{"id":831,"date":"2010-10-20T14:11:34","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T18:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=831"},"modified":"2015-02-04T15:08:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T20:08:17","slug":"john-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=831","title":{"rendered":"JOHN MURPHY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0Composers<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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John Murphy is a bit of an enigma in that he\u2019s recognized for a sound that inarguably made some of the most popular films by Danny Boyle and Michael Ritchie successful with audiences.<\/em><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s music for hip or slightly daft criminals, astronauts trying to stop the sun from killing the Earth, or bloody annoying zombies running fast marathon stretches to eat you 28 days or 28 weeks after a plague assault has wiped out the world (or London, at least), you\u2019ve heard his music, and would recognize his fusion of British trip-hop and classical, or rock, or anything he feels works best for a film.<\/em><\/p>\n

He\u2019s a down-to earth artist whose music traverses diverse genres, but in recent years he\u2019s become familiar to horror and action films, and his latest score \u2013 <\/em>Armored<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 suppors Nimrod Antal\u2019s film about a $42 million heist that goes very bad for an Iraq War veteran.<\/em><\/p>\n

In our lengthy conversation, Murphy describes his early years as a composer, his sound, and his craft. In addition to <\/em>Armored<\/em><\/strong>, Murphy also talks about working with Michael Mann on <\/em>Miami Vice<\/em><\/strong>, which alongside Danny Boyle\u2019s <\/em>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em><\/strong> riff <\/em>Sunshine<\/em><\/strong>, is among his best work to date.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Mark R. Hasan<\/em><\/strong>: How did you get into film scoring, because you\u2019ve been at it for almost twenty years?<\/em><\/p>\n

John Murphy<\/strong>: Is it that long?<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: Your first credit is around 1998.<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>: Yeah. Oh my God, I didn\u2019t realize it was that long. To be honest, I was in a lot of terrible bands in the eighties in England as a session player. I was a bass player, working on peoples\u2019 albums and stuff, and I ended up writing songs for some bands, so I kind of fell into songwriting when I was 24 or 25.<\/p>\n

Then I got asked to write a couple of songs for this low-budget, little British movie that we didn\u2019t even think would come out called\u00a0Leon the Pig Farmer <\/strong>(1992). I\u2019d done a few songs for that, and the co-director\/co-producer, Gary Sinyor, just liked the style of the score I was doing for the film\u2026 It was very literal. I had no idea how to write underscore or anything, but I was just writing these little songs, these little vignettes as to whatever was happening on the scene.<\/p>\n

I had no clue as to how to write a score, but he liked it, and he said \u2018Can you write a few more?\u2019 in the end [and] probably because he didn\u2019t have the budget to get a grown-up composer to come in and write the score, I ended up kind of writing all of the music.<\/p>\n

I was with Dave Hughes in those days, so we ended up writing these little songs. It\u2019s funny, because we won some awards for the music in Europe because people thought it was very original\u2026 I was only 25 or 26, I had no musical training as such, so I just wrote these little songs in this film\u2026The film did quite well in Britain, and once you\u2019ve got one out of the way, it was a lot easy for people to twist you to do another movie, so that kind of started it. It was really by luck, you know; just a chance meeting with a friend who said the other friend was making a movie, and then it just kind of took off from there.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: And after that you worked on a number of independent films \u2013 comedies, horror films, and a couple of shorts.<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>: Well, early on you do whatever you get offered and you\u2019re just so thankful, you know? It wasn\u2019t like I was set up to do any type of film, it was just anyone fool enough to trust me to work on their film in those days.<\/p>\n

Whatever it was I would do because the one strange thing about being a film composer is there\u2019s no real way of learning how to do it without actually doing it, you know? Even though there are film schools and music schools where they specialize in film music, there\u2019s no replacement for actually being in the field and throwing yourself in it and doing it.<\/p>\n

Whatever came in, I just did\u2026 I was going from horror film to Jilly Cooper mini-series to whatever. It was just very exciting to actually be doing it. I have no kind of snobbery about any of it; it was just great to be actually getting paid to write music on films, because as soon as I\u2019d done the first movie I knew sort of within seconds that this is what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

