it's the palro cast now with Daren Bel
let's get ready to listen to your favorite artist outro good afternoon or good morning to
you you're West Coast right yeah yeah yeah it's morning so you still have the coffee and all that
still got c yeah first cup got it good day for you so far side from having to do press uh yeah yeah
yeah yeah I mean I don't I don't mind doing press I like talking I like talking about uh I like
talking about it well talking about it meaning uh first there's the sometimes I think about dying
getting the vinyl and the digital release when did you find out that it was getting the vinyl release
because that's kind of a landmark special thing uh I found out when I decided that I was going to
pay to do it myself which may which may have been a which may have been an ill-conceived uh thing
but um I was talking to Rachel the director about it and you know we both agreed it's like it's
just cool to hold something in your hands you know we work in such an uh such an art form where
you know aside from like if if you have like an esoteric Blu-ray collection or you know a vinyl
collection or something it's very like it's not super tangible and so having this sort of like
you know totem to hold as like a a marker of like we we did this thing we made it so you know
it was a it was an investment to I I make the joke that it's the most expensive piece of vinyl I own
well it's a thing that you can always give out to people as holiday gifts if they don't fly off the
shelves so either way you prepaid a holiday gift how's that yeah exactly yeah all all of my all of
my uh all of my relatives and Friends regardless of if they have a record player getting one this
coming Christmas yeah well that is not your only notable credit I mean recent work of yours that
I loved is Kevin can go f himself or Kevin can f himself rather and you have the additional music
title but we're on Eight Episodes or so are you allowed to say what you worked on specifically
to that show um I mean yeah yes and no I mean you know that that scores Keegan to wit um and Keegan
often brings me on for uh you know I specialize in um I specialize in you know uh uh orchestral
arranging working in sort of like um out of the box like arrangement of you know organic
instruments so sort of like my forte so uh Keegan and I are longtime collaborators I uh we you know
we're in a band called wild CB together I produced the first Wild Cup record and played drums in the
band for a long time and um yeah we've been prins for the better part of I want to say 15 years um
and so uh yeah he'll bring me on when he needs like uh some extra hands on a project and TV is
always that way because the the turnaround time on TV episodes especially for something that's like I
guess you could consider AMC like Network TV like the turnaround times on that are like you know you
have you sit down at a spot for a spotting session on like a Tuesday and then you got to deliver an
entire episode's worth of Music on like a Thursday so it's you know it can be it can be a lot so
um uh but yeah I mean you know a lot of that a lot of that you know I I did a lot of the drum
cues um I mean we collaborated you know it's not like hey man you write this I write that it's
all Keegan score but um you know with uh a lot of a lot of what I worked on was a lot of that um
sort of drum percussion you know kind of frenetic uh sort of world because I'm a drummer uh that's
my background so yeah reason I asked about that credit in in you know specifically is because it
was a without giving too much away to somebody who hasn't seen it it's a dual sitcom Trope show and a
drama so you have the things that you would expect coming in and out of a sitcom commercial break
and then dramatic stuff so meaning one person shouldn't be able to write all of that music
right well it was funny so Keegan had this idea where he um he was like that was his idea of like
going in and out of the thing being like I wanted to um I can't remember I think that the show is
maybe called Newsroom or something the news was like an old uh but he he was like What if we had
these sort of like Stingers that went in and out so he came over one day and uh and I just you know
for probably about an hour and a half we just you know I sat at the drum kit and came up with these
sort of kitchy you know like drum fills and this other stuff and then you know he went in and
put like guitar and and bass and all this other stuff on on it and it worked really really well
I mean that was that was great because they they just had a library of those of those uh you know
sitcom Stingers that they could go in and out of the episodes with it was it was fun to make yeah
sounds great to me now you mentioned before the band background and I find that more than half of
the people who are working composers these days in TV and film were band people that had record
deals and all that kind of thing so what was your transition from being band guy to composer
because totally different worlds well it's actually it's sort of the opposite for me because
I started into the band world going from composer into band world so I studied music in college
um you know played an orchestra and studied composition and uh also studied like production
and recording and all that and then I moved to Nashville um out of college to you know had to
do an internship like at a record label which was everything except about the music yeah exactly
exactly but um so and then I found myself in Nashville you know working uh working in bands
doing production touring doing all of that and a lot of my um a lot of my background in the sort
of classical world if you want to classify it that way kind of fell by the wayside because you know
it was a lot of pop music it was a lot of um yeah just like touring band stuff so um you know after
at the end of my stint with wild Cub I I played in a couple of other bands and I sort of got I
got back into a lot more producing and I started getting Jaded by the whole thing and uh [Music]
the I I was driving around in this 99 Honda Civic and my um my Ox I had this you know really cheap
you know stereo that I had installed in it and the ox cable broke on it so I couldn't listen I could
only listen to the radio in that you know driving around in Nashville Nashville's big driving City
like La so yeah um the only options available on the radio are like a lot of like um uh a lot of
like country station a handful of Pop stations that are you know relatively decent but it's not
really my vibe that I want to listen to and then the classical station in Nashville which is one of
the best classical stations in the country because they're so good at not just programming like your
sort of stand repertoire of like Beethoven and Mozart and BR Bach and brahs and etc etc they will
