man it’s very talented but have done it as long as I have so by his experience level was very difficult to score and he had come up with some very beautiful themes , and some of them are in the movie actually, the ones Mel liked we kept…so you know, there’s never a rule…

BS: But in a movie like this when you have all this background that comes from music done for the figure of Christ by people like Alfred Newman, Miklós Rozsa or Peter Gabriel …
JD: Yeah, but I purposely did not want to look at any of the biblical movies that had been done before …I just did not wanna go there, because I knew that, number one, it was not the type of score Mel wanted…ah Mel wanted a much more contemporary score. The only score that I would say influenced me was Peter Gabriel’s because of the fact (I’ve never had talk about this before (laughs)) that Mel liked the sound of the double violin. And the double violin was a man named Shenkar whom is a wonderful musician. Shenkar played on The Last Temptation of Christ, extensively I would say. He also sang on it with Peter. And Shenkar on my opinion was the co-creator, in many ways, of that score. Mel had heard that score and liked that sound (the sound of the double violin and the vocals) that was the same man. So I search this guy out and it took me a month to find him in L.A, and he was brought in with another double violinist…and so any similarities that you can find between my work and that of Peter Gabriel…

BS:…derivates from the fact that both of you used the same musicians…
JD: Yeah, exactly (laughs) and that was really the only reference point for my work…

BS: aha, I see. Well now I want to talk about the relation music-images that take the most important role in the scene when Jesus fells into his knees and Maria recalls in a beautiful flashback a similar situation in Jesus childhood. How did you approach the music for that scene?
JD: Well, that I must tell you Sergio is one of the two places in the film I am most asked about, the other one being the crucifixion. But I was having a lot of difficulties getting the music for that flashback area, great difficulty. Mel was not happy with what I was coming with, although he was pleased with many other areas, that was a key scene for him that I wasn’t getting. Well I didn’t know what to do because when you reach that point where you’ve tried everything and you can’t come up with anything, what do you do then? Well I actually started to pray; I’m a life one catholic, so I started pray very firmly…

BS: …no kidding?
JD: No (laughs) I did. I figured well, nothing else has worked, so I started to pray to Mary to give me her music. And after three days of praying I woke up one morning with that piece in my head with the lyrics in English. And to make a long story short I demo that piece of music with the same singer of the trailer music, and the first time I played it for Mel I didn’t know what his reaction would be, and he was behind me in the room while I was playing the music… at the end I turned around ad Mel has tears coming down his face. He was absolutely touched, and I knew at that point, that there was an opened door for me and from then on things got very smooth and it became a wonderful process with Mel after that. And there were rough times too, I would lie to you if I told that all was very easy…I battled self doubt with every move I made but it was worth the effort…so that was how I came to write that piece, I don’t think I got it myself, I think I got it from someone else (laughs)

BS: …someone very high…
JD: …a very special someone

BS: You said it before, the other scene I wanted to talk about was the crucifixion scene and in special where the raindrop or the tear from god falls down to earth. I think is one of the most beautiful metaphors I’ve seen on screen and…
JD:…you know, I think that was a stroke of genius. There are a number of areas in the film that I would say are genius, and that would be definitely one…

BS: It’s overwhelming…
JD: Yeah, I can’t think of a more poetic…and it’s very interesting Sergio because Mel described that to me before I ever saw it, of course, and I couldn’t quite visualize what he was telling me…but they way he did it with that camera angle and the tear forming in the lens of the camera…you know, that’s one of those moments in film I think people will be talking about forever…

BS: Well our time is ending so I’ll only ask you two more questions. As producer of this soundtrack, would you say this is the work which you are most proud of?
JD: Absolutely

BS: Without any doubt…
JD: …none at all. Just because it was such a journey for me…before that I would agree with you that Cutthroat Island was very high on my own personal list of what I have achieved in music, because that was also a huge monumental task that I only had three or four weeks to write that…

BS: only three or four weeks?
JD: Yeah, I believe Cutthroat Island was at most five weeks…but this one being on a different level of spirituality and digging deep in my spirit…so there were things on this score that literally …I would say it this way…you know there’re times in all of our lives when you might write what you think is a very well written article, and there’re those times when you’ve finished something and then you look back and say” God!, I don’t remember doing that!”…this was one of those cases where I listen back to the music I wrote and I don’t remember much of it clearly; I only remember a lot of pray and a lot of hard work, trying to come up with something that would affect people and honour the visuals at the same time… that was my biggest purpose, that somehow my music could honour the images, as I think they’re spectacular…every shot in the movie is like a painting, the acting is superb in my opinion, I think Jim Caviezel and Maia Morgenstern are both impressive without saying a word…and for me to be a part of it was one of the most rich experiences in all my life…I’m very, very happy that when people tell me “I was driving listening to your music and I had to pull over the car consumed by emotion!” that just blows my mind…

BS: I was planning on asking you one more question but I think this is the most beautiful way of ending the interview.
JD: It’s been a pleasure, you’ve been great…

BS: It’s been a pleasure for me too and I must tell you that we have to talk again with a lot more time to make an analysis of all your work…
JD: I would love that. Promise me that you’ll call me and we would do that…

BS: Okay, I’ll call Ray and set a new one with him, or shall I call you?
JD: Better call him because he knows better than me what I have to do (laughs)…But please call back

BS: Sure it would be great to talk to you about (not all, because that would be so long) your work …
JD: Great, promise me you’ll call me back…

BS: Okay, I promise you.
JD: Good

BS: Thanks for all
JD: God Bless you, bye

Interview by Sergio Benitez, translation by Rubén Sánchez
BSOSpirit Abril 2004