I was already touring with bands by the time I was 17 or 18, so by the time I got to my mid-20s I was just bored with it all; it was all the same thing. I had enough, so when this came around I\u2019d always loved film music anyways, but you never think you\u2019d ever get a chance to do it. Suddenly there I was and I was doing it. I appreciated the good luck, if you like, of just being given a chance, so I made the most of it. I worked my ass off and kind of tried not to let anybody down, tried to learn as much as I could as I was learning\u2026. and it took care of itself after that.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: It also provided a good training ground because you worked in every idiom \u2013 rock, synth, electronic, orchestral, and it was pretty much everything in your early years.<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>: In a way it really helped because even within the first couple of years I\u2019d done maybe 5 or 6 films, and they were all different from each other\u2026 To be honest, I think that kind of eclecticism wasn\u2019t just in the early years; it channeled right through to now.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see myself as being \u2018the guy who does this.\u2019 I think in Hollywood\u2026 a lot of people see me as \u2018the edgy guy\u2019 because of certain films I\u2019ve done that have probably become more prominent, but there\u2019s actually quite a lot of different films I\u2019ve done, and there\u2019s a lot of different films that I enjoy doing.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: You wrote a very beautiful score for <\/em>Basic Instinct 2 <\/em><\/strong>(2006), but I guess you\u2019re best known more for heavy electronic scores, and I\u2019m curious if there any particular electronic composers or groups that you particularly admire or perhaps influenced you?<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>:\u00a0 That\u2019s such a difficult question to answer.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: For example, Danny Boyle has exploited your skills with electronic music, with <\/em>Sunshine<\/em><\/strong> (2007) being one of your best works. It\u2019s really beautiful.<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>: Thank you. I think there\u2019s a lot of vintage\u00a0British trip-hop <\/a>I\u2019ve always loved, from\u00a0Massive Attack<\/a> and\u00a0Tricky <\/a>and stuff like that. If left to my own devices, I\u2019ll always kind of dig in to that style just because it\u2019s something that I loved when it was happening. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever stopped lovin\u2019 that kind of style.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s actually very cinematic. It\u2019s a style of music that lends itself to being very effective on the screen, so I\u2019ll always be into that kind of stuff, but there\u2019s a lot of guitar bands that I love \u2013 I\u2019m a huge\u00a0Radiohead <\/a>fan \u2013 I\u2019m a bit of a guitarhead, really [but] I\u2019m a bit of a mish-mash of stuff. I feel happy if I\u2019ve done a big heavy guitar score or electronic score, but there\u2019s nothing I like better that to sit down at the piano and write a bit more purely and write for an orchestra, so I\u2019m a bit kind of schizophrenic, I think.<\/p>\n

Whatever I did last I want to do the opposite the next time around, but you\u2019re right \u2013 a lot of the things that people know me for definitely tend to be where I\u2019m mixing up modern electronic stuff with strings.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a snob about stuff. If I feel I want to put a big trip-hop beat under some lovely choral thing I don\u2019t really think twice about it; I just do it. It\u2019s one of the nice things about not having a musical background; it\u2019s all the same to me\u2026 You can be emotional with fantastic rhythms driving through the scene as you can with woodwinds\u2026 I just kind of grab whatever influence I see at the time, and I\u2019ll do whatever is natural. I don\u2019t want to over-think it.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 Your style is also recognizable. There\u2019s something interesting that you do where if a score is based around a singular theme, you don\u2019t whole variations of a theme, you\u2019ll take maybe part of the bass line and build it into a wholly new cue, and you might take part of the rhythm and build yet another cue around that, and then you might take a fragment of the theme and do something different with it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think <\/em>Miami Vice<\/em><\/strong> (2006) is a good example, and even <\/em>Armored<\/em><\/strong> (2009), where you\u2019ve got a main theme, but there are so many little parts where you\u2019ve branched off and done very different things, and it\u2019s very clever.<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>: I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s clever. To me that\u2019s natural. In a way it\u2019s kind of an inverse way of approaching something symphonically.<\/p>\n