program a lot of new composers a lot of um 20th century 21st century composers and so that sort of
like I was driving around just listening to pretty much that all the time and that sort of uh sparked
uh a I don't know like a it sparked something for me which is which is nice when you're in your you
know early 30s and you're looking for something to inspire you musically again because feeling like
you'd already done so much of it touring around the world and all this and so I started writing
uh I started you know I got back into writing classical I wrote string quartet I wrote um piece
for larger Orchestra and then um that sort of led into some some film stuff moved out to LA kind of
the condensed version but um you know my mine's a little different than I think a lot of band folks
because you're absolutely right like a lot of band folks and I think that it has to do with like
you know the band world has its limited shelf life like once you get to a certain age you know
you either have to have made it huge and you can continue on as like a you know Legacy artist
or you just have to be someone who's down to be like a road dog and just you know just break
yourself you know touring into your you know 40s and 50s and I think a lot of folks get wise and
they're like well I don't want to do that but I want to keep making music and composing is you
know especially for film and TV it's one of those Outlets yeah to to be weirdly name Chey I mean
two different members of Arcade Fire have filmed scores right now uh Fred Corey from Cinderella is
a film composer and so pallet from arcade I mean he he'd been doing that for forever though you
know to to be fair but yeah but everyone I mean I just saw the third person Colin Stetson also
in the arcade fire universe so you have three Arcade Fire people competing for the same jobs
but the guy from Passion Pit all these people yeah we love the music of we don't necessarily
realize they're also making the music for the film and TV shows right exactly yeah totally so
when was it exactly that you went okay done with the touring thing I'm a composer what year was
it it was probably 2014 2015 it was at the end of whatever the um uh the record cycle for the Wild
Cup album youth was so that was probably about 10 years ago because I think we just we were just
talking about how that album came out 10 years ago which is sort of crazy to think about but
yeah so it was probably about 10 years ago yeah you don't really put that band in your bio that
that intrigues me yeah you know it's funny I um there's not any specific reason I think that it's
just like I'm I'm the type of person that you know uh uh here's my dog by the way hey buddy he's in
the interview too we're gonna ask you questions later pal sure I'll get the dog to sign yeah he'll
sign off um but uh it's not for any specific I I I think I'm the type of person that I'm like oh
yeah I did that but you know now I do composing so what I'm not gonna include you know stuff that
isn't composing but um yeah I don't know that's a good point maybe I should put that maybe I should
put that in there some people distance themselves they have their I'm a rocker bio then they have
their I'm a philanthropist bio or I'm a film producer like when you see Dave girls producing a
film he doesn't go any played in the punk rock and hardcore bands scream and this it's just more
right that so I didn't know you had you know that's that's a good point I mean I I guess you
know I'm buddies with Ian from Passion Pit and you know I feel like he doesn't talk about Passion Pit
as much either I think it's just you know I don't think it's a lot of I don't necessarily think it's
distancing I think it's just folks think of like yeah that was another lifetime I did that then I
do this now you know it's not that they don't mix it's just like yeah I mean you're not going to I
don't I mean I guess people do hire certain folks because they're like oh you were in you know you
were in such and such band so you know which is maybe not a good reason to hire folks to but maybe
it is I don't know you're you're right you could be pigeon hold if they think of you as a metal
person yet they yeah totally I mean if I was in a if I if my if my background is I used to be in
a metal band I think I would I would that would definitely be in my bio I'd definitely be putting
that in there well did you have a metal background did you start off on 80s hard rock before you
became a sophisticated person oh God I wish I was that cool no my back I I was a I was a um to
to to to the shagrin of my agent I'm sure who's probably like maybe not something you mentioned
but I uh my I grew up I played a lot of like uh I played Punk which was cool but like I was I was in
I was in I did a lot of SCA I was like a big big SC what's wrong with SCA you know it's Scot it's
third wave Scot what's the joke going around about like the the the New York Times thing about the
fourth wave and someone's like I really hope this isn't about SCA you know but uh but yeah so that
was sort of that I I didn't really get into what I would consider to be like you know good music
not that Scott's bad but I I didn't get into what I would consider to be good music until probably
like college you know like that's when I got into a lot of the more Indie stuff a lot of the more
like um I don't know people who were sort of non genre in terms of the the sca composer thing I
mean Jeff rosenstock is now composing shows and yeah he was a ska guy so fair enough yeah I mean
I I will say the one thing it did do is it um it I've been I've been writing charts and writing
you know stuff for horn players since I was you know 13 14 years old so I it at the very least
it helped me you know it helped me learn the the transposition of an Altis saxophone but the last
thing I'll ask you in the the polite senses are we allowed to know which project is next from you
where to look for your scores next uh yeah I mean you know the project I'm working on right now has
been announced so I can talk about it but um it's a I'm working on currently working on a score
for a film called colorbook uh directed by David Fortune written and directed by uh David Fortune
he just won the um AT&T untold stories Grant at Tribeca last year and so um yeah I'm currently
working on that um I don't know anything about release or you know timeline or any of that but
um but yeah it's it's a beautiful script it's uh you know the what I've seen of footage
so far is is is absolutely gorgeous um and it's uh yeah I'm really really excited about it
we're we're I think we're going to make a really special uh special film he's he's he's a very
trusting director which is which uh is I feel very fortunate to be able to work with somebody
like him who's like yeah man what do you what do you think you know um so uh yeah that's what's
that's what's on the horizon as of now outro