Modern film scoring is different to what it was 30-40 years ago. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just me that\u2019s doing that. I think there\u2019s other guys doing that as well, but I just think the difference now is it\u2019s a lot more open nowadays, certainly in the last 20 years where you\u2019ve got people like me or Clint Mansell who kind of come out of rock n\u2019 roll backgrounds.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re doing what\u2019s natural to us, and it\u2019s not always where we\u2019re building the architecture to a score, it\u2019s not always the melodic thematic stuff that we pull from to do that. Sometimes it is a bass line or a changing rhythm or a sound. Sometimes I\u2019ll just take a sound or something that for whatever reason sums up an element of what makes up the DNA of the score that I know is working, and start from that.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s a lot more leeway and a lot more license to be gotten with writing film scores nowadays. I think the [musical culture of] young directors that come on the scene is not classical. Their culture is Radiohead or Massive Attack or whatever it is that they grew up with, so there\u2019s a familiarity sometimes when I do these things because I\u2019ve got the same kind of cultural musical background with some of these directors.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of osmosis; it would be more strange for me sometimes with one of these directors to sit down at the piano and say \u2018This is our thematic language. This is how I\u2019m going to interpret this in a chase scene or a love theme.\u2019 It\u2019s easier for them to go \u2018Oh there\u2019s that beat! Use that beat again.\u2019 Or \u2018There\u2019s that bass line, let\u2019s slow it down and make it grungy or make it threatening.\u2019 So in a way I\u2019m using the same clich\u00e9s if you like, but they\u2019re just in a different sort of language because things have changed, and we have a lot more leeway.<\/p>\n

I like to work with young directors or first-time directors partly because of the energy they bring. I know that they\u2019re going to have a sensibility that I can connect with. I mean, half the music I listen to is classical music, but it\u2019s not necessarily where my head is sometimes when I\u2019m [spotting] the movie with a young director whom you never know likes the same type of music.<\/p>\n

If I know something\u2019s going to be a kind of violent, edgy, testosterone driven guitar score like\u00a0Armored<\/strong> was, then that\u2019s where my head is completely for that space of six weeks where I\u2019m on the movie. I will think in those terms and basically not worry too much about something being attached to each other thematically, or attached to each other rhythmically, or as rock n\u2019 roll hooks\u2026 but you need the right director to do that; you need someone like a Nimrod Antal who can get it straight away.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: You mentioned directors recognize that you have an edgy style and it\u2019s a style that also lends itself to some really bleak stories about humanity under threat, whether it\u2019s global, local or even on a personal scale, and it works very well, but I just wonder if there\u2019s something from your end that you find particularly intriguing about these stories, or is it the filmmaker that finds your style matches their vision, or a bit of both?<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>: I think I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t say it\u2019s a bit of both. I\u2019ve tried to figure this out myself.<\/p>\n

When you sit down to start a movie, you\u2019re thinking, \u2018Why the hell did they ask me to do this?\u2019 and you get the feeling that there\u2019s 20 or 30 other guys within a 10 mile radius that could probably be doing it better. (I live in Woodland Hills where there\u2019s a lot of composers.)<\/p>\n

I feel like I go into character when I do some of those movies, whereas when I do something that\u2019s very dark or apocalyptic or it\u2019s heavily ironic or bleak, I don\u2019t have to think about it. I\u2019m kind of there straight away, so I\u2019ve come to realize that I\u2019m more in tune with the darker or edgier type of film, and I think my best work is with those movies, and I think people kind of get that.<\/p>\n

Ihe irony is I actually want to do very European, melodic thematic stuff as well, it\u2019s just people don\u2019t often ask me to do that kind of thing\u2026 I like\u00a0Cinema Paradiso<\/strong>,\u00a0Once Upon a Time in America<\/strong>, all the classic Morrione stuff, Nino Rota, the really heavily melodic stuff. That\u2019s actually the stuff I love the most, but people wouldn\u2019t think that.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s the two extremes that I\u2019m comfortable with\u2026 The very whimsical stuff I love, and the very hardcore violent stuff I love, too.<\/p>\n

MRH<\/em><\/strong>: My last question is what was it like working for Michael Mann on <\/em>Miami Vice<\/em><\/strong>?<\/em><\/p>\n

My impressions from interviews with composers is that he\u2019s a very demanding director but he also has this penchant for shaping his scores to resemble work by Tangerine Dream (with <\/em>Thief<\/em><\/strong> being the archetypal Mann score).<\/em><\/p>\n

I always wonder if that\u2019s something that materializes when composers work with him, or is it something that they recognize is a music style that he likes, and they try and meet those requirements but try bring their own ideas to the table?<\/em><\/p>\n

JM<\/strong>:\u00a0 God, you could write a book about working with Michael. I mean, first off, he\u2019s one of the best directors in the world. He operates on an incredible level, and he operates at a million miles an hour so it\u2019s really hard to keep up with the guy.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the most demanding director I\u2019ve ever worked with, but at the same time he\u2019s so on top of what he thinks is best for his movie. Whatever you do, it\u2019s got to meet a requirement that\u2019s already in place, if that makes sense. [That\u2019s] why I think, no matter who came in to do one of Michael\u2019s scores, at the end of the day it will always be a Michael Mann score, so you\u2019re right about there being that signature through his scores, whether it be me or Elliot Goldenthal or whoever has ever worked with Michael.<\/p>\n

[Michael\u2019s] kind of got it worked out before you start, so if you can bring your own personality to that, then you\u2019ve succeeded in some way, but you never work with Michael and turn up and have the whole idea in your head; that\u2019s never going to happen with any composer. He knows what his movie needs before you even come on, so I think there\u2019ll always be that signature to his scores that is purely him, because he\u2019s on top of it so much.<\/p>\n

Even big directors like Danny Boyle will sort of have a couple of ideas, or he\u2019ll play a couple of songs, but then he\u2019ll try and talk about how the film should feel; he\u2019ll kind of lead you to it.<\/p>\n

The same with Guy Ritchie as well, and even Stephen Frears. Those kind of directors will talk and talk and give you beautiful in-depth back-stories what the movie\u2019s about and what the music has to achieve, but none of those guys would say \u2018This has to be a piano, or this has to be this, or this has to stop here, or this has to start there.\u2019 You\u2019ve got a helluva lot of leeway with those directors and they\u2019ll kind of keep you on track with it, but with Michael you\u2019re walking into a kind of ready-made template, I think, because he\u2019s already worked all of these things out before you\u2019re even on board, and then he will adjust and tweak accordingly as you go through it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very different process and it is very demanding, but I actually learned a lot working with him, the whole way he scores on film. He sees the score not in terms of three acts; he sees it as these overlapping tectonic movements and arcs that continue throughout the film, and it\u2019s fantastic, really.<\/p>\n

When I got what he was talking about, it\u2019s actually an amazing strategy with music, and you see it in his other movies as well\u2026 For all of the fearful stories about him, he\u2019s actually incredibly supportive, and he\u2019s a pretty nice guy\u2026 He\u2019s there when there\u2019s a problem and he\u2019ll talk you through it, and I really enjoyed working with him.<\/p>\n

Learned a lot. Learned a helluva lot from him.<\/p>\n

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KQEK.com would like to thank John Murphy for his time and delightful candor, and Beth Krakower at CineMedia Promotions for facilitating this interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

Visit the composer\u2019s website <\/em>HERE<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

All images remain the property of their copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article and interview \u00a9 2010 by Mark R. Hasan<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Related external links (MAIN SITE)<\/em>:<\/p>\n

CD: \u00a0Armored <\/a><\/strong>(2009)<\/p>\n

BR\/Film: \u00a0Armored<\/a><\/strong>(2009)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles<\/a> \/\u00a0Composers<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Exclusive Interviews & Profiles \/\u00a0Composers \u00a0 John Murphy is a bit of an enigma in that he\u2019s recognized for a sound that inarguably made some of the most popular films by Danny Boyle and Michael Ritchie successful with audiences. Whether it\u2019s music for hip or slightly daft criminals, astronauts trying to stop the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[26,22,43,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-dp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10620,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/10620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}